Second Story Photo Shoot

The weather is starting to heat up again . . .

. . . so it's time for Joy to climb up onto the roof

and put the cover back on our skylight.

Joy has an odd fascination with clambering around on our roof,

and as usual, she asked me to take pictures of her

perching on the tallest, most precarious parts of our house.

Mom: I'll take a few quick photos,

then come down immediately before you get hurt!

Teenage Daughter: OK, just a minute.  Let me fix my hair,

and get my pose just right.

Teenage Daughter: All right, I'm ready.  

After this shot, can we take some more pictures 

over there by the chimney?

Mom: No. Come down before you break something.

Teenage Daughter: (Exasperated sigh.)

A Revolutionary Cemetery

Memorial Day is coming up,

so my co-leader and I thought it would be nice

to take the boys in our church activity group . . .

. . . to a local cemetery

to take pictures for Billion Graves.

This little cemetery is the resting place

of dozens of Revolutionary War veterans.

I love the idea of memorializing them and their families, 

and helping their descendants learn about them.

Many of the headstones are weathered and overgrown with lichen,

so we'll need to type the inscriptions into the website 

in order for the photos to be useful to researchers who can't squint at the stones in person.

Sometimes doing family history is a labor of love.

New Bed, New Berries

When we bought our house,

it came with a (mint-infested) raised bed out back under the bay window.

I appreciated the free garden plot,

but the wood was starting to fall apart in places . . .

. . . so we recently built a new bed in its place, and lasagna-mulched the plot

with things like chicken shavings, fallen leaves from the woods,

and of course, part of the free mulch mountain in our front yard.

Now that we're safely past our area's last spring frost date,

I bought some tomatoes and zucchini plants from a nearby farm,

and we'll see how they do in our upgraded bed.

As soon as I finished planting veggies out back,

I turned my attention to the overgrown "berry patch" out front.

Some of the raspberry plants our piano teacher gave us

have soldiered along through drought and deluge,

but are in danger of being overrun by things like this Choke Weed 

(I don't know its real name; I just know it's a royal pain to remove).

I spent hours this week yanking out weeds

(which the chickens are now happily composting for us) . . .

. . . then I planted another blueberry bush by the raspberries . . .

. . . and put a couple honeyberry bushes next to our house.

I've been meaning to yank out our hydrangeas for a while,

and I figured I might as well replace them with something

that makes tasty fruit.

Honeyberries produce best if you plant more than one variety,

and after a bit of research on Ye Olde Internet,

I settled on "Aurora" and "Blue Banana,"

which reportedly grow well together and have great flavor.

Honeyberry fruit tastes like a combination of blueberry and blackberry,

and one of our bushes actually came with a little berry on it,

so I can personally attest that their sweet-tart fruit is very good.

Hopefully we can get them established this spring,

and enjoy some yummy fruit in a year or two.

Prom Again

This afternoon . . .

. . . Joy got all dressed up again . . .

. . . to go to a second prom with some friends.

She debated whether to go with a date,

and ultimately decided that she'd prefer to just

hang out and socialize this time (in a spiffy suit).

I Think Those Are Mine

The weather is warming up,

and I'm ready to ditch my jeans for capris,

but I haven't been able to find them anywhere this week.

I searched everywhere they could possibly be, with no luck.

Then, when Todd arrived home from school today,

I noticed that his pants looked a little . . . baggy.

The last time our family separated the laundry,

someone must have assumed my denim capris were Todd's jeans.

I guess they are about the right length for him.

Hey, Todd--your mom wants her pants back!

Nurturing Small Things

There's a cynical Mother's Day joke

that says moms only get one holiday each year,

and they have to work that day too.

Actually, Mother's Day has been pretty good the last few years.

My family cooks dinner so I don't have to,

and the men at church serve brunch to all of the women

while we listen to a nice message during Sunday school.

I also came home today with some chocolate . . . 

. . . and a golden sage plant . . .

. . . which I planted next to some rosemary

that looks a little worse for the wear after this past winter.

This year, I'll try cutting it back at the end of autumn

to help it weather the cold months better.

Because that's what moms do--

we nurture things that need love, and try to learn from our mistakes.

OK, kids.  Now play nice with the irises!

One last little heartwarming Mother's Day gift

was this cute painted rock Anna gave to me.

(I don't know who the artist was; Anna just said they wanted their rock 

to go to someone who would enjoy it.)

I think I'll put it beside the oregano near our kitchen window,

so I can see it every time I look out at my little bucket garden.

Thanks, Anna!

Bouncing with Friends

Our family agreed that today was a nice day . . .

. . . to head to the temple . . .

. . . for a little picnic on the lawn.

While we were there, we bumped into our friends Frank and Autumn . . .

. . . who decided to come over and help us set up our trampoline.

The air is still a little chilly, but we're pretty sure that snowy weather is done for a while,

so it's time to get bouncing again!

Once the trampoline was all set up,

our friends helped us test it to make sure everything was in working order . . .

. . . then we pulled out our bows and targets to practice archery together.

Ah, the delights of spring!