a mess in the backyard

The saga of the backyard fence began, unbeknownst to us, back when we moved into this house nearly 10 years ago. One of the appeals of this neighborhood property was the fact that our backyard shared a property line with a farm full of cute animals, mostly cows at that point. We enjoyed watching the cows as they grazed and eventually gave birth and raised baby calves. They ate everything in sight and would even happily eat our grass, which we often dumped over the fence to them.

Eventually, the cows were exchanged for horses and they still ate a good bit of the brush from around the property, although we did have some blackberries that came up along the fence line. We were actually thrilled about the blackberries. Who doesn't love free food, especially if it's just growing in your backyard!

Eventually though, the farmer passed away and the animals left. With no one to pay much attention, the forest and field ran wild and started bleeding through the fence and into our yard. Even many of the blackberries were crowded out by the pokeweed and dozens of small trees that sprouted up here.

The brush and vines became so thick that we couldn't even see much of the farm unless we were upstairs. Eventually even poison ivy became part of the mix and to top it off, the smallish trees were becoming larger trees and started shading my garden!

Clearly, we needed to get a handle on things before our garden area was completely shaded and overgrown.

Sunday morning, a couple of nice fellows made short work of this area. I was very impressed. We did decide to keep 2 trees back there, a wild cherry tree and a pine tree. Neither are a shade threat to the garden but will shade the part of the yard where the kids play most.

We still have a great deal of work to do along the fence as there are numerous twigs and debris left over from the removal. There is even still some poison ivy hanging around back there. We're hopeful that the coming rain over the next 2 days will wash some of the residual oils away so we can finish pulling up the roots.

There are also still hundreds of blackberry canes back there but most are at least a foot from the fence. Hopefully we can do a better job, with the help of a brush blade for our weed whacker, of keeping the field in it's place.

Now...let the gardening season begin!

a happy Easter

Often, the week of Easter is busy for us. It's typically the week that Paulie and Philip have spring break. We often travel. I forget during the busy times just how valuable it is to have a low-key Easter, full of the kind of busyness we enjoy most: making hot cross buns, church services, knitting bunny cubes, dyeing eggs, hunting eggs in our own backyard. With the number of snow days we experienced here in NC this year, the boys' spring break was shortened. We had a bit of a staycation instead, which afforded us the kind of Easter holiday that we all enjoy immensely. (The 5th bunny cube is NOT an announcement, as I've been asked, but a bunny for Paulie's and Philip's baby sister at their mom's house.)

Yarn Along

I haven't participated in Yarn Along for a couple of weeks largely because I haven't done much knitting. Easter is coming soon though, and I found these cute little bunny cubes that are a fairly quick knit (made with scraps, no less!) to add to the kids' Easter baskets. I haven't gotten quite as far as I hoped this week, but I'm sure I can finish the last couple before Easter.

I also just started reading Empty Mansions, which has been on my library list for quite some time. I was fascinated with the story of Huguette Clark when it hit the news a few years ago. Thus far, the book is quite interesting with history of her family and many details of happenings in the world at that time.

The lone finished bunny cube! He needs to start multiplying soon!

spring break at the farm

Elizabeth and Finn were on spring break last week. (Unfortunately, Paul and Philip lost part of their spring break with the snow days earlier this year, and the rest of their break is the week prior to Easter.) Since I had just the 2 of them at home for the week, we decided to head down to visit friends in SC who have a small homestead with chickens and goats. Farm animals, fresh air, and sunshine seem like a pretty great way to spend a few days of spring break! The kids played with friends, pulled and dried wild onions, ran in the sunshine, dragged the wagon all over the homestead, fed the chickens and goats, helped trim goat hooves, watered their burgeoning gardens, and largely avoided Steve, the angry rooster.

making lemons into lemonade

The ice storm late last week left many in our area without power, including 18 of the schools in the district where Paulie and Philip attend school. So many schools without power meant that they ended up with another snow day yesterday, despite the fact that the temperatures were near 70 degrees. When Paulie heard that they had another snow day, he knew that this would essentially take away his last day of spring break. That's right; they've had so many snow/ice days this year, they won't really have another break between now and the end of the school year. Elizabeth and Finn had an already scheduled teacher work day. I came up with a plan for a single day of spring break fun. We headed on a road trip to Charlotte to the Discovery Place. We truly made it into a huge one-day spring break event. We watched Hubble on IMAX, explored every last exhibit, watched a stage show about matter (including liquid hydrogen and fire!), watched a brief 3D documentary on King Penguins in South Georgia, and petted both a Bearded Dragon and a Red-footed Tortoise named Herbie. In all, I think it turned out to be a lovely spring break day. And I'm happy to see that my 13- and 14-year-olds still find it fun to just play all day.

signs of spring

Despite the fact that we had 2 separate snow/ice events in the last week that caused school closings and many folks in our area to lose power for several days, the signs of spring's imminence abounded this weekend. As I restocked our groceries on Saturday, I noticed that our local Whole Foods had a special weekend sale on berry bushes. Although it felt strange to think of planting raspberries when most of our yard was still covered in ice, I brought 3 bushes home anyway. With the 60 degree temperatures this weekend, the ground was soggy and soft, perfect for planting a few shrubs.

In addition to the raspberry bushes, I noticed that the peach seedlings which Elizabeth rescued from the compost last spring, had not only survived the winter, but they had buds just beginning to shoot forth. It's amazing that these seedlings not only grew over a foot last summer, but also had the fortitude to survive the coldest winter we've seen in several years.

We decided they must be of hardy stock. We took a chance on them and transferred them from the pots into the ground. We mixed them with manure and potting soil and heavily mulched them. Wouldn't it be amazing if we were ever able to harvest peaches from those little seedlings rescued from the compost?

In addition to the planting, we just generally enjoyed the beautiful weather. The kids played outside for several hours, riding bikes, getting muddy. Ahh...spring! We know it's a bit early to think you're here to stay, but we'll enjoy the company while you visit.