Monday, April 28, 2014

Gardening Extravaganza

I don't meant to brag, but, can your husband do this?

Design and construction by Adam Holt LLC.

Adam has been selflessly putting off riding his bike to get our garden into working order.  Living in the tricky Central Oregon climate, it was necessary to have the majority of our beds covered. Even with the covering, our poor little tomatoes (which we impatiently planted too soon apparently) were toast. Oh well, we live and learn!

Our cold weather crops are also protected from all the wildlife that roam our yard in the wee hours. It is a cold frame made from chicken wire. Each of these has handy handles to open the tops for easy access. The two end ones have hinges, as you can see one opened in the above pic.



View from the back of the garage

Cold weather bed.

Another open shot angle
From further back in the yard

Now, you will notice the dirt paths lined with rocks above and below in these pictures. I would like to claim a little responsibility for clearing those paths, hauling most of those rocks. It is very rough, we are aware, but we have a nice idea of what we want this little section of our back yard to look like. You can't see it well, but there is a rock circle in the middle -- that is hopefully a future fire pit. 


Rudimentary fire pit and circle

Yes, a bobcat and some other big heavy machines could make fast and easy work of all this, but that is not our style. Stay tuned for this potentially long summer project!

Next up on the list: Stairs leading to the back....

Yikes! My head hurts trying to help with this. 


Monday, April 21, 2014

Hoppy Easter!

You know, I've never really realized it before, but I really enjoy celebrating Easter. There's so much to be happy about!

We were super busy the whole weekend, as well as on Easter Day. Adam and I are working HARD trying to fix up our backyard. Talk about hard, yet satisfying work. I think the end result, when we finally get there, will be awesome. Another day, another blog....

We began the day discovering the Easter Bunny's treasures......










We followed that up with a nice spring hike to check out the first wildflowers to bloom in Shevlin Park: Sand Lillies. 

Then, we prepared for our Easter festivities: brunch and egg hunt at our neighbors and dinner and egg  hunt at our friends. In between all that, trying to figure out how to Skype and chat with family way back in Missouri. We are blessed. 

Stinker trying to avoid my camera



The kids table. So cute.

Noella is always in heaven with these sweet big girls around.




Apparently, I was the only one having fun the fake mustaches that were found in some eggs....

Hattie decided it would be fun too.....

She's undoubtedly begging me for "just one more piece of candy?"

Noella, joining in. 

We tried!

Location and egg hunt #2




We have full on adventure egg hunts: bouldering to find her egg.









Soooooooo much fun! Great weather, great friends, great family. Happy Easter everybody!