Vegetable gardening

I spent so much time in the last post talking about my flowers, that I figured I should give equal time to the vegetables we have planned. As I said, we are starting some of the seeds inside: red bell peppers, green bell peppers, two kinds of cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and three kinds of tomatoes (beefsteak, orange, and pear). In addition to that we have bought onion sets and potatoes.

We are close to having the second garden bed ready to plant, all that is left is to mix in the chicken manure (stinky stuff). I am not sure what all we will be planting in the beds. Aside from what I have already listed, I think we will set up a trellis for pole beans, plant some more types of peppers, and maybe put in some vining plants like squash, pumpkin, and raspberries. Between all that and my fruit trees, I will be very busy canning and freezing all summer and fall. :) Yay!

Getting my veggies ready.

Over the last couple of weekends Shane and I have built a grow-light and planted seeds for the vegetables that we need to get started indoors. The light system is really neat. It has two fluorescent lights in the correct colors and the height is adjustable, so as the seedlings grow we can raise the fixture with them. The frame is kinda jury-rigged, but we can always build a new one, since we spent about 5 dollars on this one. The whole thing, including the light, timer, and frame was under sixty dollars and we can very easily take it down and store it away for next spring.

We planted the seeds late last week and we already have some sprouts in the cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower. I am eager for the tomatoes, since we will actually be planting tomatoes that I like this year. :) Also, the rhubarb that we planted late last summer is starting to get leaves. This makes me very happy, since it was kinda pathetic last year from being planted so late and I was dreadfully afraid that it would not make it through the winter. Hooray for being wrong!

More of my bulbs are blooming now, including 1 very cheerful daffodil. Its siblings are coming along with some fat little buds, but it is the only one to open so far. Also, the hyacinths are putting out their little stalks full of buds and I am eager to see the flowers start to open. The sad part about bulbs is that they do not last forever. The aconite and snow drops are nearly all faded now and the crocus are starting to get droopy. I will survive that though, since we planned the bed to bloom in waves, the daffodils and hyacinths will replace the crocus and then the tulips and more daffodils will replace them. We should have bulbs blooming in the front bed until at least early May. By then, my iris bed should be getting its act together and the roses will be getting ready to bloom. The roses will last till frost, as will the dahlias we will be ordering this weekend. To top it off, the iris bulbs we bought are rebloomers, which means that most of them should bloom again in August or September. !!!!! Aren't flowers the best?

The First Day of Spring

(yes, I know it's blurry)

Today is finally the first day of spring. Of course that means it is cloudy and may rain, but I am okay with that because the rain will help my flowers and the clouds keep the glare out of my eyes while I am driving. :)

In honor of the happiness that spring brings me, I wanted to say Happy Spring! and show you some more of my pretty bulbs. Enjoy!

Pictures from Schweitzer

Some pictures from our ski trip to Schweitzer in January.

Shane and his dad at the village.

Gorgeous frozen waterfall near Hope.

A view of the ski resort from our condo in Hope.

I have to admit that I had fun trying to ski. I was not very good, and it was crazy cold and snowy that day, but my instructor was great and by the end of the hour and half I was starting to really catch on. He said I was doing really well. I am just afraid that I won't remember much if I try it again next winter. We'll see. :)

The condo was great, with lots of space, and we had tons of fun hanging out and cooking and playing games and looking at the view across the lake. The lights on the mountain at night were beautiful. The lake was great and the town was great. Tons of fun.

Flowers!

There are flowers blooming in my garden!!! I am so pleased. They started opening late last week and are so pretty. Only the earliest bulbs are blooming right now, but they are so nice. We have Iris reticulata, early snowdrops, aconite, and snow crocus. The hyacinths and tulips are poking through the ground and should be the next things to bloom, along with more varieties of snowdrop and crocus. Hooray!

Last weekend we got a bunch of pruning done on our fruit trees and took a big limb off of one of the sycamores. Once we get those branches all cleaned up we will go get some dirt for the second vegetable bed and get started planning and planting those. So far we only have onion sets to plant, but I keep reminding myself that it is very early. :)

I am ready for spring...can you tell?

Game Night and Cruising

Game Night was great this weekend. We got eight people together and played a rousing game of Munchkin. Good times were had by all. Saturday I did a whole lot of not much at all, which was great. It is nice to actually be able to relax on the weekend. :)

Today I got my chores and errands done and Shane worked on the yard. When we finished with all that we drove over to the mall and went to the travel agents to get some information on a cruise.

We have been talking about going on a cruise this fall for our fifth wedding anniversary. I am very excited about it, but it is proving to be somewhat difficult to make some of the decision. We have about nine cruises to pick from that fit our time and price range that are going to Alaska. The good and the bad is that they all go to different places and none of them go to all the places we think would be neat to see. So, we have to decided which would be the best combination at the best price with the best excursions. So so so difficult. I tried to convince Shane that he should just pick one for us, but he is making me think about it too...meany. My life can be so difficult sometimes.

In other news, we got some art prints from the Rad-Con art show framed and picked them up yesterday. They look so great. We picked some really nice frames and they worked out really well. We even hung them up...yay us. :)

Also, I have decided that I need to get back onto my diet soon, at least within a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, I decided that after I went grocery shopping and got a bunch of things that are not South Beach Diet approved. So, it is going to have to wait a week or two until I clean out the fridge and cupboards. I refuse to throw away food. Some stuff can just be boxed up and put away until it is allowed again, but not everything. I really like South Beach since it works really well for me, but it is hard to give up the bread and pasta and sweet stuff. The first week is hell. Sigh. However, I remember how well I was doing last summer when I stuck to it for a couple months. I lost about 15 pounds and was really looking good. Unfortunately I got lazy and haven't been sticking to the rules so I have gained back about five. I was thinking it would be really great to lose about 30 pounds before this fall and the cruise. Shane promised me last year that if I stuck with the diet and lost all the weight I want to lose, he would buy me a bunch of new clothes. It would be super to have a new wardrobe to go cruising in.

I am going to go and look at brochures since I have lots of deciding to do about the cruise. I will keep you posted and hopefully make some decisions soon so we can get this all set and booked. Wish me luck.