tomatoes

I've got twelve tomato plants on the front porch from the tomato guru over at Leaping Waters Farm. We have a few Cherokee Purples, Chocolate Cherry, Irene Gallimore, Matina, Green Zebra, Mr. Stripey, Garden Peach, Black Krim, and Big Yellow German. This weekend I'll check out the farmer's market for a few more varieties, and I'll be ready to plant. Looking forward to tomato salads, tomato tarts, and salsa.

blue room author's tea

blossoms

I'm loving the cool late spring. Suddenly everything turned green this week, and my raised beds are full of tiny arugula, spinach, lettuces, mesclun mix, and spring onions. Tiny spears of asparagus are popping up all around the new asparagus bed.

apple blossoms and earth day

author's tea

Yep, John writes books.

spring

We had our first thunderstorms thursday night, and these popped up in the grass in the past few days. I've planted arugula, lettuce, spinach, and cilantro in my raised beds, and  I'm waiting for the asparagus to pop up in their new area. I know we can't eat them this year, but I'm still excited. We have a few old asparagus from the old owners right in the middle of the lawn, and we won't be running over them with the lawnmower. Luckily, the Crow's Nest is five minutes away and sells the most amazing fresh picked stalks, perfect for grilling.

6

little girls

These girls are the sweetest twosome in the whole wide world. They live in this amazing intersection of imagination, intuition, and good intentions when they are together. I hope they can stay that way until they are little old ladies. Ruby's friend wants her whole family to move to our house. Hey, they'd save on gas.

It's all ponies, unicorns, rainbow, fairies and saving the world.

civil war family field trips

This is what happens after a short movie about the Civil War battles in and around Fredricksburg, Virginia. The kids went right outside for their own reenactment. If you know me you will laugh because we have never let the kids pretend they are using a gun.

She is writing a paper on Clara Barton and the origins of the Red Cross during the Civil War, and we visited Chatham outside of Fredricksburg. It was used as a field hospital during the war and was visited by Clara Barton, Walt Whitman, and Abraham Lincoln.

Ruby adds some humor to grim historical sights. She would love to wear a hoopskirt and do some smuggling. She wonders why women were not allowed to go to war, but when she watched  a reenactment video even a four year old wondered why lines and lines of men marched up to a row of armed men behind a stone wall only to be shot down. I explained that is was an antique method of warfare and perhaps a matter of principle.

a year ago today

We are having a much cooler spring this year. Bulbs are coming up, but I haven't seen a hint of these yet.

verge {of spring}

hellabores and evening light

Science Fair 2013

I am very proud of both of them for all of their hard work and attention to detail. I was really blown away by the fair as I am every year. Everyone love the kindergarteners and their phonetic spelling and creative experiments. In the older grades they really start delving into things I never even thought about in elementary school. It is always a lot of work and a late night, but it is well worth it.

science fair 2010 and 2011

science fairs

sunset chasing

I saw the sun setting and grabbed my camera and ran down the lane and up a steep hill trying to get away from the crisscrossing power lines. My SD card was still in the computer. This is from the upstairs window when I made it back to the house.

wooly owl

I heard someone say yesterday that February felt like twenty eight Monday mornings in a row, and I think that might be true. It feels rushed and cold and wet, and I haven't had time to enjoy it. I don't know about the groundhog, but it has gone from eight degrees to the wintry mix to simply damp. I need to hibernate a little more.

through the roof

The chimney went through the roof today, and tomorrow we should be on our own with the new woodstove.  It is a little disconcerting to have someone saw a hole through the house. It has been cold and dirty, and the guy finally made the call on the mantel today. It can stay. We hired the oddest cat to do the work, and it has been a strange month communicating with him. I think he is some sort of chimney savant. I think he may be one of the most interesting people I've ever met, and I liked talking to him about woodstoves. He has a Danish one that is chest high with an oven in it. I told him I wanted to wood fired bread oven in the backyard, and he told me about baking cornbread and sweet potatoes in his stove.

We had another snow on friday, two inches of powder, and it seemed warm today when it got up to thirty five degrees.

I can't wait to sit in front of a warm fire.

snow

Waking up to no electricity took a lot of the excitement out of this beautiful snow. We didn't have power for two nights, but I think the kitchen on made it down to 48 degrees. We should be a significantly more prepared by the weekend as the chimney man was here today working on putting in our new chimney and installing the woodstove. He can't work tomorrow as the high is going to be in the teens, but says he'll be here thursday. The chimney is on the north side of the house and doesn't ever get any sun.

Ella fluffed up the chicken's house tonight for some added warmth, and John replaced the avian netting that goes over the top of their run. The wet snow tore that down, and earlier today one of the girls was roosting on one of the corner poles about six feet off the ground.

No one likes the bitter cold, but we need some nights and days like this to kill the ticks that seemed to run rampant last summer.

In  the dancing picture we had gone for a walk on the second snow day because it was feeling warmer outside than inside our house.

slackers