firstfruits & chocolate.

Er, more like first veggies from our garden... Three Gypsy peppers, and a green pepper! Horray!

Our jack-be-little-pumpkin, cucumber, and butternut squash plants are taking off as well... I can't wait until those puppies start producing.

On another note, how cute are these plates?

Sweet Leez gave these to me for my birthday, and they are perfect to hold an afternoon snack such as this:

Um, yum. Melted dark chocolate drizzled over almonds. Can't get much easier than that... I laid wax paper on a cookie sheet, spread out some almonds, then poured the chocolate over them and put them in the fridge to harden. Then I broke it up into little pieces, brittle-style.  They now reside in the freezer--because I love my chocolate frozen.

Speaking of, it's not too sweet. I used some leftover Ghiradelli chips vs. Nestle chips, which I think might be too sweet for this... Although some peanut butter chips mixed in with the chocolate would probs be pretty good, hmmm... and the almonds are nice and crunchy. Awesome. Next time, I'd like to roast the almonds first. Note to self for a holiday treat/gift idea...

ms. lavender.

I downloaded the free RetroCam app onto my phone yesterday (thanks for the rec, Mattea!)... Can we say obsessed much?! I've been taking pictures of everything.

So to add a little vintage charm to an otherwise normal July morning, let me tell you a little bit about our lavender plant on the side of the house:

Dex and bees are really the only visitors on a daily basis; she's sadly ignored most of the time. She depends on rain for water as I'm usually too lazy to stretch the hose all the way to this side of the house, and too pregnant to lug a watering can over yonder. For this reason (or maybe another), a good chunk of her has withered away...and yet, she still blooms, and is even spreading down the wall.  Way to hang in there, Lav!

Lav reminds me of our honeymoon in Port Angeles, Washington. Sequim is nearby, which is the lavender capital of the US--they have an annual lavender festival every July, which I would love to go to someday. We visited so many little herb farms and shops while we were out there... such a quaint and peaceful place. Ahh.

Liv & I cut some flowers this morning...

We'll keep em' on our kitchen table until they begin to wilt, then we'll hang them for a day or so to dry so we can collect the buds.

...and I'm hoping to fill up this jar, eventually. This little batch is from earlier this week.

I think this is going to be a new summer favorite for us to do! How fun to come across a tradition in the making on a whim. Anyway, the jar smells incredible. I'd like to use the dried buds for homemade lavender sugar, or maybe lavender tea bread. Yum. You'll have to stop by for tea and try some. :)

a good morning.

R had to get up a little earlier this morning for work, so I decided to get up with him instead of lounging around with Liv in our jammies (what our mornings usually consist of!).  Normally she wakes up around 7 or 7:30; today she chose 6AM. I decided to let her talk and play in her crib while I squeezed in a little me-time with my Bible and a cup of tea in the backyard.

Two neighbors catty-corner to us were also up early, and they greeted each other good morning while one worked in her garden and the other hung some laundry, their white hair glowing in the morning sun. I don't think either of them saw me, and it was nice to just be in my own space and see them in theirs. It felt so... 1950s-ish...and midwestern. Quiet. Peaceful.

Gotta love how lovely morning light is...

...and this is the kind of morning picture I don't mind taking :)

A quick update on the garden: Things are thriving! Our yellow pear, and two big beef tomato plants are growing like weeds...

And our pepper plants are doing well too. I thought I had lost all of them after our last snow. What a relief!

And the squash and cucumbers are working on their first pair of true leaves. Can't wait to see these puppies in another couple of months! I thinned them after taking this picture down to two each... Hope they have enough room.

As for the rest of today, I'm hoping to finish organizing our desk and moving some things out of little Bug's room that won't belong come November.  I'm sure Liv will want to play outside--it's the only thing she's wanted to do the last couple of days!  The rest of the weekend will be spent catching up on housework, yardwork, maybe a movie. What are your weekend plans? Any good summer movie recommendations?

hints of summer

We spent the weekend outdoors and semi-camping, going up to Guanella Pass for a day with Livi and Dex. It was beautiful! And it was Liv's first time in the mountains... she loved it. Especially since Rachel, Julie's little girl, was there to greet her as soon as her little feet hit the ground. She led Liv around by the hand most of the day, and helped her adjust. I brought three sets of clothes "just in case," and didn't have to change her once--I thought she'd get a lot dirtier! I guess I should just be thankful it wasn't muddy.

And how cute are these little chairs? Yup, Liv was livin' it up.

It's supposed to reach into the 90s this week (yikes), and the onset of heat has been a welcome change... mostly because my plants aren't cowering in fear of hail or snow anymore, but are actually thriving.

 Lavender and Rosemary

 Vinca, around our tree in front (I love the dual shades of purple!)

 Mini-irises near the front door

 These are beautiful, but at first I found them kind of odd... I didn't realize they'd be so "mini!" They remind me of sparklers, or firecrakers.

My biggest victory yet this year in the garden: I DIDN'T KILL MY IRISES! I was so worried I'd ruined them when I transplanted them, but one has bloomed, and there are more blooms growing... they should be full &  lovely next summer once they've completely acclimated. Horray hurrah!

Prism Sunshine petunias, my favorite windowbox flower :)

And some cheerful daisies, by the front gate. I threw seeds out two years ago in the fall and have been happy to see them thrive since.

In other plant news, I'm waiting to see if my tomatoes survived the wind and cold of last week; I have three pepper plants I just put out yesterday, and I have some daylily's and snapdragons working their way to bloom. I can't wait. I'm excited to spend lots of time outside this year (as much as baby #2 will tolerate!) and show Liv how to pull weeds and water plants. Good times.

the beginning.

We are trying a few new things this year in our yard...including bringing back the grass Dex killed (hopefully), and starting up some raised beds. I FINALLY moved our yellow irises--they were originally behind where the raised bed is now, so I moved them to the right up on this odd semi-hill we have where there was nada. I hope they thrive there! They were so multiplied and ready to be split; we gave some to Leez and Ryan this last weekend as we had too many. (A nice problem to have!) PS. Their new little girl Emma is adorable, and big brother Mason is sweet and had fun cracking Livvy up during our visit! Gotta love that elvish laughter. :)

Raul, hard at work, leveling the beds...

Liv, hard at play, enjoying the afternoon...

Me, wishing I hadn't worn my favorite flip flops to do the dirty work. :)

Some poor before photos below... So, do you see where the dead white grass stuff is against the fence? Those are where the irises were initially. Note to self: winterize the yard this year... no fun trying to tackle it in spring...boo.

The rope and stakes you see above are meant to keep Dex off the grass in certain areas, which has actually been working so far.

We're hoping to get some soil this weekend and begin planting come May... fingers crossed!

snapshots of summer

Don't you love sun tea? Even though our AC is broken, I'm loving the sunshine... This brew is a mix of regular black Lipton tea along with a bag of mint green tea. All it needs is some ice cubes and a sprig of mint. I was inspired by this post I saw the other day...yum.

Okay. So remember my last post, about the mystery vine? After some research, I found that it's called Virginia Creeper, and is a fast-growing vine that is incredibly beautiful in the fall, as shown here. I was tempted to grow it up a trellis, but the girlie side of me won out--I kept thinking about it overtaking the fence, then the house, and being filled with all sorts of creepy crawlies... (And I call myself an aspiring gardener. I know, I know, I need to get over the bug thing...)

It sounds like it's one of those things where if you commit to it, you commit to it. and I don't think I'd like to commit just yet. So after reading post after post, I went outside and pulled it up--it had already began creeping under the fence into the neighbors yard, so I'm glad I grabbed it when I did.

After cleaning everything up, I looked at the bed for awhile, a la Linus. "It's not such a bad area," I told Dex, and decided I'd like to transform it into a cutting garden for next year. Once that thought popped into my head, I became super excited I stumbled back here in the first place. So now the research begins for summer perennials I can plant this fall. I have literally hopped foot to foot at the idea--how fun will that be??

Other things we're growing this year:

From front to back:

-Mixed wildflowers

-Strawberries

-Basil (boxwood and sweet)

-Another mystery plant...woohoo! (seeds I received from my mother-in-law last year)

-Serrano peppers
-Acorn squash (not pictured)

-Mint (not pictured)

-And a few other seedlings--chives, lavender, anise, & basil--who have yet to emerge.

It will hopefully be a leafy season indeed, and I wish the same for you. :)

mystery plant

Dex, Livvy and I have been spending lots of time outside this week, planting and weeding and enjoying some sunshine and birdsongs. (Note: Not enjoying the neighbor's yappy dogs who like to dig holes and escape into our yard, but that's another story...)

Yesterday, I remembered a little forgotten, makeshift garden tucked behind a bush on the north side of our house, and went to check it out. We've never grown anything in there, and I'm curious about what previous owners have grown as it's in the least sunniest spot--not very ideal for gardening.

I didn't find much, except this plant. It looks somewhat healthy and interesting--no flowers at this point, just leaves. It's some sort of vine--I picked up a few leaves and they had attached themselves to some of the rocks. I'm thinking about training it up a trellis, but I'd like to know what it is first--I don't want to display/propagate a weed! Any ideas?

Dex wants to know, too...

white on white

The Paperwhites bloom away as snow falls this week... It is so cold and windy outside!

I'm slowly catching Spring Fever.

vermillion, but not

The little bulbs I planted last Tuesday are thriving, to my surprise--I didn't think they would shoot up so quickly. The pop of green on the kitchen windowsill is quite welcome against the gray backdrop of the sky.

I named this post "vermillion" originally because I thought there was a shade of green with that name...It sounds so wonderfully old fashioned. To be sure, I looked it up, and I was thoroughly surprised. It means "a vivid reddish-orange color." Wha...? Why does it sound so green to me?


Ah well. Soon, the paperwhites will be blooming, and all I'll think about is what flowers and veggies I'd like to plant this year. Tomatoes, for sure, and maybe some sort of pepper. I hear Anaheim peppers grow well here. January might be too early to plant seedlings in our growing season--April 1st supposedly is a good time to begin, indoors of course--but it's nice to conjure up the image of plants in this dreary, desolate month.

Besides dreaming of little seedlings, here's a peek at what I'm currently working on:

Once I seam it & send it, I will reveal it in its entirety. Till then, be well!