Blooming

I love spring.  I think for the same reason I love Mondays.  A new start!

I love to walk around and see a tree that showed no signs of life yesterday full of new growth!   I think it is even more exciting this year since we are in a new home and it is going to be an adventure to see all that blooms, buds, and grows!

I have always loved Crepe Myrtles.  About 2 years before leaving Mansfield Robert brought one home and I loved it.  But I only had 2 years to see its blooms.  Here in our new home, however, we have at least 10 very mature crepe myrtles and I cannot WAIT to see all the blooms on our driveway! 

Plus we are adding lots of fun stuff as we go along.  Our garden is still doing well – we may have to give up on a few colder weather things we should have gotten into the ground sooner, but the Sugar Snap peas are thriving, lots of onions are doing well, and we finally got our tomatoes in the ground last week.  In the last 2 days I have planted all our pepper plants we started indoors, a few cucumber plants we also started, and then LOTS of seeds!

I put in some Okra, more cucumbers, yellow squash, zucchini, green beans, marigolds (alongside our tomatoes), and some jalapenos.

 

Here are my mustard greens coming up – have never eaten these by Betsy assures me we will love them!  Can’t wait to try them!

Here are our radish – I cannot stand them, but everyone else in my house loves them – so we should have some happy eaters in a couple weeks!

Here are one of my favorite (and yes, I know I need to weed, this week I hope) Sugar Snap Peas – I love these – hope they do well too!

Here are our tomatoes – my in-laws planted them last week because they were getting so big in our little starter tray.  We covered them with milk jugs (we had been saving them for quite some time) to protect them from cool nights.  You cut out the bottom, and then put them over you plant and it is like a mini-green house!

 

I also plan to let each child have a garden of some type.  The first to go in was J’s – he chose the Herb Garden.  We decided on a spot in the backyard that gets lots of sun, close to the back door for easy access and contained to prevent too much grass growing in it.  I cleaned it up and got all the grass and weeds out.  I did preserve a plant that was there when we got here lovingly called “Grandmother’s Bush” by the former owners (it came from her grandmother).  I love this little plant – it blooms each day (all over) with these pretty little flowers, then they fall off and it re-blooms the next day!  I love it!

So in his Herb Garden – HE planted basil, parsley, dill, cilantro, rosemary, lavender, and sage.

I am most looking forward to the basil!!  I love fresh basil!  This morning he already asked if he needed to water it – so he is already taking some ownership!  Hopefully it does well.  I did stick 2 lantana plants in there as well – for some flowers & color – and I want this to be a pretty bed, I see it from the kitchen sink!

 

Here are our sweet young chicks – hanging out inside – but they love to be out in their grazing area too!!  They are so fun at night – they are all out chirping – not sure what it is about, but cute!

Here is our pear tree – we were able to watch many pretty butterflies help pollinate our pears these last week or so – and now we can see the beginning of many little pears!!  Sounds great now, come this fall, I am sure I will be up to my ears in Pears!!  Oh My!

 

This is my sweet Shasta – he is such a FARM CAT!!  He follows me as I check on all the birds, the gardens, and everything else – he is so sweet and loves to snuggle (unlike the girl cats we have) and he keeps me company around here!

Our turkeys are getting bigger too and fun to watch, and the Guineas are getting bigger too.  One literally flew the coop this weekend – a bit sad.  She flew behind the house, through the trees and across the street – we were hoping she would come back, but I don’t think she will.