Spring Fever!

It's a balmy 36 degrees outside but the sun is shining so my son and I adventured into the backyard wilderness to tame the wild perennial bed.  It always looks so messy and forlorn over winter, but I find it easier to pull out last year's growth once it's had a chance to rot a little under the snow.  This spring I need to re-edge the perennial bed, in order to make a clearer distinction between "yard" and "garden".  I'm going to do that in bits, though, and mulch as I go.

My son and I were on an adventure to find the still-emerging bulbs.  When my husband came outside, my son ran up to him saying, "Papa Papa, we found the Jingle Bell Winter Flowers!"  I love his translation of "Snowbell!" I'm pretty sure the daffodils that I transplanted from the old homestead near my friend Kate's farm are coming up, but we just need to wait and see.  

In other news from our surburban homestead today, I made blackberry jam with some of the berries that I froze last fall.  It's the first time we've had enough from those bushes to make a batch of jam...and we ate tons of berries and blackberry smoothies already!  I'm not sure if it was our really wet summer that helped the berries, or something else, but it was pretty exciting.  My son is already telling me that he is going to eat all the strawberries this year, so I hope they are productive!

 

 

Creativity Abounds...

Valentine's Day Banner

The sun is shining, the air is cold, the ground is dry, the wind is howling.  We have been inventing ways to keep ourselves busy indoors.  One of the coolest activities we've done is to dye play silks with Kool-Aid and vinegar.  Depending on what flavors you use, this can make your house smell very fruity, but is a great way to use a non-toxic dye for kids' toys.  It takes about six packets of Kool-Aid to dye a large silk square and three packets to do a smaller one.  Some of the colors are pretty potent though, and will stain your hands and clothes if you aren't careful.  

My husband spent yesterday in the garage putting together a soccer goal out of PVC pipe.  I couldn't figure out how he was going to make the net and imagined myself trying to weave something.  But he was very resourceful and used the cargo netting from our car top rack.  It's perfect!

Finally, today was puppet theater day, apparently.  So we made puppets out of tube socks, Styrofoam balls, lemonade cans, and dowels.  Oh yeah, and paint.  Lots of paint!

All the "silkies" drying!

New soccer goal!  The net is from our cargo rack!

Puppets!

Work at Home Day

I needed to write today, and by write I mean 'make major progress on a report', so I worked from home.   It was amazing.  Everyone else was gone, my phone didn't ring and I turned my email off.  I was able to accomplish more actual work than I had in four days at the office.  

I love my home office.  I love the soothing color of the walls ("desert tan") and the southwestern art we've hung.  I love its unclutteredness.  And most of all, I love its window!  I picked one the prettiest days so far this year to work from this office.  So glad I was able to enjoy these views as the fruits of my labor!

A Bit of Sun

I think this will be the winter we remember as the winter we were constantly sick. It's exhausting.  It seems that at least one of us is ill at any given time point, leading to restless nights and cranky days.  I've heard that there are over 700 cold viruses on the planet, and I swear at least a quarter of them must be circulating on the Palouse right now.  On the positive side, I've also heard that you only get each cold strain once in your lifetime, because after that, you've built up antibodies to it.  I wonder what the maximum number of cold strains any one person has had in their lifetime???

Despite the obstacles, we've managed to have a good time.  We've been skiing and sledding multiple times since the snow began in December.  I just wish we felt better so that we could take advantage of the generally good weather and enjoy ourselves more fully.  It's frustrating, when you're an active family and you aren't feeling terribly motivated.  Or the combination of sleep deprivation-illness-work travel-holiday stress is just overwhelming.  Today the sun is shining and the temperature is in the 40s, meaning under most circumstances we would be on a bike or at a park...and we're not.

But sometimes the sofa is good, too.

We've used enough wood that we can park the commuter bikes in the shed again.

Gardens are still sleepy...

A chore to tackle, someday.