Spring has Sprung

I returned from the cruise and all the crocuses had started to bloom. Shortly after, Annalise picked me a lovely bouquet. here are some that survived the 2 year old's harvest.

It was a gorgeous weekend here. Despite the fact that it was the opening weekend of the Mens' NCAA tourney, we spent some time outside. But wait, before I start getting in trouble with Uncle Brandon about being outside, I did manage to log no less than 16 hours of basketball before I caved into the great outdoors and the 65 degree temps.

One of our projects this spring is to put in a raised bed garden. Uncle Kevin put one in last fall and we were inspired. We have discussed and planned for several weeks. Finally, the weather and our schedules agreed and we (well, Jim mostly) got to work. Our bed is inspired by Uncle Kevin's except ours probably isn't tornado rated.

Evie and Jim level the first timbers on a bed of 2 inches of gravel. We decided that if Roger Cook from the This Old House hour was here, there would have been power equipment (maybe a bobcat) and it would have been done in 10 minutes because of the magic of TV.

Jim pounds the rebar in for stability. Evie looks on. Annalise is lying in a lump somewhere. She had a tough day. Woke up thristy and then puked everywhere (we think she was trying to get out of church). She also had problems at the other end all day too. The poor kid spent so much time in the bathroom because we were pumping her full of fluids. To her credit, she didn't have one single accident. By bedtime, she did finally eat some yogart. We hope that tomorrow is better.

Here is the progress. We are the proud owners of a large wood rectangle. The girls were pretending it was a pool (no way!). Now we are waiting for the grass to die (Thanks Monsanto and your miracle vegetation killer) and for the dirt to be shoveled in. Maybe we will have something planted shortly after Easter! Yeah! Now Jim can get working on that leaf blower....