Thursday, April 12, 2007

Lemon and Lime

I certainly wasn't keeping contrasting colors in mind when I planted these yellow tulips in front of a lime green spirea!

Wednesday Weeding

I spent most of Wednesday weeding here there and everywhere in my flower beds; 6 hours plus of weeding and a bit of rearranging. I lifted some fall blooming asters (purples and blues) thinned them out and set aside a dozen or so for an upcoming sale I am planning. My woodland garden which is in the background of this photo is at its best. For those gardeners who read my blog, I have a fairly effective way to deal with a large proportion of slugs. I have a sizable number of digitalis (foxglove) that reseed themselves in the most unexpected spots. Well, in late winter or early spring I gently transplant these digitalis in close proximity to where slugs are the most likely to live. In my case, that is next to our wood piles. It works! The digitalis are riddled with slug and snail holes and the ligularia and other plants closer to the border have far less gastropod damage.

Sunday, April 08, 2007

Buzz!

Some years back Chris shaved off his beard without warning me and although he had the beard for 15 plus years, I didn't even notice that he had shaved it off. Now that was NOT the case with shaving his head. He actually warned me that he was going to give himself a buzz cut and I am glad that I had the warning! The difference is startling and I am pretty sure he has heard the message loud and clear from most of his family and friends: "Grow back your curls, Chris!"

Easter Company


After a delicious Easter dinner of a spiral baked ham, Irish Company Mashed Potatoes, a fruit salad and a Chop Salad (salads by Valerie) we settled into a game of dominoes. Guess who won with score of 161? Lindsey gets taller and more lovely each time we see her! And as is seen in the above photo, Galen continues to be a bit of a prankster.

Happy Easter!


Saturday, April 07, 2007

C.'s Bug Book

Well, Spring Break has at last begun, but the kids are still very fresh in my mind. On Monday morning a little girl in my room was very proud to share this book which she had created over the weekend. The cover picture is not that hot because she choose to write with a dark colored crayon on BLACK! I had to do considerable work photo editing to get it this clear. If you click on the title of this post it will take you to the rest of the story. It was exciting for me as a teacher to get this work because of many reasons: she used her own phonemic awareness /understanding to spell her words (she didn't ask how to spell things), she is incorporating our Science unit in which we compared animals, she is also incorporating our Math unit which was on sorting by attributes, and she is transferring school learning to her home.