Scarecrow

We are trying to wait a few more weeks before planting our summer veggies. It's hard to hold out for the frost date (April 15) when we have all these wonderfully warm days. We planted lots of flowers this weekend. Some Daniel started from seed and planted around the vegetable garden. They are small now but soon the zinias, marigolds, and daisies will add beauty and attract beneficial bugs to our veggies. I bought some 6 packs of dianthus flowers from Lowe's and we planted them in the front yard.

Ellen had the idea of putting up a scarecrow in the garden. They all worked together and this is our newest addition to the backyard! Look closely and you can see the face Ellen just finished working on.

A day with dad and flower identification

Daniel took the girls out for an all day bike ride and hike on the riverfront trail in downtown Columbia. This is a 4 mile path that runs between the river and the canal. It is a great place to spot animals in the water and in the woods. They saw a muskrat climbing on a tree then fall into the water. They also saw lots of water birds and frogs.




We are trying to identify this flower that is in our yard. It is blooming right now as one of the first flowers of the season. Each white flower is smaller than a dime and looks like a rose. I've included a close up picture and one that was taken some feet away. If you have any idea what this is please post a comment. We would love to know!

Happy Spring

Today is the first day of Spring and it has been a gorgeous day. I've been taking pictures throughout the week of some things we are doing in the yard. We have lots of winter stuff coming up in the 3 long rows that we have started. Most of them are transplants that we started from seed in January. We did have to replace a few of our plants with store bought ones. We had a hard freeze for several days after we planted and we lost a few. We were not discouraged and took it as a learning experience. Note: It is a good idea to check the weather and not plant during a week of hard freezes next year!

Here's another picture of the garden from the other side. Our potatoes are starting to sprout (hills on the bottom left of picture). We got these seed potatoes from a neighbor who said he grew up on a farm and that we needed to plant them in February to get the best results. They were just potatoes that sprouted in his cabinet. They are all coming up. We had already bought about 10 lbs of organic seed potatoes. We'll have to find another place for them somewhere else in the yard. Onions (started in Feb.) are in middle bed and garlic (started in Nov.) all the way to right of picture.

Daniel has gotten the water barrels hooked together and hoses attached so that water flows easily from 2 barrels down into the garden. Remember these are the barrels we got for free from the local Pepsi plant. Daniel found hardware and attached old hoses to develop this great water system. Sure will make watering easier this year. Last year we syphoned water with hoses or carried it in watering cans to the beds.


Here's the summer stuff we started in early March.
We are excited about our strawberry bed. Last year they really spread out and were doing great. We did not put them in a fence so the dog has been walking right through them. We discovered a few flowers this week. Daniel cleaned out the bed a little and put a small fence on one side to keep Blue from trampling the young plants. Can't wait to see how these turn out. I love that strawberries are perennial.


We planted some sweet peas between potato beds and the fence. We lost some peas in that hard frost I wrote about before. These we started in early March and are coming up quickly.

This is our little herb garden. There is a big holly tree that shades this area for part of the day. We had these rosemary, sage, thyme, mint, lemon balm, and oregano in the front of the house and moved it here over the winter.
Happy gardening everyone. I hope you are enjoying this beautiful spring weather.

For Scott...the best of the lot

Disney Trip March 2009

Mimi and BB took us to Disney World last week during Spring Break. We spent 6 nights at a Disney Resort. Everyday we rode the bus over to one of 4 different parks, including Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios. We rode awesome rides. Ellen was tall enough for them all and was so thrilled about every one! She was never even scared. Arianna would have done them all but she was about 1/2 inch too short for 2 of the big ones. She was very disappointed about that. We watched amazing live shows of Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, and Indiana Jones. Then there were also other live shows with the characters and parades every day. At night we watched the fireworks and lazer light shows. One night we didn't get home from the park until 1am! When we wanted to take a break from the heat during the day, we went back to the hotel for a swim. Another highlight for the girls was the candy and treats. We let them have more sugar this week than they've probably had in their whole lives:) We were at Disney World...might as well go all out! It was a very busy week. So much fun and so much more I could write about. I'll let the pictures tell some more of the story.

If the slide show is moving too fast just hit pause and click through each picture using the arrows.

A family visit

We drove to Charlotte to spend the day with some of the Kruidenier family. Daniel's sister, Liz, was in town from Chicago so we met up at grandaddy William's house. Aunt Anna came over too. We sat inside and watched the wintery weather through the window. William made us some smoothies and a great veggie and tofu stir fry.

They made the smoothie together.

Just the girls--Arianna, Anna, Liz, Ellen.
Liz brought a special treat for the girls--Lindt dark chocolate bunnies and bunny ears. They were delicious. The girls spent most of the afternoon eating those little guys. They were covered in chocolate. And, yes, Arianna is now complaining about a tummy ache!

Covered in Chocolate.
The girls also got their first taste of playing games on the iphone. Liz showed them the racing game and they played it until the iphone battery ran out.
Anna and Ellen had fun taking silly pictures of themselves.

All of us.

We always have a lot of fun together. It was great to see Liz and hang out with the rest of the family. We'll miss you Liz!