My Favorite Wildflower

My favorite wildflower, the Starflower, is in bloom in our woods right now.

Deborah in the Park

Wednesday evening was as nice as Tuesday evening was bitterly cold. And of course, we didn't have a game, just a baseball practice. I took Deborah to the little park near the ball diamonds while the boys were playing ball.

Tundra life

Last night, besides being another cold cold night to watch our boys play baseball, brought a hard frost to the tundra here.

My dh and I spent about an hour covering up everything last night and the children and I spent almost that long uncovering things, putting buckets and coffee cans away, and folding up tarps.

But it was worth it. We only lost a couple of watermelon plants whose hotcaps had been blown off during the night. The potatoes got a little nipped on their highest leaves but otherwise, everything came through.

I call this picture "Follow the blue tarps".

Still, the frost has a beauty to it.

Happy Birthday Stephen!

Yesterday Stephen turned 10! We started the day with chocolate chip pancakes.
Then we put the children to work! It was a good work day in that it wasn't cold or raining. So we watered our garden plants and the new grass and cleaned the screened-in porch and got the house all clean. Stephen did get time to play some games with Aaron in the basement while I worked on his birthday supper and cake.

It turned out to be a hot May 26th for us - 82 degrees. I should have frosted the cake earlier in the day because it was hard to frost it when the house was so warm. But finally I managed to get it done to Stephen's satisfaction. It's a light saber cake.

Since it was going to be hot, I made a cool jello salad.

We had another family over for dinner and cake and of course, presents. It was a fun birthday party for Stephen - light saber fights in the woods and then playing games in the basement.

The Changing Woods

I wanted to show how our woods changes at this time of year. We go from being able to see deep into the woods to hardly being able to see much at all. So I took pictures of the same woods for about a month. It actually took longer to change than I thought.

This first picture was taken May 2nd. Stephen is pretty far into the woods.

May 4th - not too much change.

May 6th - more leaves up above but you can still see into the woods.

May 8th - the view is filling up with leaves.

May 13th

May 18th - the ferns and raspberry bushes are starting to leaf out as well.

May 23rd - Now we can hardly see into the woods. I can hear the children playing Narnia in the woods, but I can't see them.

A new Sidewalk, part 2

Today, bright and early, the concrete truck arrived and we had our other two pours made. We had a sidewalk made in the back that leads down to the shed and and an extension near the chicken coop.

Here's the finished sidewalk.

Here's the finished area near the coop. Unfortunately, we were in town long enough that the concrete was too firm when we got home to carve our initials in it. The children were very disappointed.

On a less gray note, here is a picture of my flowering crab apple flowering beautifully. I look out of my kitchen window and see this pretty tree.

Horseradish, anyone?

We moved the horseradish this Sunday to a better location and in the process, we decided to harvest some. Here's one plant. Impressive, isn't it?

This is the amount that my dh decided to process.

First he washed the roots.

Then he peeled them. Notice that he is outside on our porch. Even peeling this stuff sent up waves of horseradish fumes.

He cut it up into little pieces and combined it with water, vinegar, a clove of garlic, and a pinch of salt. Then he used our newly christened "horseradish blender".

Finally, he strained it. It turned out to be delicious. It had a hot crisp taste. I can't wait to try it in cocktail sauce with shrimp.

The New Sidewalk

While my parents were here, the concrete contractors showed up two weeks earlier than scheduled and were ready to tear out the old sidewalk. Our old sidewalk in the front was cracked and sinking and was about to become a tripping point. Plus our downspout either dumped water on the sidewalk (which froze in the winter) or down the windowwell which once continued to flow into our new guest bedroom. So we have finally had enough and hired a company to move the sidewalk.

They ripped out the old sidewalk last Wednesday.

They built the forms for the new sidewalk.

Here's what it looks like with the sidewalk bed prepared. They didn't pour that day because it started to rain.

Today the folks and the concrete truck showed up at 1 pm and poured the sidewalk. The children were fascinated by the truck and the pour.

Here's the finished product. Looks nice, doesn't it? I'm impressed with their workmanship. We should be able to use it tomorrow.

To complicate matters, today was the day that I help a friend wash her windows and polish her furniture (Friday, she helped me). So we took a break in the work and I brought her children over to watch the workmen. They were spellbound as long as the truck was pouring, but when the men got into the smoothing and marking phase, they quickly lost interest. Despite the fact that they had just been hauling logs and branches for our friend for 1 1/2 hours, they found enough energy to wrestle.

Amazingly, we only had one bloody nose.

Grandma's and Grandpa's Surprise Visit

My parents surprised the children by showing up Sunday the 11th for a visit. The children were stunned, but they soon recovered. My parents stayed for 5 days and saw three ballgames.

During the day, they helped supervise the painting of all the woodworking stuff the boys had made. I stained Nathan's desk and baseball holdall. I also varnished all 17 of the signs for our trails. Three coats each side. Whew!

The rest of the cars and trucks the boys painted, mostly by themselves.

Deborah felt left out since she didn't have a car to paint so Mom painted with her when the boys went to piano lessons.

Stephen named his race car Apollo #9. Of course, his tractor is a John Deere.

Nathan's race car is sponsored by "Nathan's Eggs".

Aaron's car is sponsored by "Al's Electric Company".

It was still a bit cold for baseball. We've been about 10 degrees cooler than we usually are for May. Mom and Dad were very grateful for the heavy quilt I usually carry in the van.

We had a good time with my parents and I was especially glad of their company since my dh was traveling all week!

Nathan, Shipwreck Volunteer

We are members of our local county historical society and at the February lecture, Nathan was asked if he would like to help set up their exhibit on Great Lakes Titantics coming in May. Initially, we thought he would be just helping move stuff and holding pictures but it turned into much more than that.

He was actually asked to do some research for the exhibit. He researched the Life Saving Stations around the Great Lakes (they eventually became the Coast Guard). The director of the society was impressed and gave him some summaries to write about specific shipwrecks. In the end, he wrote six paragraphs about shipwrecks and two about great storms. His work will be used in the exhibit.

This week, he's been at the county historical building helping set up the exhibit. These are artifacts from the Pewabic shipwreck.

These are artifacts from the Cederville shipwreck. Nathan helped set up the display case and hang the lifejacket.

So if you want to know some interesting shipwreck stories, just ask Nathan. He now knows a lot of them!

Blooming Trees

It is beautiful up here. Our weeping cherry is in perfect form.

Our apple trees are in bloom and the bees are a-buzzing like crazy. We should get a bumper apple crop this year.


While I was photographing the blossoms, something bigger than a bee buzzed past. At first I thought it was a hummingbird. Now I think it is some kind of moth. I've never seen it before. This is the best picture I got of it. It flew around like a hummingbird and was hard to capture.

Happy Birthday Aaron!

Today Aaron turned 8! We started the day with chocolate chip pancakes. Aaron had a baseball practice this afternoon and the coach made him run and slide. It was a good practice, but he was pretty tired this afternoon.

In the afternoon, we made his cake. I had to end up making two cakes and putting one on top of another. And what, pray tell is his cake? Can't all you Star Wars lovers figure it out?

It is the trench scene on the Death Star in Episode IV: A New Hope, where Luke flies into the trench and tries to blow up the Death Star. We didn't find green licorice in our local store so we had to go with red licorice laser bolts and black licorice guns. I made the gray colored frosting myself. I think I should buy some real gray coloring from the cake decorating store in town. With three boys and a girl crazy about Star Wars, I think I have a lot of gray cakes in my future.

We had a family over for dinner and the weather was sunny and warm. The children played outside while the adults sat on the porch and talked. And of course we had presents and cake and ice cream. Aaron was well pleased with his birthday.