Rough June

June (and May) has been a rough month here for us.

After our weekend trip (upcoming post) we came home to deal with life, heartache and sadness.

We lost my husband's grandmother, Nanny.

My Great-Uncle George,

and my Great-Grandmother, Grams.

I also celebrated my birthday in that mix (Family nights the evening before, Funerals the day of, and loosing Grams the day after), and my own sadness as well. 

To bring ourselves up, we celebrated life,
my Sis-in-law's Graduation,

And Father's Day.

Daddy, Grand-daddy, Baby J, and Papa.

A good end to a rough month. 

Hopefully it will stay that way.

It's Spring!!!

Ok, so technically it became spring almost a month ago, but it's finally getting gorgeous outside, and yesterday I went outside to find this:

My tulips are finally blooming! 

This morning the yellow one had opened, and a few more are starting to open.

And my lilac bushes have leaves! Little green leaves! 

It will still be a few years before they actually bloom, but they are getting there. 

I'm loving it. 

It was 92 outside today, according to my car!!! 

That's summer weather!

And of course we've been playing outside, taking advantage of the nice weather. 

Garden Update

A few weeks ago I posted about a project we had completed at our house : building a garden!

 Remember?

 So I had a nice big box of dirt in the yard.
I planted some plants in the garden, and some in pots on my deck.
Then I started some seeds.

And now that they have sprouted, I've begun transplanting them into the garden as well.
(The ones that survived the raccoon attack)

My deck plants are doing great, too.

Plenty of herbs sprouting.

Some of the tomato plants are starting to flower.

And we even have our first strawberry.

I think we will be having plenty of fresh food this summer!

What time is it ...

(Tool time. )

No, it's plant your garden time.

This past weekend my husband, bro-in-law, and dad-in-law worked on building us (me) a raised bed garden. And it's quite nice. Yesterday I put some plants in it, and I have some seeds to start and transplant.  I can't wait to have lots of veggies & fruits growing at home. So healthy, and it will save us so much money. I'm thinking about buying some berry bushes too, if there is space for them.

We have very hard, rocky, red clay soil; so we decided to build a raised bed garden instead.

To build our garden we used 8 3"x3"x8' lawn timbers, some rebar, and 24 bags of top soil.

We picked up some plants and a bunch of seeds.

And I planted.

And I prepared to plant some more.

And, as a bonus, I created a square-foot garden planting chart. You can use it to plan out your garden, and keep track of what is planted where. 

Click to view larger, then save .jpg file to your computer.

I included a 4'x8' lattice on the materials list. This is optional (obviously), depending on what you decide to plant. We didn't pick one up, but, I may do a 2'x8' one, if the cucumbers, melons and squashes do well (give them something to climb).

New Spring Wreath

In honor of spring, I made a new wreath for our front door. I actually found time to make something.

Glue gun, grapevine wreath and flowers.
(These are actually flowers leftover from my wedding)

And I added a tulle bow, just for fun.

Spring is Here!

It is officially the first day of spring, however it has felt spring-like for a while now here.

The weather is warmer, the birds are out, flowers are blooming ...
Isn't it nice?

Is it spring?

 

My bulbs seem to be a little confused as to what season it is. They have already started to sprout.
I bought them on clearance last year at wallymart, and it looks like they are doing well.
Once we work on our flower beds this spring, they will get transplanted.

I can't wait to have gardens of tulips and hyacinths.