Friday, May 30, 2014

"Oh Yeah, I Got About It!"

This is basically going to be the most random post ever, featuring Rachel and our yard. The post title is something really cute (and annoying) Rachel has been saying lately. "Got" in this case means "forgot" and it comes out of her mouth fairly often these days. "Rachel, you need to hold hands in parking lots." "Oh yeah, I got about it, Mommy!" "Rachel you need to eat more supper before you get dessert." "Oh yeah, I got about it!" And on and on...

Anyway, I guess you could say "I got about blogging" but the truth of the matter is, I just don't have that much to write about these days. However, having said that I will now blab on for a little longer. Sorry :)

One of the things I wanted to do in our yard was have better definition between the grass and the tree in our front yard. On Monday, I dug out a circle of the grass and then planted a bunch of different hostas underneath it. I hope it looks pretty, but even if it doesn't, it makes me happy :)
Also, my parents, who I get most of my gardening advice from, told me that trees grow better when they have a circle of dirt around them. Something about not having to share water. Of course, planting the hostas probably just adds to the "water sharing issue."
After a long, cold winter, I am so excited that it's finally been warm enough to a) wear tank tops, b) go barefoot, and c) eat freezies on our back steps. Whooo hoo!!!
As a part of my Project 364 a few weeks ago, I posted a picture of my peonies about to bloom. Here they are when they actually bloomed. And you can see the bleeding heart in the background on the left. That was totally (not!) planned :)
Words cannot express how much I love variegated (multi-coloured) flowers. I took about a million pictures of my Sweet William the other day, so aren't you glad I only shared three with you?!?!?
Yesterday I had to go to a garden centre and get "just a few more" plants. "A few" turned out to be twenty-five but eight of those are Rachel's fault! She latched onto these red petunias and wouldn't let them go. (Her mother's daughter, possibly???) So I bought some white ones to go with them and I will be planting a red and white patriotic planter with her.

Anyway, Rachel was wanting to pull the wagon and I was letting her. I found her method of stopping the cart completely hilarious! She would yell, "Stop! Stop!" and drop the handle. When we were on level ground it worked well enough. And of course, she wouldn't let me help her at all. Well, unfortunately, on a slight hill, she decided the wagon had too much momentum and then her method of "stopping" the wagon turned into her getting run over by the wagon and crashing. I tried really hard to comfort her, but I have to admit, I was also laughing at her. I know, sign me up for Mother Of The Year, but if you had been there I bet you would have been laughing too!

And thus ends the random thoughts from my brain this Friday. The sun is shining and it's time to head outside. I've got laundry to hang, flowers to plant, and my awesome birthday party this weekend to get ready for. Basically, it's going to be a great day! Happy Friday everyone!!!

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Charmed Childhood

Sometimes I wish I was a kid. I mean I know they have to go to bed early, eat foods they don't want to, and have very little control over their lives, but I was watching Sam and Rachel play on Sunday and thinking, "They have a great life." They played outside for almost seven hours and I think they enjoyed every second of it. Here are some of the highlights:
 water table fun
cooperative wagon play
experimenting with sidewalk chalk and water
being "Tire Twins" together
(their term, not mine!)
eating lunch in the backyard
snacking on freezies on the driveway

It all seems pretty good to me!

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

The Weekend Why

Why was this past weekend so great???
 Was it because we had two amazing laundry hanging days in a row
and I got nine loads of laundry done?
Was it because we got to eat our first meal outside?
 Was it because Sam ate five piece of asparagus for supper?
(And not much else!)
 Was it because I found these matching hats for Sam and Rachel in our hand me down boxes?
And Rachel insisted on wearing hers even though it was way too big?
Was it because Sam and Rachel ate a snack at their new picnic table (Yay garage sale find!), while wearing their bike helmets? Safety first!
Was it because Rachel planted herself in the neighbour's planter?!?
Was it because I got to do a ton of yard work???
(See yesterday's post for more details.)
 I planted...
...and edged our beds with scissors!
Was it because my flowers are starting to grow?

I think it was all of the above!

Monday, May 26, 2014

A Little Before And After

Edited to add: To those of you joining me from Kelly's Korner today, welcome here! I live in Southern Ontario, Canada and we have about a five month growing season. I don't know what zone we live in. My theory of gardening is I plant it and see if it grows. I try to pay attention to whether or not a plant like sun or shade or a mixture. I like planting perennials (come back every year) and annuals (flower until it freezes and then they die). We are a part of a CSA (community shared agriculture) so except for tomatoes, I don't really grow vegetables.

My advice is to wander through garden centres and see what flowers and plants you like. Then find out how they might grow in your yard. I water things a lot and talk to my plants. Seriously, love them and it does help :)

Another piece of advice I have is to ask around. Perennials often need to be divided when they get too big and people are often looking to get rid of their extra plants. You will read below that all of the plants I'd planted this day I got from friends. And of course I gave some back to them.

If you are interested in more of my yard you can click on the "Things That Grow In My Garden" tab on the right. Thanks for stopping by and if you have any questions, just ask. If I don't know the answers, I can always ask my mom and dad. My mom has been gardening since she was three and my dad owned a family-run garden centre for his whole career.

Yesterday I spent about six hours doing yard work. It was awesome except last night my arms were exhausted. Seriously, I couldn't really lift them. It was hard to type. (I know, that's kind of pathetic.) Anyway, the only tools I used were a tiny trowel (on the "to buy" list -- a real shovel!), a pair of scissors (also on the "to buy" list -- some lawn shears), and my handy Felcos (which kind of cancelled out the inadequacy of my other "tools").

After all this hard work, I was too tired to write a proper blog post so all you get is some "before" and "after" pictures. Please say you notice a difference and that all my work was not in vain :)
Before: weeds along the border and in the bed, nasty kind of ivy growing behind the water meter, empty spaces where plants could go.
After: no weeds along the border or in the bed, nasty ivy all gone, seven new plants filling up the empty spaces. (All the plants came from Tim and Janice's yard so this wasn't even a costly project! Win-win! (Also, thanks Tim and Janice!))
Before: Are there flowers in this bed? We can't see them behind all the grass growing along the border.
After Natasha spent some time with the scissors: Oh, there you are! (Yes, they're still kind of small but they're there.)
Before: Yes, the bed is full of greenery, but not the good kind.
 After: Two teeny little tomato plants. But they'll grow! Do you remember my tomato forest?

Sunday, May 25, 2014

Project 364: Days 137 Through 143

May 18, 2014 -- Thanks to a lot of help from our friends, our yard acquired this play structure!
May 19, 2014 -- We spent the holiday Monday helping Tim and Janice in their yard. I was taking a picture of the window boxes I planted, and later noticed my reflection in the window :)
May 20, 2014 -- Janice gave me a mini gurgle pot for my birthday so I picked some daffodils from our yard to put in it. Also pictured, nachos for a snack as Dave and I watch "Republic Of Doyle."
May 21, 2014 -- We went and had supper at our old residence. Every Wednesday the entire community eats together at a meal known as "Community Supper." The "Commie Supper bread" is infamous and I was thrilled to eat some again.
May 22, 2014 -- Sam enjoyed a quiet moment on Rachel's preschool train trip.
May 23, 2014 -- We had a potluck supper with a group of friends from university and Sam and Rachel really enjoyed the trampoline. I really enjoyed listening to Rachel laugh as she jumped while I held her hands!
May 24, 2014 -- After a very long, intense day I just couldn't handle matching up this laundry basket of socks. Does anyone want to come and do it for me?!?

Friday, May 23, 2014

Down By The Station, Early In The Morning


Yesterday was the annual preschool train trip. As with last year, Dave took the day off work to join us. We also kept Sam out of school for the morning so he could come too. I was so excited that we got seats with some friends of ours. Sam and the girl were in the same class last year and Rachel and the boy are in preschool together this year. They will also be in the same class next year. They were all so cute together :)
And for some reason whenever the boy hugs Rachel, she is unimpressed and squirms away but she totally soaks it up when the girl does. Ha! See what I mean!?!?!
Most of this trip is just riding on the train, but we did get to get out for a few minutes in the middle. It was fun to explore.
Sam was not feeling cooperative for a family picture! Oh well.
 
 
Sam was cracking me up while I was trying to take this picture! Crazy child.

After our brief stop we got back on the train. The purpose of this train is to enjoy the scenery and so it moves quite slowly. We all agreed that the trip was about ten minutes too long (especially since there were about ninety of us from the preschool in the train car) but we all enjoyed it anyway and are already looking forward to next year's trip!