Kevin's Feeling Better...

All last week, Kevin was sick with a flu

he picked up on the way home from France.

With a fever, cough, and aches, he wasn't doing much of anything

except resting--and fretting that he wasn't

able to get the garage siding done while the weather was so nice.

As you can see, he's feeling better, though he's still not 100%.  

He used the siding from up above to repair the damaged spots down below

(and found a chuck of metal pipe embedded in the wood behind one of the holes.)

Then, up went the new shakes. 

Fortunately, Kevin remembered to put on his hat

to shield his neck from sunburn. 

Too bad he forgot about the backs of his calves in this all-day project.

He's going to have hurting legs tomorrow morning,

from sunburn AND the countless times climbing up and back down,

and having to lean into the ladder for balance.

I LOVE the end result of all his labor!

***

And now all is repaired from the mail box incident...

--A bit of adversity that brought about some good things.

Several neighbors stopped by to comment on how nice

everything looks, and one (he's an attorney that works for

the county), said that it looks like all the kids will plead

guilty and there won't be a trial.

I hope the judge has a lot of wisdom to sort out how

best to determine if they learned their lesson and won't ever do anything like this again.

Early May Happenings

Recently, Elley had this artwork displayed at the high school. 

She is in the beginning drawing art class.

Then, last Friday evening we were gathered in the living room for scripture reading when we noticed, out the window, that someone was using our fence as a backdrop.  It was our neighbor, Hunter, and his date for the 9th grade dance.

.

I'm glad others appreciate our work!

On Monday this week, I went to the Amana colonies with some friends.

It's always fun to see the antiques, the quilt shops and the fudge store.  There are tons of things to tempt you to buy!  When I look at that stuff, I think that it looks nice--for someone else.  I don't want more "stuff".

  So, what did I come home with?

Some Haribo candy and two purple african daisies (one is a taller than the other).

Now they are already planted in the triangle garden--the shorter daisy in front of the birdbath and the taller one behind.  They will look great with the pink speedwell!

Goodbye old door, Hello New!

Goodbye, 10-year-old door, with the holes in it from the mailbox blast. 

Hello, new!

We changed the window style--and it is a better insulated door. 

It's supposed to qualify for an energy credit on next year's taxes.

We also have the shakes for the gable, but will probably wait to put it up when we do the north side of the house (with its hail damage).

My own environmental disaster...

Okay, for a bit of perspective, tt's not an erupting volcano.

Or an oil slick.

It's nothing that major, but it still caused me to mourn--it got down to 27 degrees yesterday morning (on Mother's Day!). 

I know, it is still May and technically, the last-frost-date is May 15, so of course it is possible.  It's just that all the plants were at least 2 weeks ahead of schedule.  To them, it felt like it was AFTER May 15.

All week long the cold snap had been forecast--I kept hoping they were wrong.

But I didn't plant my tomatoes or other bedding plants.  I kept them safe.

Then Saturday night, I gathered up every tarp, bucket, and sheet I could find and began covering things up.

It's kind of tricky when the plants are tall. 

How do you cover them without doing more damage than the frost did? 

Then at 5:30 a.m. yesterday, I dressed in winter coat and boots, and went out to spray everything with water. 

I don't know why that works, but my mother used to do it to save our vegetable garden, and it was written about in "Farmer Boy", from the Little House series.  So it must be a true principle!

 (I came after an hour and had some hot chocolate.  About that time, Alice came into the kitchen to fix a mother's day breakfast for me.  She had arisen  a half hour early to surprise me.  I was sad to have spoiled her plan!)

When I checked awhile later, the water droplets had frozen.

And things looked so sad.  So droopy.  So frozen.

But there is hope.  The peony bush, above, with frozen droplets.

And the bush, below, later in the day.  The heads were standing up again! 

I had spent an hour, dragging hoses around, trying my best to save things, besides the hour it took to cover things up, and the hour it took this morning to fold up the tarps.  I still have to wash all the sheets.

 

My footprints through the frosty grass left a visible path. 

And today, that path is still visible with the grass darkened on every foot fall.

The blooming strawberries look alright.

Most of the potatoes survived, and the peas look fine.

My hostas don't look so good--kind of like frozen lettuce leaves.

Still the "disaster" could have been so much worse!

May Birthdays

I just love the month of May: birthdays, Mother's Day, fresh spring flowers and green grass after the monochromatic colors of winter.

First came Kevin's birthday.  He was born in '55, and he turned 55.  We are both finding it very difficult to reconcile our chronological age with our interior age. 

Fortunately, we FEEL younger.  (Wouldn't it be terrible to feel older than you really were?)  And true to every cliche, he received gifts of socks and ties (but he hasn't had a new tie in a couple of years.  It was time!) 

Then, yesterday, Alice became a teenager.  This was just a technicality. She's been a teenager for a year or two.

   

She had to share Mother's Day with me, so I got the morning half of the day (and opened my gifts and cards), and she got the afternoon half of the day (and then opened her gifts, etc.). 

We even had another family come over for cake and homemade ice cream in the evening.

She was thrilled to receive a freshwater pearl necklace & earrings; a beautifully embroidered pillow case, some money, and a gift certificate for a manicure.

It was a great day!

Busy springtime...

It has been pretty windy lately, so...

to keep my gazebo in good shape, I took off the tarp. 

It took 5 minutes. 

And saved having to mend tears, or even replace it. 

***

Then, last week a friend reminded me that April was the month that wood mulch and compost were free at the Cedar Falls yard waste location, and it was the end of the month!

So we each got our Honda Odyssey ready.  Backseat folded down.

Protective tarp laid.  I even had some large cardboard pieces that I put down to protect the tarp from tearing.  Then I gathered up every container I could think of (that I could still hoist!).

We made 3 trips for wood mulch and compost.  Some went to Sharon's house to finish out the plan we'd had for putting in no-maintenance hostas under her front trees where the grass was sparse (and it looks beautiful--using hostas from our yards that needed to be thinned).

I couldn't believe how dark brown and rich the compost was,  They have another free month in October, and we're going to borrow a pickup truck and get enough for the vegetable garden!

***

In Idaho, irises bloom in June, even into early July.

Here in Iowa this year, they began blooming the last week of April!

The spring has been so lovely!  All my flowers look healthy and vibrant.

And speaking of vibrant...(girls)...

 Elizabeth was asked to take the picture of the girls at the Beehive Conference held last Saturday.  It is an annual stake activity of workshops (and lunch) for the Beehive girls--to give them a taste of what to look forward to when they turn 14 and get to go to the youth activities.   Elley has been working on a school project with photography, and a professional in the ward has been mentoring her and has lent her a really nice camera for the duration.  The pro was originally asked, but since it is her profession she passed this opportunity to Elley.  E. wasn't very comfortable with it--she hasn't taken pictures of groups; she has experimented mostly with nighttime flash.

But she did her best.

Then the memory card was taken to Walgreens to get prints for the girls,

and... the pictures weren't on it.

So we (I'm really beginning to wish that Elley was 16 and could drive herself!!) went back to the church and Elley used the camera she was most familiar with, took the pictures, got the prints and got them back before the end of the activity.

All's well that ends well, right?