Easter Weekend

We had a great big busy weekend and lovely warm spring weather for Easter, so there are lots of pictures. 

Friday night Gabe and Morgan came up from Olympia, so we had Saturday morning with them. Conan and Morgan had a great time playing together. They read books, jumped on the bed, rode trikes and bikes outside, and even practiced hiding and finding Easter eggs around the house.

 In the afternoon we all went to Acme for Vicki Sue's 1st birthday party, which was a fun outdoor affair. Lots of friends both young and old were there to mark the occasion. We ate BBQ and cake, caught up with friends while enjoying the spring sunshine and the kids' rubber ducky hunt.

 And as if that wasn't enough fun to pack into one day, we had Grandma Debbie, Grandpa Poppy, and cousin Chloe over for dinner and playtime in the evening!

 Sunday morning we headed out early to GG's house because we heard the Easter Bunny had delivered a basket there for Conan, as well as one for Chloe. Sure enough! After the kids had opened all the plastic eggs in their baskets and blown soap bubbles off the deck for a little while, we went outside for the first of many egg hunts in the yard. Odessa arrived and joined in for the big final egg hunt.

 It was a perfect spring day, and as usual GG's garden was beautiful with all the spring flowers. We ate a great big Easter dinner with all the family, and enjoyed visiting with the whole family until late in the afternoon, including comparing the baby bellies of both Jess (6 weeks to go) and Svea (9 weeks to go). It's incredible to think that next year we'll have two new little ones joining in the fun!

Conan fell asleep in the car on the way home, all tuckered out from a long weekend of fun. He did not wake up for dinner, and in fact slept in late the next morning - achieving about 15 hours of sleep in all.  I wish I could sleep like that!

Popcorn Snow

Today started off all sunny and (relatively) warm, with only a few clouds in the sky, so we got outside and started gardening.  We've been working for a little while on this new flower bed on the east side of the house.  It's a sunny spot in the early spring, but shady in the summer, so I think it will be a real good spot for ferns, rhubarb and some early spring flowers. 

Then suddenly, our sunny day was replaced with a snowstorm.  We watched in awe as a white wall came across the fields to the east.  It looked like hail at first, but they were actually small balls of snow, not ice.

Conan dubbed it "popcorn snow".  It not only looked like popcorn, it also sounded like popcorn popping as the pellets pelted down and bounced off the walls and roof of the house.  We had a great time trying to catch them on our tongues.  Conan ate great handfuls of snow, until inevitably we got cold and went inside for some hot cocoa.

Within 10 minutes, the ground was solid white.  It snowed for about 20 minutes total, then stopped and the sun came back out.  An hour later, we had blue skies from horizon to horizon and most of the snow was gone. 

Several times later in the day Conan would stop what he was doing, give me a goofy grin, and say "Guess what?  I have snow in my tummy!" and then laugh like it was the funniest thing ever. 

SNOW!

Signs of Spring

Frogs are singing at night, the birds are back, and the first few new leaves and flowers are starting to appear. When it's not raining, it's a nice time to go outside an explore.Conan loves to feed his chickens.
Chick-a-dee-dee-dee!
Whoa, DOUBLE RAINBOW! Intense. :)

Frosthammer Falls

Last night our biggest fir tree, the one we had named "Frosthammer" (yes, we really called him that, dorks that we are), came down during a tremendous wind storm. Thankfully it fell away from the house, landing just short of the neighbor's white picket fence. A number of other, smaller trees were crushed or snapped off, but no structures, animals or people were injured. We didn't even hear him fall.


The enormous rootball is easily 15 feet high, and positioned in such a way as to make an amazing sculpture on the edge of our yard to be enjoyed for years to come. We have often talked about digging a pond right below where Frosthammer stood, but I had been concerned that we might damage his roots; that's no longer an issue, and now we even have a hole to start from! And we'll be set for firewood for life, too. It will take a while to get used to not seeing him when we look out the southern windows, and our neighborhood eagles will have to find a new place to roost. It's sad and exciting at the same time.

Update - here's a picture with Miriam standing in front of the roots on Thanksgiving, for a better sense of the scale of it:

Highland Games

It stopped raining for a day so we headed over to Ferndale for the Scottish Highland Games on Saturday. Conan was pretty excited about all the people and especially the drums and pipes. We got there just in time for the massing of the pipes, which is a pretty impressive spectacle regardless of your age:

Conan got an assist from Papa to see over the crowd and watch as hundreds of bagpipers and drummers marched down the field, playing at deafening volume.

We ate a couple of meat pies and browsed around the merchant booths, watched some of the dancing competition, listened to the always fun Wicked Tinkers, and checked out various exhibits of Scottish stuff. We tried to watch the athletic competitions, but the "fence" to keep spectators back was just a rope strung up a little higher than Conan's head, so he kept trying to run out onto the field. No toddlers allowed in the caber toss! We moved on, to what was probably Conan's favorite part of the day: looking at the turkeys, chickens, ducks and geese that live at Hovander.

It was a lot of fun. Conan was exhausted, and he took a long nap after we got home. That was ideal, as it allowed us to get out and actually mow our entire lawn, for the first time since the beginning of this extra-rainy May. Whew!

Spring! Bees! Rhubarb!

Spring finally is here. I've gotten peas, lettuces, radishes, brussel sprouts, kale, green onions, spinach, pak choi and beans planted. The beans were starts that really needed to go in the ground, but I'm afraid they got a bit shocked by a hard frost last night. Everything else is doing great though. The lawn has been mowed twice now already, its growing super fast.
Mason Bees are loving the nesting block we put up for them. They found it and started nesting almost immdeiately after I hung it up. We've actually had the block for a couple of years but never managed to find a spot to hang it up. The sunny side of the woodshed seems to really be a hit. Mason bees are a shiny black stingless native NW bee that are the best polinators around. They lay their eggs in crevices with a supply of pollen and then wall them in with mud. The larvae will hatch next spring and do it all again. It's really fun to watch them working, flying in and out of the nesting holes - busy as bees, one might say. The nesting block has paper tube liners so we can pull them out next spring and put in fresh ones for the bees to use. We can also move the whole block to a sheltered spot to keep the bees safe through the winter.
A couple weeks ago Dave brought over several rhubarb starts and planted them in various spots around the yard. They are doing great - we're going to have a lot of rhubarb this summer and in years to come, which is terrific: my rhubarb-chardonnay and rhubarb-ginger jams both got rave reviews last year. :)

Snow & Sun

Thursday surprised us with a snowstorm that left 5-6 inches on the ground. It cleared up the next day and Conan and I went outside and walked around a bit. He is really enjoying the Baby Bjorn carrier that we got from Nick & Tombi because he can face out in it. He is very interested in the world!

Winter Wonderland

Conan's winter storms finally abated and left us with this beautiful Christmas morning:



(I call them Conan's winter storms because they started 12/13 - the night after he was born - and continued non-stop for two weeks.)

Fall

Fall is definitely here. The days are shorter, the mornings are frosty, and the leaves are falling. Somehow it doesn't seem like it should be here yet, but on the other hand October is almost over... how did that happen? It seemed like just the other day that my due date was a long way off, and now it's just around the corner. Aiigghhh!

Pregnancy continues to be a lot more tiring than I ever expected. On my midwife's orders I've cut back my work week to only 4 days now, which feels a lot better, but is still exhausting. In November I'll probably cut my work hours down even more. Everything just takes so much more energy with this big belly - getting up out of a chair, climbing stairs, getting in & out of the car, getting dressed - things I always just took for granted would be easy, aren't. And baby's still got 7 weeks to grow!

In other news, tomorrow we're having the neighborhood water association over for a meeting to discuss getting a second hookup to the main water line so we can irrigate our (future) orchard. I'm a little nervous, but I'm hopefull we can convince everyone to grant us this favor. There's 7 parcels in our association, and each has 1 connection currently, leaving 2 "extra" connections. So in theory at least, there should be no problem in granting us one of the extras. Of course, if we get an extra one then there will only be 1 left, not enough to go around... but also the way the properties are layed out, ours is the only one which is divided by a stream in such a way that it would be really difficult to run water to all parts of it from just one connection point. So, fingers crossed. I'm planning on serving fresh-baked apple pie still warm from the oven, that can't hurt!

Frost!

Can you beleive it? It's not even October yet and we woke up to frost this morning. Not a killing frost, but still - I think that's the end for my hopes of ripening all the green tomatoes in my garden. It's sure been a short, cold, wet summer. Oh well...

Heat + Light = Blooms

Summer is here! It's hot and sunny, with just enough of a breeze to keep it from sweltering. After working in the yard during the morning, it just got too hot to go back out after lunch. Our thermometer says it is 86F, it's in a shady nook on the northeast side of the house. I don't doubt that it's 90+ in the sun, as was forcasted. Thankfully the house stays a cool & perfect 75 inside, at least downstairs. Upstairs tends to get a bit warmer, but once we get blinds installed on the south & west windows (more on that project later) it should stay fairly cool as well.

I'm not complaining about the heat though, after this long rainy spring we're really ready for some sunshine! The garden and flowerbeds are making up for lost time. Since it's too hot to do any actual work, I decided to take pictures of the flowers and share them here. :)

This is a dahlia grown from tubers that Grandma Joy gave me last fall, after she'd dug hers. It's only just begun to bloom, but already it's stealing the show in the front flower bed.

The Daylillies that Keeley gave me may give the dahlia a run for their money though. This is the first one to actually bloom, but there are a lot more stems out there.
This is the borage that Kriss gave me, it's gotten huge and is starting to produce it's lovely blue shooting-star flowers. They are edible, but so far I'm mostly just enjoying looking at them.

A surprising number of these snapdragons overwintered from last season. I grew them from seed that my cousin Jess saved from her garden. I just love their pugilistic faces.

The wild Nootka roses are finally starting to bloom as well. We have the latest blooming roses in the area, I think. It seems like the roses along the road into town are all over before ours even get started. The bees are really enjoying these blossoms today, the whole hedge of them is buzzing with activity.

Not all the blooms are strictly ornamental. The zuchini and summer squash are also taking advantage of the warm weather and flowering like crazy. We've even got one zuc that's already nearly large enough to harvest!

Once we get a fair number of set squash, I'll start harvesting some of the blossoms for eating. It's one of my favorite summer breakfast treats, batter-fried squash blossoms. Mmm!

Beans, Blossoms and Bugs

Warm weather over the weekend brought out the first flowers and really made it feel like summer at last. The strawberries are really looking good, they are in full bloom now under their protective netting.
The first Pea blossoms opened yesterday, and the plants are loaded with buds so I know more will be coming soon. These are the ones I got as starts from Dave, the second batch I planted from seed is only a few inches high - it'll be a while before they bloom, but they are looking really good too.

The Rosemary I planted in the fence flowerbed is in full bloom now, and wonder of wonders, the asparagus I planted way too early (in February!) has actually come up. Granted it's really thin and little (compare the asparagus stalk to the rosemary leaves) but I had given up hope it would even sprout. However, it looks like 6 out of the 8 roots I planted made it, yay!

The beans I planted last Saturday all came up, in unison, yesterday. It was amazing to see how much they grew from the morning when they were just starting to poke through the soil, all bent over and still in their seed casings, to the afternoon when they stood stiffly upright with their little leaves proudly unfurled.

Here's another surprise, the bleeding heart I planted at the same time as the asparagus not only came up but actually flowered. I just "found" it on Sunday, already in full bloom in its shady little nook in the tree island. Good thing I didn't miss it entirely!

This Calendula overwintered at the corner of the house, survived an early spring weed-whacking, and is now covered with big yellow daisy-like flowers, occasionally hosting yellow hunting spiders like this one.
The wildflowers are also beginning to bloom, such as this wild red columbine growing at the edge of the bushes behind the pergola.
Deeper in the shady parts of the woods, the False Lily-of-the-Valley (maianthemum dilatatum) is in full bloom. This is one of my favorite wild places on the property. I don't have a real path to it yet, but I make a point to scramble through the thimbleberries, alders, blackberries and tall grass every few weeks just to admire the lush and beautiful green of the leaves, moss and ferns.

Today, however, the tranquility was shattered by the scolding of several small birds who really didn't approve of the fact that the cats had accompanied me on my walk (as they often do when the weather is nice). They must have a nest or two in the vicinity; I'll give them a little time to raise their babies in peace and safety before I go back to visit my spot again. I guess my maternal empathy is starting to kick in!

More Snow

April 20th! It's not supposed to be snowing. I want spring! I want to plant my garden!

The Bellingham Herald has a gallery of snow pictures online. I didn't take any. I was too bummed.

Update: 4/21/08 and it's snowing outside my office right now. Arrgh!

Rototilling Postponed

We had reserved a tiller from Hardware Sales rental dept for Saturday, but we woke up to a couple of inches of sloppy wet snow on the ground, and more coming down so we decided to cancel it. We'd almost removed all the sod from the garden space, only 1.5 strips and a few scraps to go, as you can see below:
Thanks to the snow and rain all week, the area where the sod has been removed is a wet sloppy mess with several inches of standing water. We're going to work in a LOT of 3-way (topsoil, sand & compost) to improve the tilth, as well as to raise up the garden above the surrounding lawn for drainage.

The snow makes it easy to see what we've been doing with the sod in the front yard:

Basically we're layering it over the top of the existing grass to fill in the low spot between the house and the fence. This is an area which is (was?) very prone to standing water.

The snow is beautiful, but I'm really disappointed that we had to cancel our rototilling plans. Instead we had to do inside chores, like cleaning the bathrooms and the kitchen. Which is good stuff to do, but not really fun to blog about!

Spring Snow

Wierd weather this week. I guess garden season is even further away than I thought.

Spring Is Here, Again

One fun thing about blogging is how easy it is to look back and see what was going on a year ago. Last March I blogged about the singing of our resident frogs, visits to our chimney from our neighborhood Northern Flicker, spectacular spring sunsets, torrential spring rains, pussywillows and other signs of spring. Now we're going into our second spring, and the frogs are singing again, the flicker is back banging on the chimney, the rain is still falling, the pussywillows are out, and when the clouds happen to clear away the sunsets are amazing. I really enjoy this feeling of getting to know the seasonal cycles of our little place, recognizing the patterns of nature, having a bit of history to fall back on.

Not everything is the same as it was last year though. Looking back at the blog also gives a clear sense of how much we've accomplished in the last year. The biggest change is that we now have a lawn, rather than this muddy mess surrounding our house:

We no longer have to use a pallet bridge to cross the mud from the driveway to the house.

Nor do we have gigantic slag piles to burn.

We have a long way to go, still... but it's good to take a minute and appreciate how much we've already accomplished. It's easy to get discouraged about our huge to-do list, but having looked back at the last year's progress makes me feel confident we'll get it all done, eventually. We'll get started just as soon as it stops raining.
:)

Early Spring Rain

It rained hard all night and morning, but around noon it tapered off enough for us to go outside with Gabe & Cynthia and have a look at the early signs of spring popping up here and there. The Indian Plum (Oemleria cerasiformis) is in full bloom around the edges of the yard.
Along the pathway out to the observation platform, the Indian Plum forms a thick understory beneath the Alder and Cascara trees. The alders are blooming with their brown catkins, but the Indian Plums remain the most obvious sign of spring at this early date. Their perky green leaves are so refreshing to see after the long brown months of winter.

Sanford accompanied us up onto the platform where he promtly demanded attention from Gabe, who wisely complied.

Cynthia brought a pair binoculars out to the platform, but despite a symphony of birdsong it wasn't a very good day for birdwatching. Even though the rain had let up, the birds were still staying undercover. We did see a pair of mallards take off from our pond and pass over us on their way to the next pond. It's a good season to be a duck!

Everything is super saturated right now. In the corner of our yard a small intermittant spring has overflowed its usual swampy depression and a fair sized stream is flowing along the edge of the yard.
Someday, I hope to dig a pond where the spring comes up, then landscape a little stream bed for it to flow through down to another larger pond which would occupy the lowest point at the edge of the lawn bordering the march. But today is not a day for actually digging or working outside in the yard. No, today is a day for staying warm inside, cooking, eating, and visiting with friends, playing board games, and, of course, updating the blog. :)