Snowy Day

Almost a month later than normal, we finally had snow this week!

Baby Brother is quite the outdoors-boy, so he was in his element.

The big boys flying south. (For the winter? Several weeks ago, Big Brother confided a plan to move to Africa when he's grown. "Sorry Mom, that's the way it goes.")

After we came in, we tried a new recipe in our Babycakes Cupcake Maker.

A dear friend sent this to me for Christmas, and it is so much fun!

Five to seven minutes and cupcakes! Or muffins! Or pie!

We've only tried sweet recipes so far, but I have plans to try mini-quiches and other quick meals soon!

Apple Picking

We had a burst of sunny, warm weather early last week and went apple picking with my sister and niece!

(Photo by my sister).

Apple picking has become our tradition for Michaelmas week. This farm was very child-friendly: special bags just for the kids (labeled with their names!), animals, a corn maze, and a country store with many enticing treats!

Best for us, it's only ten minutes from our new house. We came come for a delicious apple treat (post to follow!) and playtime for the cousins.

Fourth Day of Christmas

It was back to work for my husband on the Fourth Day of Christmas and the boys and I had plans to head my parents' for a few days. Unfortunately, a winter storm kept us home! A foot of snow fell in just a few hours! We had a nice day anyway, and were able to play outside and shovel the walk in the afternoon.

The Bilibo is one of our most open-ended toys. It is perfect for using as a scoop, sled, or shovel and also makes perfectly domed snow-creations!

Sidekick attempting to shovel the driveway, or in as he insisted, "snowblowing."

A ride in the sled for the little guy.

Black Walnut Season

We have five Black Walnut trees in our yard (and more young ones in the fields!) and every year we enjoy searching the walnuts as they fall from the trees. We have a very saucy red squirrel that also loves these trees and throughout the year leaves walnut shells all around the yard, deck, and porches. He scolds us very vehemently when we dare to come close to "his" trees (or even when we play in the fenced yard!), but last weekend we did some searching through the piles of leaves anyway! We found quite a few, but replaced them all for the little guy.

Freshly fallen from the tree.

One that's a little older and a shell.

The trees. It was a breathtaking day!

Sharing Nature Camp

This summer I signed M. up for a once-a-week preschool nature camp at a local nature center. There are five sessions, and after two weeks I can say that we love it! It's about an hour and a half long and each class includes a nature walk, activity, and craft.

Our first class was on frogs, and today was ponds. After a short hike, the children tried pond dipping!

They found a lot of neat things: tiny mollusks, nymphs, lots of coontail, some fish, water striders, and maybe a small frog or two.

We hiked back toward a pavilion, and the kids were able to make their own "ponds." M. is doing very well at arts and crafts lately. He created his design all on his own, though I think the favorite part of each child was sliding the "button" to cut his or her own piece of plastic wrap for "water"!

The nature center has a visitor center with mounted animals typically found in the area surrounding it including a beaver, coyote, and muskrat. There are also tanks with various turtles, crayfish, and snakes. Our favorite, though, is the beehive. I think M. could watch it for hours.

Next week our topic is turtles. We can't wait!

Strawberries!

I've been meaning to post about our garden, but just haven't had a chance to do the project justice. The short story is that we planted 50 strawberry plants in a pyramid this spring and 49 of the them survived and for the past week have been bearing fruit! We're picking every day!

Our first strawberry, July 5:

Today's bounty:

We regularly eat locally-grown berries, but these have a "certain something" the others just don't have!

Our modest garden also features potatoes, winter squash, and sunflowers!

Firefly Lantern

I bought this firefly lantern for the boys for our outdoor adventures this summer. When it arrived last week, we tried to out to observe a tent caterpillar. We're planning to stay up late soon (well, late for us- the boys go to bed by seven) to try to catch (then release) some firelfies. I don't think M. has ever seen one!

Iris Love

My irises are having a bumper year! They have never been this showy!

Lilac Season

Lilacs are my favorite flower, and this year the biggest of our lilac bushes (this is more of a tree!) put on quite a show this year! As you can imagine, the smell was incredible!

The blossoms are just about gone now, but next year I'm going to try some of the ideas in this post like making lilac sugar and lilac muffins!

May Day

Happy May Day! We ushered in this month of Marian devotion with gardening! We want to create a Mary Garden this year and what better day to begin?

I originally planned on devoting an area outside our kitchen door to the garden, but upon doing some reading I discovered that almost every plant we have in the various gardens around our home (there are six or seven) has a religious meaning behind it! For example, hosta (or plantain lily) is known as the Assumption Lily! So rather than devoting a single area to Our Lady, I think our the entirety of our gardening pursuits will be dedicated to Mary. Even the strawberry patch...strawberries are "Fruitful Virgin!"

Today we spent the afternoon outside, and did most of our planting and I started some rearrangement. Our fenced in area has an awkward oval-y shaped partial shade garden edged with rocks (for lack of a better, more-artistic phrase!) that's very inconvenient to running, rambunctious boys. Yesterday a friend came and took several of my peonies and hosta plants and today I moved the bleeding heart along here:

This area of the gardens has more hosta, day lilies (St. Joseph's Lily), columbine (Our Lady's Shoes), chrysanthemums (All Saints' Flower), hydrangea (Ave Maria), and now the bleeding heart (Mary's Heart).

Here's a quick tour of the other work we did today and Our Lady's flowers:

The big stump holds petunias (Lady's Praise), alyssum (Mary's Little Cross), vinca vine, and a variety of daisy...

Window boxes with pansies (Trinity Flower), petunias, dusty miller, alyssum, and lobelia...

The only tulips that bloomed this year. This is another garden that's going to be revamped. The stones have to go and the peonies (Pentecost Rose), irises, and tulips (Mary's Prayer) will probably be moved. I have enough bulbs for an army, by the way. They are out of control!

Oh, and I have to show off the wonderful gate my husband built last weekend for the front porch. Our school time will relocate out here this summer as well as playtime during on rainy or very hot and sunny days. The porch is completely sheltered from rain and almost always shady.

First "Big" Snow

We had our first real snow of the season Monday. Lake effect bands brought us between 3-6" Today and into tomorrow we're experiencing the first snowstorm of the season. About 3-6" fell during the day today and by the time it's all said and done tomorrow, we'll have another 6-12"! We've been frolicking outside all week and today was no exception!

His hat fits perfectly this year, Kat! His snowsuit, however, is far too small. Hope to remedy that this weekend!

The view from the end of the driveway to the corner.

One of the hosta encased in ice.

See how nice and snow-free the porch stays? That will be one of our playspaces when the snow gets too high to tramp around the yard.

Nothing like hot chocolate to warm up!

Afternoon at the Farm

Yesterday we went back to the orchard where we picked apples on Michaelmas to pick pumpkins. It was the perfect fall day and we had so much fun!

We explored the corn maze...

Saw a red tractor (just like one we play with at home!)...

Admired the 'mums...

And of course, came home with the perfect pumpkin!

The Hunter's Moon

The Hunter's Moon rose around 6:30 this evening and it was marvelous! I could see the moon's craters very clearly and found myself wishing for better cameras! My husband and I spent about ten minutes trying to capture it each with a camera in hand! Here are some early evening images, and I'll go out much later to shoot it agian.

Our Big Backyard

Last fall, I didn't do much with the hanging basket outside our kitchen door next to the hummingbird feeder and instead let the flowers (mini wave petunias) shrivel and dry over the winter. Lazy, I know.



Last Sunday when our hummingbirds returned and I refilled the feeder for the first time (I've had to make more nectar 3 times already!), I took the hanging basket down and moved the feeder over so DS could see it from his chair at the kitchen table.

Several hours later, I was talking to DH through the screen door as he was working on the fence (a post to come on that project soon) and happened to look down. In my dried out basket of flowers was a robin's nest with four eggs in it! Uh-oh! I knew that if the mama bird sensed humans had been disturbing her nest, those eggs would be abandoned. DH and I both agreed, though, that we had better move the feeder back to its old spot and rehang the flower basket. Hoping for the best, we did so.

Fortunately, our tampering didn't deter the mama robin because the next day (Memorial Day) she was perched in her nest and has barely moved from that spot. She blends in with the dried leaves and flowers, that it's almost impossible to see her. She isn't even perturbed by our frequent use of that door! She hasn't come after us-- though the hummingbirds like to divebomb us!

(See her tail feathers in the middle of the picture?)

(Her head is just visible in this shot.)

DS has been thrilled watching the hummingbirds feed and buzz about all day, but he can't quite distinguish the robin in her nest. Maybe we'll get to see the babies, though!

Snowy Scenes

I've been reconsidering my decision to discontinue blogging, and instead, as part of my goals to refocus, reorganize, and rejuvenate in the new year, I need to decide on a focus for this blog. My original intentions have been lost over the past two and half years, and I hope to emerge well-rested (in mind at least) and with new energies.

In the meantine, here are some scenes around the house today after a little snowfall. The snow is of the wet yet powdery sort that lightly rests on everything it touches. All of the tress and shrubbery are hanging on to every flake.

We drove through the prettiest area, with tall trees on both sides of the road that in the summer is always cool and shady. Today the snow is almost acting like the leaves in the summer and it was so still. Unfortunately, the roard was slushy and very slippery, so I don't dare venture back out to take pictures. I have to content myself with shots around our land.