Sweet

Now blooming:  an especially fragrant peony, pink yarrow, lamb's ears and bleeding hearts.

Purple

Here is what is blooming this week:

Lupine and Chives

Blooms of the Day

Blooming this week in my flower beds:  "Sherbet" peonies, yarrow varieties and "lamb's ears."  Since the latter are starting to bloom, I need to get in there and do some trimming - I like to cut off the blooms, so that the plant is more like a ground cover.

I also put the bird netting over the strawberries in the garden, and will soon have to cover the blueberries as well.  Otherwise, the only thing that I've been doing in the garden is picking asparagus and weeding.  I am disappointed to report that the weeds are growing voraciously in the tidy, mulch covered paths that I created 2 years ago.  We have had rain for the past 8 days in a row, so it's too wet down in the garden to do much besides weed.

Upcycling Dandelions

We have had a bumper crop of dandelions this spring - made worse by the fact that the mower was out of commission for more weeks than was reasonable, as well as the fact that I can only mow so much of 48 acres with a push mower.

JP finally got the mower back in working order and finished the mowing between rain storms last week, but there are still ginormous dandelions lurking around the property.

I decided to deal with the ones in the garden yesterday.  The soil was nice and pliable due to a rainy weekend, and I gathered a wheelbarrow full and threw them to the hens.

As you can see, they have scratched every bit of green and growing things out of their run over the winter.  We are waiting a bit longer for the greens to be fully established else where before moving the fences and giving them access again.  In the meantime, they flocked to the dandelions, and ate every bit of green off of them.

Hence I have upcycled my weeds into eggs.  Ta da!

Mother's Day Blooms

Yesterday we took our annual trek to the local Nursery to purchase plants for Mother's Day.  I bought several annuals to go in my outdoor pots near the doors, and some herbs for my herb garden.  We also picked up a few plants for the garden:  broccoli, kohlrabi, and marigolds.  I also got a few annuals for in the flower beds:  zinnias and cosmos - they make for nice bouquets in the summer time.

Speaking of bouquets, here is one featuring the things blooming in my flower bed this week:

2 varieties of iris, several columbines & salvia

I no sooner had several of the new plants in the ground yesterday, when the sky broke open.  We had a doozy of a thunderstorm, with thunder, lightening, pouring rain, and even hail for a while.  At the end of it all, the power went out, so we spent a quiet afternoon reading.

Once the power came back on, I froze 3 pounds of asparagus from the garden, and baked molasses cookies from my friend's awesome recipe.

It's been a great weekend here.  Happy Mother's Day to all you Moms!

I Think Spring Finally Arrived!

Long time no post - sorry.  Life has continued, and for the longest time, nothing was happening outside.

Just last week, I commented to JP that the trees still weren't green.  24 hours later, leaves appeared - it was amazing!  Now there is a green haze in the woods, and spots of purple from the Redbud.

I gathered this bouquet yesterday from my flower beds and the woods.  There is Solomon's Seal, 2 varieties of Bleeding Hearts, Dog Wood, and my favorite Jack-In-The-Pulpit.

It was rainy over the weekend, so we stayed in and watched a couple of movies.  One had fabulous singing ("The Greatest Showman") and one with terrible singing ("Florence Foster Jenkins") - but we enjoyed both of them!

JP and I also created this to surprise the girls:

A giant "Reece Cup" with Reece's Pieces inside.  It was fabulous as well.

It is beautiful outside, and the mixture of sun and rain has everything growing at amazing rates.  JP got the mower fixed, and then it broke again, so I will be using the push mower again this afternoon.  Sigh.  It's good exercise!

I also need to cut the asparagus again.

Enjoy your Spring!