Frog ponds...

My husband is an amazing man.  He does his best to make me happy.  This weekend was no different.  He had a friend make me a frog pond.

 Why would I need a frog pond you may ask.  When we first moved here the road past our cabin was a muddy clay mess.  People were constantly getting stuck.  The thing is the mud puddles and giant mud holes served a purpose.  The tree frogs were everywhere and laid their eggs in the puddles.  You cannot imagine the clouds of blue and yellow skipper butterflies drinking from the wet clay.  In the fall, I would see as many as 50 robins, blue jays, and flickers bathing in the puddles.

Then came 'progress'.  Someone came along and 'improved' the road.  No more giant mud hole and no more little puddles.  No more butterflies, fewer and fewer tree frogs, and I haven't seen a bird wiggling in a puddle forever.  It broke my heart.  My husband needed some work done so he asked the contractor to dig me a frog pond.  I'm so happy.  I can't wait for it to rain. If it doesn't rain, I'll haul water.  I hope it works. I heard a frog across the road from the pond yesterday.  Hopefully, he was scoping it out.

My orchard looks great.  The cherries, apples, crabapples, Saskatoon berries, Nanking cherries, and currents are all blooming.  The humm of the honeybees is so beautiful.   The yellow blooms looked great with the yellow dandelions.  I picked them right after for wine.

My daffodils are fabulous.  I love flowers in bloom.  It seems like spring has taken forever, but it is finally here.

I'm getting a lot of little projects done this weekend.  Thankfully the weather is cooperating.  What are you doing for Memorial Day weekend?  Did you travel?  Stay home and work on projects?  Or enjoy time with family?  Whatever you do, I hope it was wonderful.

Busy busy...

It has been a busy week. We had company most of the week.  Friends came out to turkey hunt.  I took their wives on tours of the hills.  We had a lot of fun.

I went exploring around our property today.  There are some old beaver dams behind our land.  It is always so peaceful there.

The pasque flowers were in full bloom.  They looked fabulous.

My bee hives didn't make it through the winter.  I'm pretty bummed about it.  I wonder if the bee keeper will have replacements.  So far all I've seen this spring is this one bumblebee.  He is going to be busy.

I planted my seedlings outside on Friday.  Everything looked so good.  Then an hour later we were hit by 'random showers."

We will see if they pull through.    

 It has been great bird watching around here.  Every morning at 6:00 am the turkeys paraded through the yard.

I had the trifecta of grosbeaks.  I was able to get photos of the rose breasted and evening grosbeaks. I also has a black headed grosbeak.

I finished my nephew's quilt tonight.  Too dark for photos.  I'll snap a few tomorrow.  It was a busy week filled with many beautiful things.

What are you seeing in your neck of the woods?  

The Tomato Taj Mahal

 I planted the Tomato Taj Mahal yesterday.  I transplanted the tomatoes, peppers, luffas, basils, and okra.  Then I planted carrots, peas, spinach, lettuce, and bok choy.

I love my square foot seed template.  I just put it down and stand on it.  It works like a charm.

I like cherry tomatoes and last year the purple bumblebee tomatoes were exactly what I wanted.  My favorite thing to do with tomatoes is quarter them, roast them, and enjoy them on pizza.  I also planted a couple of Sasha Atlas for fresh eating.  

I went back to the forks and corks method of labeling my carrots and lettuce.  I'm trying to be scientific about which carrots are the best.  We'll see how that goes.  I'm known for a lot of things.  Being scientific has never been one of them.

I'm afraid I may have to put a little heater in the greenhouse as today it has rained and the temperature has dropped. As long as it doesn't snow I am happy.

Do you have anything planted yet?  What are you veggie garden go to plants?