This past week he brought it home for me to try out and I had a lot of fun cruising around the yard. There are a few more things that he is going to do to it. The bucket currently isn’t functioning (thus the clamp holding it up) and it sounds like he wants to tweak the throttle some more. But it drives around just fine and that thing can turn on a dime!

So, there it is, my sweet new ride. Hubby wants to name it Scrappy which is pretty appropriate. I’m sure this will be an ongoing project, always tweaking and adding features. I’m looking foward to hauling around some rocks and dirt. Cuz that’s what we do out here in the country!

We’re headed back out to the lake – going to get the truck fixed (hopefully) and get the sailboat in. 80 degrees and a 20 mph wind make for a perfect sailing day!

We actually had some awesome weather! Friday evening we had supper on the deck and sat around the fire for a while. It was lovely. And Saturday we actually had sunshine!!!! Dad got a new boat last year and most of us sisters hadn’t seen it yet so we went and picked it up from the storage unit, cleaned it up a little bit, and headed out onto the water. FUN!

Out cruising the water was the very first time it actually felt like summertime to me. (even though we were bundled up in sweatshirts and pants!) We ended up going out for a couple of rides, it was just so much fun!

Hubby captaining the boat.

Sister #1 and Wren

Dad, Bob, and Sister #3

Windblown Wren

Skippy John Jones taking a turn piloting the boat.

We spent a lot of time outside Saturday – everybody got some color on their cheeks and a good dose of the vitamin D we’ve been missing for so long! The beautiful weather (of course) didn’t last – we woke up to rain again on Sunday. Hoping this week will bring more sun – a lot of the seeds are finally up in my garden! YAY!

Happy SUMMER!!!

I was going through my closet and realized that I really need to stop buying blazers. I have a kind of huge collection of them. And most of them are really cute and almost all of them have been thrifted for less than $3. But when it comes down to it, I don’t really wear them that often.

I just can’t pass up a good deal. And blazers look so cute on – they are very professional and flattering. But seriously, enough already! I either need to start wearing them more of start downsizing my collection.

No, it’s not an addiction. I can stop anytime I want.

Right?!

Happy Spring Cleaning!

SO the first mini project that I have assigned myself – the area to the west of the “wood shed.” We are calling it the wood shed because we have all of our random lumber in there. When you come up the driveway the wood shed is opposite of the garage to the south of the driveway.

Here is the before.

And since I like for you all to get a really good idea of the mess, here is a closer shot.

SO! The plan is to get all of those bricks and junk out of there, pull all the weeds, trim up the trees, mix in some compost, and then this area is going to become a holding area for shade plants. When we moved the deck to do the siding, a bunch of hostas are now exposed and no longer shading so I’m planning to move them here. It also sounds like I’ll be getting some from my MIL so that will be wonderful!

So, commence mini project #1!

And the rhubarb is finally ready to be harvested as well. I went out this evening and cut some to make rhubarb crisp and some rhubarb simple syrup. Unfortunately, husband used up the sugar (not sure on what…who knows what goes on here during the day while I am gone to work!) so I ended up just cutting it up and putting it in the fridge.

I really love the way rhubarb looks when it is all cut up. Like a little party. Or confetti.

Love it! Any awesome rhubarb recipes you want to share? Or tips on freezing it? I will definitely be using some to make rhubarb strawberry leather this fall! Looking forward to that for sure!

And it has been fun as well to receive items from friends and family – things that they have picked up thinking we could use somewhere. The latest treasure my grandma picked up for us and I am very excited for it! She found a beautiful old brass door handle set.

Pretty sweet huh? Right now I am thinking that we will use them on the entry way closet doors. The plan is to do french-style doors with some kind of privacy glass. And we’re leaning towards the ball catch style door so you don’t have to have actual working knobs. (there is a handle for the other plate, just didn’t make it into the picture)

A little closeup of the patina action-lovely!

So keep the treasures coming – we would love to give some more unique pieces a good home.

And thanks for the awesome handle set, grandma! You are the best, love you!!!

Jack-be-Little mini pumpkins are among the first to be planted and to show their pretty little green leaves!

And of course, one of my very favorite things to grow, sunflowers! These are a variety called Evening Sun Mix. I have two rows of Mammoth behind them and a clump of Teddy Bear in front of them.

The apple trees are also blossoming right now – they look (and smell) so beautiful! I am not overly optimistic about our bounty this year. The trees are really old and are planted under the shade of a few huge and wonderful cottonwood trees. Last year we got about 5 apples total from the 3 trees and they were pretty little. I was pretty surprised actually how many blooms were on them – they are covered!

Aren’t they gorgeous? The little bits of pink on the buds – love them!

So, even though we have another week of dreary and wet weather, I won’t let it get me down too much – it is good for all of my cute little seeds out there as they start to grow!

Anybody trying any fun new plants in their gardens this year?

Any guesses on what we’re working on? :)

Right now I would say I’ve got a good 65% of it planted. I am pretty obsessed with fall decorations so I’ve leaned towards that kind of garden. Jack Be Little pumpkins, blue pumpkins, swan gourds, luffa gourds, broom corn, indian corn, about half a dozen varieties of sunflowers, and a few other goodies too – some carrots for husband, a few flowers for cutting – bells of ireland, cosmos, and a really neat variety of amaranthus. It is really hard for me to limit myself because I want to grow everything! And I really love growing plants from seed – it is so rewarding!

I have also had a few little fun surprises coming up in the yard gardens as I mentioned in previous posts. Here is one sweet little surprise that has popped up in a few different places – tiny little hyacinths! CUTE!

Husband and I are continuing work on all kinds of projects inside and out. We got a ceiling fan installed in our living room, some curtains for our french doors, stumps removed outside, a million branches picked up, cleaned the garage – we have been busy! But it has been a really good kind of busy – we are enjoying our little piece of land very much!

Happy Memorial Day weekend peeps – hope you have a great one!

Well, quite surprisingly to me, a lot of those tulips are now blooming! So far there has been two waves of the blooms – the first was the regular looking red with a bit of yellow in the center. I was out looking at them and enjoying them and noticed that some of the buds looked a little funky. I thought that it might possibly be due to them getting all trampled on when they were first coming up and the siding was getting put on, but a small part of me was hoping that they were some fancy kind of tulips.

Fast forward to this week after we got home from a weekend away and it turns out that they ARE fancy tulips! A variety of parrot tulips to my untrained eye. Aren’t they beautiful?!

I am so very excited to have these – maybe my landscaping isn’t so bad after-all?

Look at the beautiful coloring on them!

Now it is starting to feel like spring!

And the best part is that I didn’t even have to feel bad about cutting them and bringing them inside because it has been raining and raining and raining here! But we needed it pretty bad even after all of the snow this winter, so I’m not minding it too much.

Can you believe it is already May 21st?! I kind of hope we get some sunshine now so I can get a bunch of stuff planted in the garden – and work on that scary landscaping too of course!