Birthdays and Baseball

We were unable to fully participate in the April Birthday Extravaganza this year, but it still seemed like a busy month.  Since our extended families have seven birthday celebrations in April the pocket book can feel a bit tight, but the social schedule usually abounds with activity.  We celebrated Asa's, Eleanor's, and Lillia's birthdays by dining in restaurants of their choosing, and enjoying scrumptious home-made confections at home. 

Carrot cake with a scenic buffalo motif made by Lillia

ice box cookie log made by Lillia

cheesecake by Mom 

the handsomest Hawk, Red Wing, Iron Bird on the field

Along with three birthday celebrations we have also been enjoying little league baseball games.  Right now Isaac's team, The Hawks - oops, I mean the Red Wings, no wait, now their the Iron Birds  have won 4 games and lost 3.  They have been on a winning streak.  Isaac is one of the few boys who have not played before, so some of the boys are pretty good.  Isaac, Asa, and Corey have been able to take pleasure in some baseball bonding time while Isaac gets some extra practice.

Sunny Days and Rocky Borders

Daffodils and purple wildflowers make a springy combination.

Drizzle, drizzle, drip-drop, down-pour, and bright sunny days... This describes spring thus far up here in the North.  We had several weeks of rain in April and then patches of warm sunny days including days with 80* temperatures.  The kids and I were ready to dig in on those sunny days and our first project was the landing flower bed.

This bed was filled with weeds and spots of flowers.  The kids and I tore out the weeds and saved what plants we could.  We ripped out the decayed logs that used to be a retaining wall and made a stone ledge.  We hunted for smooth flat rocks and brought them to this site.  Our property is filled with rocks so we decided to put them to good use.

Frittilaria imperialis "William Rex" (Crown Imperial Lilly)

Here is a fun surprise - fritilleria!  I thought that these bushy stalks would produce lilies, but these orange, bell-shaped flowers emerged instead, and it turns out that this flower is related to the lily.  These beauties are in the landing flower bed and I transplanted lavender, daylillies, peonies, phlox, hollyhock, tulips, and daffodils into this bed as well.  I keep finding new flowers throughout our property to transplant.  Yesterday I found for-get-me-nots and creeping phlox - yahoo!

The grand plan is to de-weed all the flower beds and transplant the flowers that I keep discovering into the fresh beds.

patio flower bed

Here is another example of a spruced up bed.  This flower bed is next to our back patio.  We yanked, dug up, and clipped the grass, suckers, and random rocks and terraced this sloped patch of dirt with large and medium rocks.  Again, I dug up recognizable plants from around the property and planted them in this flower bed.

Although it seems like we have barely made a dent in our wilderness, we have begun the process of subduing it.  We have trimmed back a lot of the scrub brush and found evidence of retaining walls with bulbs and perennials randomly dispersed among the weeds and bracken.  I think that Vic and Olga loved this place, but sadly were unable to keep it up.  Although Olga and I do not share similar interior decorating taste, I think that our common bond is gardening.  Hooray for daffodils, rocks, and fritillaria!