More Bees

The lupines are in bloom, and the bees love 'em!

Mason Bees

I saw two mason bees nesting in the new bee boxes today. It was so fun to watch them work!

Happy Mother's Day

It was a beautiful day for a bike ride, so we rode our Xtracycles to the farmers market for a nice lunch with the family. We found some apples, pears, radishes, and asparagus at the market, as well as a ginger mint plant that I'll find room for in the garden soon. Of course, Don and Ben found a lovely bouquet of flowers for me as well. They're good to me.

Yesterday I took a few more garden photos while thinking about my own mom and grandma. These are for us. Happy day.

Red rhododendrons for my mom...
These are blooming so beautifully right now by the front door in the front yard. As a girl, I used to watch bees buzz in and out of them. I still do now. Thanks for planting them, Mom. And yes, I promise to deadhead them later this spring.

Forget-me-nots for my Grandma Lena...
She had lots of perennials in her back yard gardens in Quincy, so these remind me of her. I loved playing in her yard and picking flowers when I stayed with her during the summers.

Apple blossoms for me...

These are from the Queen Cox semi-dwarf apple tree that we planted in our front yard seven years ago. The blossoms are so big and beautiful this year. Let's hope they bring us lots of delicious fruit this fall.

Bees and Blossoms

I built three bee boxes today with a little help from Don and Ben. The mason bees have been pretty active lately, and we hope they've been pollinating our fruit trees! When they're ready to nest, they can enjoy these new boxes near our apple trees.

Aren't they cute?

Golden Sentinel Apple Blossoms

Golden Sentinel Columnar Apple Tree

Back Yard Blooms

The back yard fruit trees, berries, and flowers are lovely this spring.

Italian plum tree blossoms

A few flowers on the new Royal Ann cherry tree

The camillia bush my friend Susan gave me in honor of my mom

The first fruit starting to form on the Alpine strawberry plant Don grew from seed last year

Blueberry bushes in our new garden by the deck

White blooming oxalis ground cover near tiny unfurling fern tendrils

Front Yard Foliage

It's been a beautiful spring with lots of new growth in the gardens. The front yard is bursting forth with colorful flowers, and the perennials are leafing out once again.

A single red tulip in the midst of blooming blue forget-me-nots

The Japanese maple in all its glory

One of our first rhododendrons to bloom this year

Lupine leaves before the flowers emerge

Foxglove, sage, and violas

The strawberry patch

Fun with Words

We've been playing lots of games of Bananagrams lately. Ben has loved the challenge of creating long words to include in his word lists.

Gardening Season

We've uprooted a lot more back yard lawn this spring to increase the size of our vegetable gardens. So far we've planted peas, broccoli, lettuce, onions, and radishes. You can also see the happy marigolds and calendula from last week's bike trip to the nursery. Soon we'll plant some carrots, beets, and swiss chard. Then as it warms up a little later, we'll plant beans, squashes, and sunflowers.

Bicycling for Flowers

I enjoyed a bike ride to the nursery last weekend, in search of flowers and a few other plants for the new back yard gardens. I found some marigolds and calendula, a blueberry bush, a few Tall Telephone shelling peas, and some parsley. It's fun riding home with pretty flowers in the basket for onlookers to enjoy.

Happy Spring!

A sure sign of spring is the lovely red flowering currant. We have this one in a corner of our back yard. It's so graceful with its delicate flowers.

Climbing Fun

Climbing Friends

A few of Ben's friends came over yesterday to help with a portion of the climbing wall.

Ben took a few test climbs...

Building an Indoor Climbing Wall

Ben has done a lot of indoor climbing with friends this year at Vertical World in Everett and Stone Gardens in Seattle. They were trying to decide if they might like to get a monthly membership to one of the gyms so they could climb a few times a week whenever they wanted. Then Ben noticed a corner wall in our garage that had some good climbing wall potential. And so the indoor climbing wall project began.

As usual, Ben did a good deal of research about what would be involved, talked with people, analyzed the space, made some designs, calculated costs, and set a project budget. After he figured out his plan, he began by cleaning up the garage and organizing things to make the space he needed. We made a couple trips to the lumber store for plywood, 2x4s, and screws, and he ordered some climbing holds and brackets for the wall. Then the real fun began.

Ben was happy when the supplies arrived.

He sorted and counted everything in order to plan a grid for the wall.

The climbing holds can be arranged in a variety of patterns along a grid so the climbing routes can be changed to make them simpler or more complex.

Stay tuned for more photos.

Almost Spring

I enjoyed a lovely bike ride last week, and along the way saw a few beautiful signs of spring approaching. I captured some photos during my trip, and when I got home, took a few more.

Daffodils emerging

Heather in bloom

A bed of primroses

Plum tree buds

Bluebells sprouting up through a mulch of leaves

First crocus in our front yard

Bicycle Photo Fun

The good people at EcoVelo are having a bicycle photo contest this month. Their site "celebrates the beauty of the bicycle and the joys of everyday bike riding." I've enjoyed reading their posts, and the photos are terrific, so I thought it would be fun to participate by submitting a few of my own amateur bicycle photos. My favorite is #2, Gardening with an Xtracycle.

You can see all of the entries here. Feel free to post all kinds of nice comments about my photos. Thanks!

Small Grocery Trip with Flowers

Happy Valentine's Day

Young love, 1984