Garden Extravaganza 2009- The Beginning!

Here's the "Before" shots of the backyard. "After" shots to come gradually as I make progress!

Our yard has been very neglected for a long time and allowed to get way too overgrown. It was bad when we bought it and between deployments, floods, marriage, pregnancy, and baby...well, you can see it hasn't been a high priority. No more!

The simple things...

Why do we buy hundreds (thousands?) of dollars' worth of toys?

Garden Extravaganza 2009!

Coming tomorrow!!

We are getting the tiller from my mom and dad. Flowers, veggies & fruits will be planted. Brush will be burned. Photos will be posted...stay tuned!

Cannas!

Today I went to pick up some Canna bulbs from a guy who was selling them on Craigslist. I got 20 for me and 10 for my mom for $1 a piece. When I was at Walmart later, they had them for $5 a piece...good deal!

But here's the great part: I emailed him later to thank him again and say it was nice to meet him. When he emailed me back he said he was glad I was so excited about them. It turns out, these bulbs have quite a history. Each fall after the foliage dies off you dig up the roots like potatoes and store them for the winter. You always have more than what you planted and they multiply each year. These bulbs came from his plants which he has been growing for about 7 years in his back yard. But that's not where the story starts for my little Cannas. Apparently about 65 years ago his grandmother traded a gallon of milk and some farm fresh eggs from her farm in Arkansas for a handful of bulbs. His family has been growing and passing down plants from this same set of bulbs for decades!

What a neat thing to be a part of. It will be so much fun to plant these and watch them grow. But it will be even more fun to retell the story to people who see them!

The greatest man I ever knew...

This is my grandfather on my mother's side. My "Papa". He was my hero. Still is really. Almost every day I think of him at least once. I miss him, I hope he's watching over me, I hope he's proud of me.

He was one of those people in life that others aspire to be like. A man of the highest moral conviction. He and my grandma (Grammy) adopted my mom later in life and so they were retired by the time we came along. Papa was always the first to volunteer when I had a school field trip and every kid in my class would want to be in his group. I stayed the night with him almost every Saturday night. We'd watch HeeHaw and play Dominoes and eat Arby's because there was usually a coupon in the paper. On Sunday mornings he'd make me oatmeal and cinnamon toast cut into strips for dipping. We'd go to church and meet up with the rest of the family and then have lunch at the counter at the original NuWay on Douglas.

He was a Quaker but served in WWII as a medic. He collected flags and had one from Nazi Germany that he climbed a flag pole and "liberated" as he told the story about 20 minutes after Hitler had spoken nearby. He donated blood regularly and had pins he had earned from hitting certain milestones. He was a ping pong GENIUS. One family legend is that he once beat my mom blindfolded. He was ornery as sin and loved being one of the kids. He would skip through the store with us or plop right down on the floor next to my sister and join her in a full-on temper tantrum until they would both be in fits of giggles. He would read to us for hours and hours on end. And his homemade icecream was to die for.

So many of these things seem trivial but those are the things that make up a person. All the little details. All the little pieces of himself that he gave to his family and his grandkids. Those are the kinds of things I want to give to my family, memories. Memories of things that may have no meaning to the outside world but mean the world to them. I want to be the kind of person he was. Heck, I want to be half the person he was.

Gardening time!

I'm so excited! I'm actually going to put out a garden this year! I wanted to do one last year but given the fact that I was due to give birth right in the middle of planting season... it didn't happen. Probably for the best!

I went to the library today and got a couple of books. We have a HUGE backyard with a section already fenced off for a garden. I cleaned out my strawberry planter and pruned one of the raspberry bushes back. Lesson learned: need gardening gloves before any further pruning occurs!

So here's what I'm thinking of planting:
Peas
Carrots
Lettuce
Watermelon
Sweetcorn
Peppers
Beans
Strawberries
Zucchini
Cucumbers
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Spinach
Okra

I think that's it. Maybe. We also have a pear tree, apple tree, raspberries, mulberries, grapes and blackberries growing somewhat wild in our yard already. I need to figure out how to take care of them all so that they actually grow some fruit and don't just look like weeds taking over the entire yard! At one point there was an orchard back there and obviously somebody who owned the house at some point planted a lot of things- I just don't know what half of them are!

So- it should be an adventure. I'm picking up burn barrels tomorrow to burn off the clippings and brush and a rototiller to plow up my little plot of agricultural heaven!

Proud of my hubby!

Chris has been selling individual health insurance for Reserve National for a year now. In two weeks we are going to an amazing all-inclusive resort in Playa de Carmen because he earned the trip in a sales contest.

Today we got the company newsletter in the mail with the year-end standings. My husband who had NO prior sales experience finished in the top 50 agents in the company and was the #6 rookie agent. I'm so proud of him! He loves his job and loves being able to help the people he works with and it shows in his success.

Congrats honey and here's to an even better 2009- I always knew you could do it!