On the hills....

These hills have been quite tedious in their upkeep.  I've pulled weeds, and hoed, only to find out that I need to start all over once I was finished.  It's really a never ending task of pulling, hoing and dealing with rocks.  

All the hills had Rock borders when we moved here.  The lawnmower hated Rock Borders, so we moved the ones that boarder the grass.  Today, I understand why there were borders every where.  You need somewhere close to chuck the rocks!    I've planted Cucumbers, Pumkin, and Butternut squash on these hills.  I'm really hoping they will choke out the weeds.  And I'm hoping the deer  will leave us a taste.  If not, it's only a few packages of seeds lost.    Wish me luck, I think I'm going to need it!

Mr. Hoffman has completed all the building, the fence, gate and raised boxes. Today the truck comes to deliver our dirt.

Desirae playing in a box. She has the final rock we decided to remove from the ground in that box. And she's eating a Balance bar. To her, those are candy bars!

Here's the truck delivering our steer manure compost.

And there's our stinky pile of dirt. I noticed at first, but the smell went away quickly....I think I may have been used to it in a past life.

My awesome husband started hauling the dirt to the garden with the wheel barrow. The truck driver insisted he had to dump it next to the road instead of the garden, so it gave us(meaning Dave) a bit more of a workout. Each box took 6 wheel barrows loads. Today I planted lettuce and beets. Tomorrow will be spinich and radishes, some cilantro. This is so fun! Desirae was making sand castles in the steer manure compost today. I wasn't sure what to think of that, but we washed up good when we came in. I'm sure children have done it before and survived. I seem to remember surviving quite abit of manure in my past lifetime, being the daughter of a dairy farmer. I felt a bit "city-fied" to actually be paying money for the stuff!

Spring is a busy time!

Mr. Hoffman completed building the boxes for the raised beds in our graden today. I neglected to take pictures. It seems the warmer weather creates flurries of activities, and I got behind, seriously behind, in the housework. Admittedly, I am a bit compulsive in this area, so it's all relative. When my son, Nick, (who's 19 now) was small, I washed the sand in his sandbox with Pinesol, thinking it would prevent him from getting sick. Desirae (who is 5 now) has a sand box with no lid, and I haven't even inspected the sand. So, things have changed a bit in the past 15 yrs. The CD's are not alphabetized any longer, either.

Today I planted some winter sqash (butternut) and 2 different types of cukes on my hills. No pictures of that either. I went to Walmart and got more seeds. They are only carrying Burpee right now. They sell organic seeds. Seems strange....I thought growing your own veggies was organic! I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for why my veggies will not be organic because I refused to pay more for organic seeds. Maybe if the mood strikes me, I'll google it....someday. The CDs still need alphabetizing.

Kids get busier in the spring, and Desirae is no exception. She's in Dance, and there are so many scheduled performaces, I'm not sure we can keep up. Thankfully these "50 and going on 50" parents only have one child.

Yesterday was a beautiful day, and knowing it was going to be nice, we planned a picnic. Dave, Desi, Roy and I drove to Eugene and Picked up Barry. The trip out to Armitage was a bit crowded. I discovered an 80 lb puppy takes up more room than I do in the back seat. Barry's wheelchair filled the cargo part of the station wagon. So, Roy became a lap puppy for a few miles. We had a lovely picnic. Barry told me of a man named Ernie who tries to steal the food off his trays. Today the nursing home called and reported that Barry got into a fisticuffs with another resident. Barry can be difficult. So I asked if a man named "Ernie" was involved. Sure enough. No one knew that Ernie was trying to steal Barry's food. I'm glad we picnicked with him yesterday, and I got to hear his side of the story. Otherwise we might just be rolling our eyes at another "Barry incident".

Desirae needs to be evaluated to keep her eduacational services. This year, they wanted to include an IQ test. I agreed to it at first, and then thought it over, deciding that I didn't care to see a number placed on her abilities, and I certainly didn't want others to place a number on her. And then, I didn't want that number to get out into the community....so, I changed my mind, and signed new papers today. The change went smoothly, and I felt like a responsible mom taking charge. I love it when things work out easily.

We still have to get dirt for our garden boxes before I can plant. The peach tree has tiny pink blossoms. I hope to get out with the camera tomorrow and take a few pictures. But then, we talked of going on a hike with "the kids" (Desi and Roy), so maybe we'll have pictures of the hike instead. Or not. I tend to forget the camera more often than I remember it.

Desirae's Easter day

All Done! And when it came time for hunting Eggs....this girl was too tired. But we had a great day anyways! Desirae helped with every step of boiling the egss, cooling them, coloring them and now eating them! (This blog loaded backwards. Nothing to do with me ofcourse! Start at the bottom and scroll up)
Shirtless(my favorite way of dressing) is convienent for this task! No unslightly staining.

Dying Easter Eggs
Making sure that "Roy-Boy" gets in the picture!

Modeling my new swimsuit

Oh, the camera! HI! CHEeeeeeeESE!

Crawling up to take a look...

Still tired....
Mom says there's something interesting on the table.

The view outside the kitchen window

Here's one of our little friends. This was taken as we were moving in. The grass is tall, and we are too busy to mow. When the mower finally arrived it took 2 belts and 3 mowings to catch up. In this picture you can see the blue spruce in the background. We have 4 ever greens, and one oak. The tree Desi's swing hangs from is HUGE.

The nieghbor's horses.
The hill behind us.

Another pic of the hill behind us, and the ever green at the bottom of our hill. To the Mid-Westerners---this hill might look like a mountain, but it's really just a hill. :)

Starting the Garden

First we had to come up with a plan and buy all the materials. Then Dave pounded the fence posts while I was at Dance with Desirae. Roy helped. The garden is 65 ft long and 20 ft wide. Our neighbors graciously let us use there fence for one side. I'm sure they won't mind if we share come harvest time, and we will!

I didn't get pictures of us digging the holes, because I was helping (Dave did the HARD work). Notice the rock in the picture and the mounds of dirt. The rest of the rocks when back in the holes and Dave poured concrete around the posts. Our gate is going between the wooden posts. Digging out the rock is the majority of the work. We have deer (the reason for the fence) and lots of rock(the reason we'll be making raised garden beds).

Mr. Hoffman is making sure the posts are straight.

Dave and Roy cleaning up,

And putting everything away. Rain is coming soon.

Another week of spring, and warmer weather!

The Garlic~~~
The Plum Tree~~~
The Apple Tree~~~
The Pear Tree~~~
~~~~and the Peach Tree