Juniper removal part II

Ever since we removed the juniper bushes from around the maple tree last year, I've been itching to remove the one under our weeping cherry tree.   As you can see it has overgrown and was crowding the plants near it and spilling over into the driveway.

 So yesterday, my dh and Nathan and Stephen went to work on it.   Two bushes came out pretty fast using the tractor.   The third bush was a hard one.   They had to work hard to find the main root AND to not rip up the existing plants as they drug it out of the flower bed.

 I plan to mulch under the weeping cherry and plant a couple flowers around the big rock in the picture.   But even without the mulch, it looks so much better.

It was like a pre-Mother's Day gift!

Scenes from February at Cold Feathers Farm

In February, Deborah and I painted wood for a new set of shelves in our garage. 

After two weekends, they were finished.   And since they would always be filled with stuff from now on, I had the kids get up on them before I filled them.

 A wonderful dinner of mussels and shrimp that I made one cold Sunday night.

 And of course, we had to go see the 3D version of Star Wars I.  In costume of course!

Stephen and my dh saw this one cold morning.  Can you tell what happened?

Our guess is that it was a mouse that crept out of a bramble and then got eaten by an owl.  See the wing marks near the top of the picture and how the mouse tracks just end?

Birds (and a Cat)

Feeding time at the bird feeder.   All the free range chickens gather round to get any seed that drops.

 Mavis, our wonderful cat.   She is an outside cat and a great hunter.  Amazingly she is 11 years old!

 Jungle Birds! (that's what my dh likes to call them when they wander in the woods)

April Fool!

For April Fool's Day, Aaron really wanted to make some April Fool food.   So we started off with drinks...

 ... which were really jello.

 The rest of the meal was normal except for dessert.   For dessert, we had Spaghetti!

 The base is pound cake.   The spaghetti is frosting tinted just a little bit yellow.   The meatballs are no bake cookies.   The parmesan cheese was grated white chocolate.   The hardest part was the sauce.  It was hard to get something that didn't look like strawberry jelly or was too dark.   We ended up making it with apricot jam, a little cherry preserves, and a spoonful of chocolate pudding.