Spring Newness

It's springtime and there is a lot of new stuff in the yard. Brad planted a pot of poppies last year (or was it the year before?). They're back and blooming.

The front yard is under construction. Brad's taking out some grass and building two beds in the hopes we can use less water while attracting more hummingbirds and butterflies with some new plantings.

In the meantime, the vermillion flycatcher is back. These birds are so beautiful and yesterday one landed on a branch right outside my office window.

This is the front yard of a house around the corner from us. The flowers are just brilliant and so pretty that I had to share.

Last weekend Mary and Andy finished wallpapering their dining room and adding a chair rail. All those years of watching home improvement shows continues to pay off!

And they still found some time to kick back over the weekend.

Speaking of kicking back, can I just say: Lloyd! Today this cutie pie turned 4 months old.

It's just about two and a half months until the next Harrison is born. The baby has a room waiting for her, and she has a cat named Agnes waiting for her too!

Timber

Last week we said goodbye to a huge Mesquite tree in our front yard. Estimates are it was around 200 years old. Crazy, right?! We knew it was sick, and all the arborists we had out to take a look at it agreed. We didn't know quite how sick it was, but by this spring we could see it was definitely dead, as it didn't leaf out at all. 

The tree was inside our courtyard, so the process of removing it and getting it onto the driveway was done with the aid of this crane.

There was a guy in the tree and he would saw off a part, which the crane would then lift over the wall and onto the driveway.

Kind of like this.

And then the wood-chipper took over.

The last thing to do was to plant the new Mesquite tree. It looks really small compared to the old one, but this is a large tree for a new tree. We're hoping it will grow fast and give us the shade we're sorely missing. (Also, in case you're wondering, as far as we could tell there weren't any bird nests in the old tree. Phew.)




 

Spring is Springing

Spring is showing signs all over the place, including in Arizona. On Saturday, Brad and I went on a garden tour with some new friends. We got to visit five beautiful and inspiring backyard gardens. We got lots of ideas for our own backyard—and for our front yard too!

Meanwhile in Baltimore, Mary is on spring break and using her time to get their rooftop garden planted and ready for growing season.

This silly guy in the large pink clogs and his photographer are cycling around Holland for spring break week. 

It's hard to imagine how pretty this must look in person.

While our roses aren't quite as stunning as the tulips in Holland, we still think they're pretty.

Blooming all throughout the desert this week are the ocotillo. I rode my bike through Saguaro National Park yesterday and feasted my eyes on them as they're everywhere. According to my sources at Wikipedia, the ocotillo is more closely related to tea and blueberries than to cactuses. Their thorns suggest otherwise. 

The birds are also into spring. We have four nests of doves sitting on eggs under our back patio. Over the weekend Brad discovered this nest of quail eggs hidden behind our garden shed. There are 14 eggs in all. The kind of quail we have here are called Gambel's quail. Our niece calls them aristocratic pigeons, and I think that's an apt description.  Apparently the chicks will leave the nest with their parents within hours of hatching. The incubation time is 21-23 days, and we're not sure how long the eggs have been there. So we'll just have to keep an eye out for the quail family. With 14 potential offspring walking behind mom and dad, they'll be hard to miss.

And last but not least, you might remember that last spring we had a hummingbird build an architecturally impressive nest under a fan on our back patio. The nest is built between two ceiling fan pulls.  She did such a terrific job at design and construction that we left it over the winter in the hopes that it might get used again. And sure enough, it's getting used again! I would never know if this hummingbird is the same one that laid eggs here last year, but I must say that whoever she is, I admire her. This is a bird that would rather nest in an existing home than build a brand new one. If the nest gets used again next year, we'll have to see if we can get it a historic designation!  

Flashback Friday

Ten years ago this month in Woodbury, this was our dog and this was our squash harvest. We still have the dog, but gardening in Tucson isn't like gardening in Connecticut. 
 

Flashback Friday

Tonight we were talking about gardens past and whenever that happens I'll always think back to our garden in Connecticut. In 2012 we harvested some rhubarb and asparagus. It was a great garden.

Flashback Friday

This is kind of cheating, but I wasn't inspired by any other pictures for this week and then I saw these and it made me wistful. This was a bounty from our garden in Connecticut in 2010. Not bad for a day's harvest. I don't miss the responsibility of having a garden, but I sure do miss the great food we grew at home. I'm glad I took so many pictures of it.

Please Don't Judge Me

I have one more picture from the holiday break. Jessa's mom visited Morocco between Christmas and New Year's. The three of them took a first-time trip to Meknes, Fes, Moulay Idriss, and Volubilis. I hear they had a great time. Peter said Fes might be his favorite place in Morocco. Makes us think we may want to make a return visit . . . . .

When they got home, Peaches was happy to see her people, and Peter was happy to take a nap.

Back home, I was in Temecula the other day. Our niece Lauren was visiting my mom. They had spent the week starting to make this quilt.

It's not fully sewn together yet, but this is the quilt up close.

And this is the fabric it's cut from. The idea is that you cut six identical pieces from the original fabric, then each of those six pieces makes a symmetrical hexagon, all of which are pieced together to make the quilt. It's really complex, but the finished product is a very unique quilt.

This is why I'm asking you to please not judge me. This is the backyard of our next door neighbors taken from our house. (And no, we don't know them and no, they definitely don't read this blog.) But I thought this garden was so great I had to blog about it. The other week they installed two raised beds in their backyard. Now they're building an enclosure for the beds, to keep the critters out. Over the past few years, Brad and I have read about these garden enclosures online and we'd talked about building one in St. Louis. This is the first time we've ever seen one in person and I must say, it's very inspiring.

File This Under: Be Careful What You Wish For

Selling our house was undoubtedly the highlight of our week and a huge relief. But it also made me feel wistful, as I'll hate to leave it. We only have a month until it's time to go, and since this week brought me my favorite week of the year in our front yard—when our flowering trees are in bloom—I got a bit carried away and took a whole lot of pictures. Here they are, in no particular order:

Where Some of Us Could Be Found Last Weekend

Saturday found John and Troy at a wedding outside of St. Louis. I meant to ask them for the actual photo (instead of this Instagram screen grab) but never got around to it. Oh well, you still get the idea.

Saturday found me making a cocktail. (Yes kids, you read that right.)  A friend got a subscription to a cocktail monthly service so she had a few of us over and we all made different concoctions. Afterwards we went a to a concert.

Sunday found Mary having dinner with none other than her dear friend and volleyball teammate  from Connecticut, Meryl, who was in town for a few days. Meryl is from Wyoming and Mary is from Wisconsin, so they always used to make a W together. I love that they brought back their W once more.

Finally, spring can definitely be found around here these days. This is our azalea bush, a couple of weeks ago. Since I took this picture we had some freezing weather and the blossoms are all gone. But not to fear, we aren't suffering from a lack of spring blooms as our flowering trees are starting to blossom.

Fall Gardens

Things are settling down in the gardens around town, but there's still plenty to see. One our walk yesterday morning, Allie and I saw some pretty roses. Here's one of them.

And here's the other.

This was next to the roses. I believe it's Windflower.

We've also got some interesting sights in our own yard. This year, in an effort to attract Monarchs, we planted some Butterfly Weed. It has an orange blooms, which peaked in the summer and have now turned to pods. Recently we noticed small bugs on the pods. The bugs are slowly growing larger. I looked it up, and they're harmless Butterly Weed Bugs, also known as Milkweed Bugs.

And then there's our purple Dahlia. It's past its prime, but a small crop of flowers appeared this week. They're so pretty. I think this is the end of them for the year.

Weekend

Before I get started, if you read this blog on the actual blog site (as opposed to in an email) you probably noticed it looks different. I'm trying to change things up and I think the makeover will be "in progress" for awhile as I figure out how to make it all look the way I want it.

The weekend started out with a small victory. Between Brad and me, we reclaimed the front side garden area outside of the family room. It was totally, and I mean TOTALLY, grown over and we've successfully ignored it until now but we finally decided to give it a go. The other day Brad mowed it down and thanks to some welcome rain I was able to clear all the weeds out of the rest of it. I think we'll probably mulch it this fall but for now, it's nice just to see it so cleared out!

On Saturday night we met some friends at an Oktoberfest in House Springs, which is about a half hour south of here. As Oktoberfests go, it was really good.

The music was fun and the dancers were even more fun!

It was a glorious night and we enjoyed the change of scenery.

On Sunday we met up with John and Troy and some of their friends to watch the Packers at a bar with NFL Sunday Ticket, as they weren't on TV.

Sirius came along and wore his Packers bandana. It must have been good luck, as the Packers won.