Western Screech Owl

It's important to keep your eyes peeled when out and about. You never know what you'll see!

Garden update

I don't have much to show by way of vegetables just yet. What I have planted is growing along just fine, but the flowers right now are more picture ready. Aren't they pretty? This particular bed is one of my favorites because it has so many textures and colors and is such a draw for pollinators and I really love the way everything is filling in. I feel like I'm doing something good for the earth when I look at it. Does that make me a hippie?

Lupine

Poppy

 

Brett helps when he can.

This is what Abby likes to do while we're tending the garden.

Lessons

Things I've (re)learned over the past week:

• I am old
• I am blessed to have old friends that knew me when and don't hold it against me
• There is always something to be grateful for
• It's possible to experience heartache and joy in the same day - sometimes the same hour
• Being chronically late can come in handy when vendors at the farmer's market are willing to cut you an end-of-the-day deal
• Rain isn't always unwelcome
• It might be too late to recondition myself to be a "morning person"

Taking a little birdie bath

At my house, the true harbingers of spring are the Black-Headed Grosbeaks that arrive at the end of April from their wintering grounds in Mexico. I get so excited when I see them back at the feeders. And in the birdie bath. This one yesterday had the pool all to himself and was enjoying it immensely!

Family Fun Time

My brother and his family came to Oregon for a quick spring break visit. It coincided with our own spring break making it the perfect chance to get cousins together. We played basketball, celebrated a birthday, went frog-hunting, planned gardens, bowled, and played games as we Kohlers are wont to do. I think it's safe to say that we all went home tired and happy and that right about now my parents are enjoying the restoration of peace and quiet to their home! I love my family.

 

I was crafty today

Seed Exchange

Last night, Brett and I went to dinner at one of his classmate's homes. She and her husband (mainly her husband) are very much into gardening - yay! After a delicious dinner of pasta with a fresh tomato and basil sauce (using garden tomatoes I canned in the fall), we had a little seed exchange. There is so much variety in the vegetable world, we found very little overlap in what we each had to offer. Now I'll be able to plant variates I likely wouldn't have gone out and purchased myself. The first frost-free date here is May 1, so it's only a month and half or so until I'll start my indoor seedlings! If our gardens do well this year, we'll be exchanging produce somewhere down the road.

Yesterday afternoon, we also attended a class at Al's Garden Center on how to successfully start seedlings indoors. I already knew a lot of what was covered, but did learn some new things. Plus, it was good to have Brett along with me so we have the same information. We sometimes have different ideas of how something in the garden should be done. Though I'm usually right!

I'm excited to put the lessons I learned last year into use this year.

Hello, 2012

So, it's a new year...I might get back in the habit of blogging...but I might not. Stay tuned.

I Planted, I Harvested, I Canned

Yesterday, I took these:




And made this:


Lessons learned:
-It takes more tomatoes than one thinks to fill up canning jars
-And each step takes longer than one thinks it will
-With some practice, I think I can become a canning pro
-Once again, I realize how much work my mom put into things that through my childhood eyes didn't seem like a big deal (thanks for manning the canning hotline, Mom)
-For my first time solo-canning, I think I did pretty well!

Chickadees

We have a makeshift bird bath set up on the deck railing. It's very popular with our resident population of birds. Yesterday, a family of Chestnut Backed Chickadees stopped by for bath time. The fledglings are smaller than the adults and have an overall rough/fluffy appearance due to the newness of their feathers. The little guy on the left in the top picture is a good example. They were fun to watch as they tried to figure out how it all worked. My favorite fledglings this year have been the Stellar's Jay youngsters but I wasn't able to get any decent pictures of them.