Gardens, Knitting, Love, and Birds

I made Dandelion jelly and Violet Jelly last week.   The Violet Jelly turned out a beautiful pinkish purple.   I tried to save time and double the batch of the Dandelion jelly.   Well, that didn't work.   It tastes good but it didn't jell up.   So it has the consistency of thick honey.   The children still like it so I think I'll let it go for now.   Note to self:  next year, don't double jelly recipe.

I finished one of my baseball knitted handtowels.   I choose an easy project to knit while I'm at the games.   It helps to pass the time when the boys aren't playing yet and it keeps me from being too nervous watching the game.   Lately it has been fun to watch them since they are playing better and they are winning.   Nathan's team has now won 3 in a row. 

Note:  the picture-taking created a kind of optical illusion.   The towel is much longer than it is wide.   In real life, it doesn't look like a giant potholder.

My iris are up!    This is the first spring that I've had iris in a long time and I am glad to have them back.

I also tried the Allium for the first time.   They all came up in purple glory!

This is a picture of love.   My dh would go through his entire life without ever needing pea fences.   But because he loves me, he put up fences on all of my rows of peas.

This sad bird broke his neck on our front window trying to scare off his reflection from intruding on our property.   I asked a friend at church and he says that this is a Mourning Warbler and that he was on his way to the northern forests.   The other Warbler that was challenging his reflection seems to have left so I hope he is safely on his way to the north.

Happy Birthday Aaron!

Aaron is now 9!   He chose to have the Lego Mars Mission theme for his cake this year.   

See the alien looking out from behind the marshmellow boulders?   He's looking at the astronaut in the drilling machine.

Since this year, Aaron's birthday fell on a Sunday, we couldn't have the required pancake breakfast.   So Aaron got two days of birthday.     One with cake and some presents and the other with chocolate chip pancakes and the presents that were ordered from Amazon but didn't make it until after the birthday day.

He was thrilled to get another Mars Mission spaceship.    This one is an alien vessel.

Our Annual Tulip Trip

Last week when the sun was shining and it was too nice to study at home in the basement, we went to our local botanical garden to see the tulips and the azaleas and the flowering trees.    We go every year and we never seem to tire of it.

These were some of my favorite tulips this year.   They looked so dainty and pink.

Some of the daffodils were still out.   They are another one of my favorite flowers.   I like them better than the tulips.

We saw most of the trees at their flowering peak.   I wish the camera could capture more of the total beauty of these trees.

We also found a Yew Maze that we never knew was in the garden.   The children ran through it four or more times before "collapsing" on the ground.

You can now bring in a lunch and eat on the grounds.   For dessert, I had some of that flavored "licorice".   In my opinion, if is isn't black licorice, it isn't really licorice.   Anyway, the children had a good time playing with it.   Deborah is demonstrating the licorice smile.   I guess she thought the phrase was grinning from eye to eye.

Stephen wanted to look like a vampire, but his brothers said he looked more like a beaver.

For every good picture of the family (see first photo), you have to have a silly one.

A Week of Baseball

This past week was the week of baseball.   Together with both teams, we had 7 games.   One night had both teams playing.   It's almost enough to make me tired of baseball.

We did have two games that were fun to watch.   Nathan's team beat a team that we've never beat before.   He pitched two great innings and stretched a weak single into homerun.   The shortstop overthrew first and the first baseman overthrew second and Nathan ran fast.   

Aaron's and Stephen's team actually tied one of the best teams in our league.   I was amazed.   This town's teams are always very very good.   We played well and we hit well and tied.   Aaron hit a great double and Stephen hit a wonderful triple.

UPDATE:   On the 19th, Nathan's team actually beat an undefeated team!  8-7!   The boys played very well and Nathan's pitching kept the other team from gaining any more runs.   I don't know who was more surprised by the win - the other team or us.   

A Visit Back Home

Way back in early April, we went to my dh's family home and caught up with all the aunts, uncles, and cousins that we hadn't seen.

We took my Aunt out to eat and she wanted to go where they served big root beer floats.   And they were big!    I was glad that we got two to share!

All the cousins before the big Easter egg hunt.

Aunt Shauna giving out last minute directions.   First we had a younger children's hunt, then the older children had a chance.

Nathan is helping out his cousin Jack to find some eggs.

We also went to the St. Louis Science Center with Grandma and Grandpa.  It was a great museum.   My dh shocked the children by sliding down the bannister.

We made our own St. Louis arch.    It took a lot of people to hold it in place before the final piece was put into its place and the arch could stand on its own.

Aaron and I put together this foam space shuttle.

We spent a lot of time looking at this great ball machine.   It was a 2 or 3 story affair that had the balls turning pinwheels or bouncing through targets or turning on machines.

We also participated in their Lego Mindstorms area.   Here you had to program your robot to clean away the barrels from your area.    We did very well.   Nathan and Deborah were a team and Aaron and Stephen were a team.   They programmed their robots and then they tested them out.    Each robot had something wrong with the programming so the children had to figure out what they did wrong and reprogram it.   In the end our two teams beat the other two teams and went one to battle each other out in a final round.

They had a fun exhibit on optical illuisions.   Look Aaron has no body!

I'm My Own Grandma

I have some yarn covered hangers that my grandmother made me.   I really like them, especially for my dresses.   But some were finally falling apart and I needed more anyway.   Where could I go to find more?   Since I didn't think of them when my grandmother was alive to teach me, I turned to the internet and found out how to make them.   Here is my first one.

You basically take two hangers and cover them with yarn in a series of slip knots.

But they didn't look quite like Grandmother's.   I looked closer at hers and found out that she put 4 knots of one color before going to 4 knots of the second color.   

By using this pattern and scrunching the yarn up close, it makes the hanger look like it is covered with little colored triangles.

So now I have yet another thing to do with my hands while I'm watching a movie or waiting for baseball practice to be over. The children are quite fascinated by the whole process.

A House Full of Photos

When my parents were here in April, we toured a local building that was both a house and an architectual studio.    It was plumb full of photo ops.    Part of the house actually goes down into a small lake so that the windows open up right onto the water.

The architect filled his house with very cool things that he collected from everywhere.

He experimented with slopes of ceilings and doors.   It is hard to tell but the far door actually has a top surface that matches the pitch of the ceiling.

I saw this shovel through the glass blocks and thought it made a cool picture.

The house is full of triangles. 

We were such a good tour group that we even got to go up on the roof (something that isn't usually on the tour).   The roof was built and used as an outdoor patio.   Old pictures of the family show lawn chairs and umbrellas up here.

More shots on the roof.

Our First Mushroom Hunt

Spurred on by the imperiative, "Go and subdue the earth" and by the reports that our neighbor once found some morel mushrooms on her property, we took off Saturday afternoon and went hunting.

We walked all around our property and found some nice Artist's Mushrooms but no morels.

But then, yesterday my dh went out by himself and he found two of them fairly close to the house.    As you can see, they are hard to spot in all those dead leaves.

We're going out again today to see if we can find some more.

Spring is finally here!

Spring is officially here.   The June Berry trees are blooming in the woods.   This beauty is right at the edge of the woods in the back.    I've taken a number of pictures of it and I can't resist taking another this year.

My daffodils are in full bloom also.

There is a robin in one of our woodpiles that has laid 4 blue eggs.   I hope the cat doesn't get them.   It seems a bad place for a nest to me.

The fiddlehead ferns are coming up all over the woods.   In another week or so we won't be able to see the forest floor.

We went for a long walk on Saturday through the woods.   This is an old deer blind (we're guessing) that the former owner left.

My dh found this fiddlehead fern bursting up through the leaves.