Flowers!

I have been to Hawaii and been amazed at the huge brightly colored flowers that grow in such profusion.  Having grown up in an area of Northern Wyoming that gets what we used to call 9 months of winter and 3 months of fall, flowers are a treat, and now that we live in the semi arid, 4 definite seasons, cold winter type climate again I find myself thrilled with the flowers we do get.  It is planting time and I am elbow deep in dirt and mulch so I'm sharing my flowers for now.  When they are small and delicate and you only see them for a little while you appreciate them!

The Golden Rain Tree is just starting to bloom, it will be covered in a few days

Chives -not usually grown for the flower but aren't they pretty?!

This is Thyme

The pretty pink  Honeysuckle -   Oh the fragrance!

A very exciting bloom on the tomato plant!

Not sure what these are, they may be a weed but they are so pretty I can't pull them out. 











Think I saw a few more blossoms out this evening, I will have to go out with the camera and capture them as well.  Hope you enjoyed!

Spring and stuff!

We are going to officially start planting the summer crops tomorrow.  Hubby has some he's started in the house as do I and a few of them are ready to go out now we think.  It got up in the 80's today (around 30C) and that is pretty warm feeling after such a long winter, and of course I am ready to start complaining about the heat!  (It's what I do!) 

Some things are already coming along and these flowers are one of my favorites.  This color is known as a Colorado Columbine as it is the state flower, and I have many memories of going to the mountains and finding these lovelies all over in the woods.  They are in the 'purple' section of the planter out in the front.  All the flowers that are out there are purple and my goal is to have a lot of different purples in this area.  Purple people obsess like this I am told - so its normal!

  We have all these huge trees around the house and that means birds - lots of birds, as in sometimes a little 'Hitchcocky' number of birds.  They make a lot of noise, but for the most part they are not too bothersome noise-wise, I could wish they didn't all pooh on the car (how do they know?) but overall they are fun to watch and fun to listen to, especially when danger (in the form of a cat) comes walking through the yard.  They will follow the cat all over the yard chirping like mad to alert everyone that there is a cat in the yard!  The most amazing thing though to me is the absolute silence that falls on the back yard when the sound of a hawk is heard!  You could hear a pin drop! None of them even move - it is fascinating.  After the big winds we've had the last few days Hubby brought this onto the porch, he didn't find any egg or babies near it so hopefully it's an old one but look at the workmanship of the thing.  We think it is a Robins nest.  There are a lot of Robins in the yard every year.

Well I hope no little birdies were in it when it fell.  Oh and we are not making soup with it!!

These are the jars I got at the thrift shop we went to last Saturday, they were having a grand opening sale for a new location and they had a lot of great deals.  We got a stool for the breakfast bar area, these jars were 35 cents ea., we found a back-up heater for the bathroom, and I found some brand new photo albums that hold 4"x6" photos.  The one in front with the strange lid turns out to be something of a collectable so I put its lid on one of my antique jars and will put a modern canning lid on this one.  What fun!

And just one photo of our Miss Lily.  Isn't it sweet?  Miss Lily had to go back in the hospital for a couple of days due to severe jaundice.  We think she will be home tomorrow.  This is harder on her Mommy and Daddy than it is on Miss Lily.  And we as parents watch our children suffer a little and smile, sigh...been there done that!

Where does the time go?.....

So in the days following Miss Lilly's birth (Miss Lily just has a ring to it!!) I have been so busy, yes, yes, I have had so much to do I just don't know how I fit it all in!

2nd day - the swelling and redness goes away

Of course I had to spend Friday recovering from the actual birth and being up late the night before, yet tired as I was I was able to make several phone calls and talk about the baby and post several photos on Facebook, do up the agenda for the quilt club meeting, and send and receive several text messages with photos to download onto the computer and put into the file on my desktop labeled simply 'Miss Lily'.  Just exhausting!

Saturday was our quilt club meeting and I did find time to put together a little photo collage of Miss Lily on my phone in case someone at the meeting would ask to see her.  Of course being my friends they were all kind enough to ask to see the photos and were very interested in every detail I had.  Anita and Teresa and I had carpooled to the meeting and we decided to stop at every garage sale we found on the way home and we just had a great time finding a couple of new (old) teapots and looking at baby clothes and strollers and all sorts of things the kids may need for Miss Lily.  Saturday evening I fried 30 pieces of chicken for our Mothers day picnic at our friends (everyone was bringing picnic food even though we knew the weather was not going to cooperate and we were going to eat inside) and while the chicken was cooking I was able to take a break and send a few photos to my mom who is away from her computer and unable to see Miss Lily, I had to send the photos to my aunt who lives nearby and she copied them for the new great grandma to see.  I managed to get the chicken in the fridge and was off to bed after I made sure I copied all the new photos of Miss Lily off of everyone's Facebook pages and downloaded them onto my computer and tagged any friends or family who may not  have had a chance to see our Miss Lily.

With Auntie Lala

Today we attended church as is our habit and they had a children's choir and  baby dedication for Mothers Day, both of which brought a tear to my eye as I was thinking of how our Miss Lily would probably participate in this sort of thing in a few years wearing those velvet dresses and anklets with lace that I had always longed to buy, but that would have been inappropriate for the boys to wear.  (none of them would have agreed to do it anyway) 

We had a lovely picnic with our friends, much good food and good conversation.  I was pleased that I had emailed pictures of Miss Lily already so we could share with our friends who had not seen her some of our pictures.  We came home this evening and retired to our computers and I have been catching up on my email and Facebook posts, I can't believe there were people who had yet to see our Miss Lily!  So as soon as I finish this blog post I will make a last perusal of email, texts and Facebook to collect every last photo that shows up of Miss Lily and head off to bed. 

The new family Matt, Amber and Miss Lily!

It is a good thing, I believe that Hubby and I are not the type to monopolize a conversation or pull out a photo album of pictures.  We are not obsessive people and we will take this grandparent thing in stride and with aplomb.  Far be it from us to bore our friends with stories of our grandchild.  Her arrival has hardly impacted our lives at all!   ;)

Baby has made her arrival!!!

I am a Grandma!

Lilliana made her entrance today after putting her momma through 15 hours of labor.  She weighed in at a whopping 8 pounds and 18 1/2 inches long.  She has quite a lot of hair and (according to the new Dad) healthy lungs!  I have been promised more pictures later after everyone gets some sleep!  Although I am not a huge fan of text messages I have to admit it was nice getting those updates from the delivery room all day and much of the night.  It has however left me a little worn out. (don't tell Amber I said that!) It is still much easier than the kid thing.  I am very sure that I feel much better tonight than Amber and I will sleep better the next few weeks or so!  So here is her debut of what is likely to be an inordinate number of photos on grandma's blog!

Slow Living Monthly 9 Linkup

I am in recovery mode these last couple of weeks.  I had a sinus infection that I wrote off as an allergy attack (in all fairness it is that time of year!) and did not get on antibiotics, I also had work done on two teeth that turned out to be significant in the drilling department, or - according to the medical sources it may be for no known reason that I am recovering from an episode of Bells Palsy, which leaves 1/2 of ones face sort of paralyzed (different degrees for different people).  This has been sort of an unnerving experience (forgive the pun).  Waking up in the morning with half your face droopy is the kind of thing that sends you running for the blood pressure monitor and thinking stroke, after that - really - all news is good news!  :)  My friends and Hubby say they can see marked improvement now so hopefully in another week or so it will all be over.  So other than that how was my April?

My friend brought me flowers to cheer me up!

Nourish - Warmer weather now means lighter food - salads and simple meat dishes are becoming the going thing again.  It is always easier to loose weight in the summer for me as I don't get as  hungry and we just eat lighter.  The farmers markets are open again!  Hooray!

Prepare - This may sound a little backward but preparing this month has been a lot of emptying out the pantry shelves, trying to cook up the preserving from last year and planning for the stuff we need more of this year.  Got out the jars and did a little inventory, going to have to get more jars, this will be a good problem to have.

Reduce - We have been using the pots and plant holders from previous years to grow this years starts.  I suppose every little bit helps, we also dumped the whole of our compost heap into the new garden area and tilled it in. 

Green - This month green is the lack of both heaters and fans.  We have had warmer days and slightly warmer nights so have made the effort not to warm any rooms and we haven't gotten to the stage of needing a fan for cooling so the electric usage is way down!

Grow - Oh the fun of the little plants at the start of the growing season!  My kids swear I was not as excited about their growth as I am about the new dill or watermelons!  Hubby has put out the first tomatoes and we are about ready to start putting in a few things, the snow is all gone off the mountains so maybe we are safe.  Last year we had a killing frost on the 9th of May so - we hope.

Create - Springy crafts here, made this little bouquet in our quilting/crafts meeting in April, one of our ladies used to do windows and decorating for retail stores and she gave us all some hints. I have been able to stick to my plan of not starting any new projects until I finish the short term works in progress and I am putting in a lot of time as it has motivated me to finish so I can move on!

Discover - Most of what is on TV these days just appalls me - I have started watching a lot of historical documentaries on 'youtube', these are, of course, older shows and programs but it is fun to have while I crochet etc. and not so silly as most of it.  This month I discovered the back episodes of 'Tales From the Green Valley' where the experts move onto a farm from the 1600's and use only what was available then.  what an interesting show and I truly enjoyed the watching, now I have moved on to "Victorian Farm"!

Enhance - I took several of my friends to the local meat market a friend of ours has opened - they are carrying organic and grass fed meats, fresh milk and they make their own sausages - yum.  So I shared the place with others in hopes that they will do well and stay around for me to shop at!  Motivated by selfishness!

Gus behind the counter!

Enjoy - Hubby and I have enjoyed getting back out into the yard and working together, ending the days tired and satisfied and being able to see results.  The togetherness outdoors after the cooped-up-ness of the winter is wonderful.  There is a lot to be said for these years when we have been together for a long time and can finish each others sentences and then surprise with a comment!

On the grandchild watch front, daughter in law called today and she is dilated 2cm and thinning nicely!  We are on baby watch!!!

Amber and her sister and of course Lily

 

 

 

Check out the other posts a this monthly link up!