Oatmeal for Breakfast » yardwork

Thanks Grandpa!

kelly — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 06:32:13 +0000

For my birthday, my Papa Roy gave us a gift card to Sears so we could buy our very own drill. It’s a Makita, which I’ve decided is a girl’s name (and it comes in a swanky teal case-definitely for a girl!).

We’ve had some good times drilling holes into different parts of our house:

Installing the hose hang out before:

during:

All set:

I even got a thumbs up from Jonathan!

We’ve also used it to replace some fixtures around the house. What a handy tool! Thanks Papa Roy! You’re a winner!

First Harvest

jonathan — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 04:08:26 +0000

Kelly and I were going about our merry way this evening getting ready for dinner when she suddenly stopped what she was doing and pointed.

“Jonathan,” she said, “look!”

And this is what we saw on a tree in our yard that, until today, had only produced leaves:

Yes… that’s right… a pear! We have a pear tree! We checked on our little vegetable garden and discovered that it had produced some sugar snap peas…

Around the front of the yard, we have a raspberry vine that had been very productive, too:

We’ve also got some zucchini coming up…

… and some beets …

… and some tomatoes…

… and strawberries …

… and roses …

We also have mint, rosemary, and other herbs and flowers all over the yard. Sometimes having to take care of the yard can be a chore–I’m not quite as quick or good at it as Kelly’s family, all of whom have been blessed with green thumbs–but on days like today it’s really worth it. Here’s Kelly displaying our first sugar snap peas by the vegetable garden:

A yard is a wonderful thing. Enjoy yours today.

Suddenly, I realized….

kelly — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 13:37:47 +0000

I’m just like my mom sometimes.

I laughed this morning at the realization that I am now frequently in our yard at 5:30 in the morning, in my giant white bathrobe or a pair of sweats (often wearing my big yellow plaid rubber boots!), watering the plants or cutting a flower or just quickly pulling a weed I notice from the kitchen. JUST LIKE MY MOM! At first I was afraid I might be scaring the neighbors, but I think they’ll be okay and really, when’s a busy gal like me supposed to find time to survey the situation of the yard and flower beds and garden if I can’t do things like that in the morning? I may need to find a “stealth” black bathrobe though. Poor Jonathan, just sleeping, unaware of his wife’s potential to be the crazy lady in the neighborhood seen in the wee hours of the morning, wandering in the yard. Hey, at least I’m wearing the bathrobe!

More than Conquerors

kelly — Wed, 28 May 2008 05:19:52 +0000

We know that Romans 8 tells us we are more than conquerors, but this weekend, I felt like more than a conqueror-we took control of the yard! We pulled out the weeds, we trimmed back the offending growth and we planted flowers, vegetables and seeds of various kinds! It was awesome!
The day started like many others, with me looking at this:

and thinking, “this tea rose is out of control. We really need to do something about it.”

So we did (and yes, we know we should have been wearing things like actual shoes and not flippy floppers or pants rather than shorts but I really didn’t intend to do more than cut a few branches while killing some time):

and we were left with this:

A whole new view…of sorts.

The tea rose was reduced to rubble….. Now if only we could burn slash piles in Redmond:

It’s going to be a bit of an ugly year for that corner of the yard, but I’m confident that the tea rose will make a strong comeback next year. The problem was that once we started trimming, there were only dead, brown sticks under the leaves and they had to go too. We’ll just call it an opportunity for growth.

And a big THANK YOU to April and Carrie who gave us a Molbak’s giftcard! Here we are with our bounty- we got some tomato plants, some lettuce, a pepper plant, a whole flat of petunias and a rose and a pot and some other stuff too! (thanks for taking the photo, mom) It was pretty fun!

Then we went home and Erik prepped the soil so we could have our little vegetable garden:

Come by in about six weeks and we can give you some fresh veggies!

About today

kelly — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 04:05:38 +0000

Today is March 17th. A day for many folks to celebrate St. Patrick, his removal of snakes from Ireland (entirely?) and mostly to do things like pinch people who are not wearing green or drink green beverages or enjoy corned beef. Here’s the thing. I’m not catholic or Irish and I’m not terribly afraid of snakes.

Things that were interesting to me about today:
1-I had a really delicious breakfast of Bob’s Red Mill 10-grain cereal. It’s a new addition to the list of breakfast items I enjoy, though it probably won’t replace oatmeal as THE FAVORITE.
2-They were serving corned beef, green beer and Irish coffee at work this afternoon. I tried Irish coffee! It was totally weird to drink sitting at my desk. And really funny.
3-We had leftovers for dinner. My homemade frozen burrito test was successful! We’ll never buy gas station burritos again! WHOO!
4-We came home and it was light outside! We came home from work and it was light outside and the lawn was dry! Jonathan mowed the lawn and it looks great!
5-(and probably most important) We heard from our friends that their precious baby was born this morning! Praise the Lord for baby Jantz! We can’t wait to meet you!