Amazing Stormy Skies

With all the rain lately, we've had some amazing views just from our back deck.

Jammin

I have been lucky enough so far to get about 20# of strawberries out of our little bed thus far this June. I've made a fair amount of rhubarb strawberry & plain strawberry jam, and we've enjoyed fresh strawberry pie and lots upon lots of fresh berry eating. This makes me look forward to years ahead when the raspberries begin to produce!

The house finches that took up residence in our hanging fern are now empty nesters; just in time for a third family of birds to begin nest building in our little orange birdhouse. I believe they are house sparrows. It won't be easy to keep up with those babies since we can't seen inside the house to look into the nest. But I'm happy they are pleased with the sunny digs.

We were bummed last week to find out that our application to the Dallas County board overseeing funding for homeowners wishing to do soil quality restoration through native plantings was denied. We have a really great plan to replace the backyard with native turf, then line the fence with native landscaping that attracts butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds (and the deep roots keep run-off from heading into the pond, thus the watershed protection). It's costly to get the work done and we were the first to ever apply to Dallas County for this, though Polk county has been funding homeowners for this type of work a whole lot. We were told there was up to $6,600 available for our project. We asked for $3,500. They had some sticker shock and said no. The response was, "Please understand this is a board made up of rural farmers. They get paid much less per acre in subsidies for their land than you are asking for for your 1/10 of an acre. They didn't say no, just no for this year until they have additional explanation."   So... now we have to decide if we apply again next year and just swallow our pride and kill off the clover with traditional chems this year, and continue in our holding pattern, or pay for some of it out of pocket. Yards. Phooey.

Addicted

After becoming fed up with the extreme surly behavior we've been seen from our boys lately, we decided to have no screen time for a week. The t.v. plug got put away, as well as the old ipod touch they often seek out as their "play phone."

This morning, Day #1 of no screen week, Jack actually sat down at 6am and drew a picture of our television. Entitled, "My TV," he adds details such as the name at the bottom of the screen (which reads, "SamSome."

Addicted much?

Little by little

I'm still trying to figure out the finch nest. The birds I saw the first time I took a photo must have grown and fledged already, and this must be a new one. There are still eggs under this bird, too. So perhaps since she kept adding an egg every couple days, they hatch and have time to grow before the other eggs are ready? It's fun to take down the plant for watering and see the nest progress. They aren't exactly cute at this stage, although they are tiny and sweet.

Jack in his 2nd year of playing baseball

Team Cardinals

Now that my Master Conservationist class is done

I'm on to trying a new activity. I just signed on as a novice for the Des Moines rowing club. 13 weeks of learning to row! Should be a nice new hobby, and an active one at that. Looks like this will be my new reality on Wednesday evenings:

Good thing I was warned

by a very wise gardener that everbearing strawberries are only everbearing the first season. After that they like to act like June-bearing strawberries. I would otherwise not have expected this:

Now, who wants to come help me make jam?!  My mom is bringing me some of her garden rhubarb tonight, so if you feel inspired to help me can some jam, we might have enough leftover for a homemade strawberry rhubarb pie.... hint,  hint :)

Spring eating

is heaven.

Here goes nothing....

Go, raspberries, GO!

And I am reminded why I never keep my promise...

of keeping the kids away from the t.v. in the summertime. It's because after several hours of them being home, each room of the house starts to look like this:

As much as I love unstructured, "let them be bored" time, my borderline OCD kicks in and screams, "FOR GOD'S SAKE, WOMAN, PUT THEM IN FRONT OF THE T.V. AND CLEAN UP THIS HELL HOLE SO YOU CAN BREATHE AGAIN."

Yes, that happens.

We have baby finches!

{squeal!}

First strawberry harvest of the season

Gardening Again! Sighs of joy...

Adding coffee grounds and lots of crushed eggshells after a soil sample told me that our soil is too alkaline (and the eggshells will hopefully combat the end blossom rot my tomatoes experienced last year). Things are looking small but they always are after planting. After this photo I had to replace two plants that bit the dust, but now it's looking like this:

My darling husband built me a raised bed for the two pots of raspberries pictured above, so that's next on the list of "here's hoping." The strawberries grew to gargantuan proportions this spring, and we are already seeing red berries out there:

Thanks to a plant sale fundraiser held at our preschool, I have many, many marigolds. They are in planters on the front porch, in pots along the back patio, in smaller pots on each of our outdoor tables, and planted underneath all of our trees. I am loving the sunny orangy yellow that greets me all over the yard.

Our yard is another story. The backyard is especially pathetic:

Most of the yard is bare, yellowish, barely surviving grass. The green you see in this photo is all clover. I actually love the clover and wouldn't be opposed to having an entire yard of it. It's cool to the bottoms of the feet all summer long, it produces lovely smelling flowers that support the bee and butterfly populations, and it doesn't get so long that it needs to be mowed very often. Not to mention that the rabbits eat the clover instead of the garden! But I have a feeling our neighbors may feel otherwise :(

Thanks to all I learned in my Master Conservationist class, we are trying to consider options that keep with our philosophy of not using chemicals on the lawn but which will still allow us to have a lawn that's in fairly nice condition. We are awaiting quotes from several contractors to see how much it'll cost us to be put down native turf grasses. Word on the street is that we may be able to get some funding from the county to help pay the bill, since native grasses are a way of improving storm water management for the city/county. The 6 feet long roots hold water in the lawn rather than running it off like most lawns do. And it doesn't grow fast or too tall, so most native turf lawnowners only mow a few times every year. Win, win, WIN. Guess we'll see what the pricetag is and go from there!

My bud

Gavin got to enjoy a little only-child vacation with my parents in Okoboji earlier this week, since he was the only child off of school in time to accompany them. It was fun being down to "only" two kids, especially experiencing the older two together. But I was very happy to have my little bud back this weekend. The brothers were also happy to have their "little lion," as they so affectionately refer to him, back at home as well.

Deep breaths

After two years in a job that started to suck the life out of him, Mike began a new job a month ago and is just starting to feel the relief that comes along with that. Now the pharmacy manager at a Medicap on the east side of town, he has no more travel taking him away from family life, and his new schedule really rocks. He works every other Saturday, but only until 1:30pm, and they are closed all Sundays. Not only that, but they have most holidays off AND he gets EVERY Wednesday off. Woot!

It's taking some time to learn how to unwind, and he's been keeping busy with household chores like pulling weeds and building raised garden beds (ahem, I suppose I should take partial credit for that...)  so yesterday I ordered him to take the afternoon off and do nothing productive. Three cheers for learning to relax again.....

Gavin's Best Friend

This year Gavin made his first bestie, all on his own. He has had friends before, of course, but typically those friends were brought to him passively in the form of friends of his older brothers, siblings of his older brothers, or children of my friends.  This year he made a friend on his own at preschool, and playdates were set up subsequently from that independently forged relationship.

It doesn't always end in glory if your child's friend has parents you don't super love, but in this case we hit the double jackpot because I got to make a friend too :)  Then we discovered the sad truth that his newest buddy was going to be moving away at the end of the spring. This friendship seemed to drift out as quickly as it came rushing in, and we will all miss Oliver and his whole family very much.

Before they left, we had lots of playdates for the boys to enjoy each other's company. They both look forward to being pen pals and setting up some online phone chats. Still, it will be sad starting off preschool next year without the dynamic duo of Oliver and Gavin together for another year.

Hear no evil, speak no evil?

 Sarah (Oliver's mom) and Alice (Oliver's younger sister)

The two families at the zoo

Gavin spent his evening last night writing his first letter to Oliver, in his jammies, on the front porch, while everyone else played basketball. He wrote, "I miss you, Oliver. Love, Gavin."  Sniff, sniff!

New hobby

Jack and Benjamin are in love with fishing. They grab the SpongeBob pole and go out there (without bait) and fish for long periods of time. This is a very happy turn of events in lieu of the summer ahead.

However, it has recently been revealed to me that I am *not* great with removing hooks from fish who managed to get hooked in their eyes or other parts of the body. I am far too much of an animal lover to do well with this part of catch and release fishing. Benjamin is really much better at this part of than I am, so he typically handles most fish handling and hook removal. Phew.

Bird Haven

I was very happy, and a tad nervous, that a pair of robins again chose to build a nest under our deck this year. Last year's nest resulted in no hatchlings, which is probably our fault in more ways than one. Having to remove and replace the nest several days in a row while power washing and staining the deck kept the mother robin away more than was probably good for the eggs, and when one egg did start to hatch, we had a campfire that night not far from the little hatchling. I'm guessing campfire smoke was not the best for it's little lungs.

SO, this year I vowed to make sure we were careful and as respectful as possible to the little nest. The boys could peer down through a slot in the deck right into the nest and check on the progress, which kept them from taking the nest down off of the pillar. I'm happy to report that three out of four eggs did hatch! These little cuties grew and grew:

until I was cleaning up sand toys one morning and two of the fledglings flew out of the nest and landed a few feet away from me. They tottered around for a couple minutes before hopping/flying over the fence. I haven't seen them since, so I hope they are doing well in the big, wide world.

Upon pulling down my hanging fern off the front porch, I found this:

Shortly after discovering this little house finch nest, we found one egg smashed on the porch, probably due to a windy night. But that eager mama finch kept laying and laying, and recently upon taking the fern down to water it, I found six more eggs:

I adore how they come in a variety of colors. I've kept this nest a secret from my ever-eager boys, hoping to keep the little buggers alive. It'll be fun to see them hatch and have a bunch of tiny fuzzy chirpers above the front rocker!