Growing Green

The garden is starting to pick up, with warm days and lots of rain this spring, the peas and strawberries are growing strong.

Our strawberry bed is in a slow year, the heat (and the weeds) last year made them a little weaker. Last Mother's Day I picked nearly 3 basket-fulls...this year I got about half a basket:

Tomatoes are starting to take off....this is my main tomato bed. About 20 plants. Over behind the slide you can see in the background of this picture I have about 20 more.


Peas are growing tall. 5ft in some spots. The I have 2 8ft rows and at some points the boys have to crawl through the jungle of vines to get to the pods they want.


So far none have made it into the house...not many strawberries have either. We all like to snack when we are in the back yard.


Even the littlest gets in on the pea-stealing

Family and Flowers

My brother came into town last week, just in time for Lakin's birthday. We don't get to see him too much, he's lived in Austin, TX since Rylan was about 1 yr old and since last fall he's been in Colombia....

He came bearing Colombian gifts. Like this hat Lakin is wearing.

And Annika's new favorite doll.

He headed out west on Sunday, but before he left we spent a day in the mountains with my dad and my brother's friend Lili.

Rylan has been wanting to get out and take a wildflower hike but the month of April slipped away from us. We hiked up Porter's Creek Trail to the old Smoky Mountain Hiking Club Cabin and hoped to find some flowers along the way.


We found Thyme Leaved Bluets, which Rylan identified without his guide, along the water's edge. Then my dad took them off the trail to find something special.


A Pink Lady's Slipper


Lakin was dragging a little. But the bridges and little cemetery and a reminder that we were actually making it to a destination and not just walking along helped him to keep going.

Cohen was completely attached to his uncle. With Uncle Justin this and Uncle Justin that almost the entire trip.


We made it to the cabin and hung around exploring for awhile before turning back.

Stopped to play in the water a bit. Cale fell in, like usual.

We saw a few more flowers- Meadow Parsnip, Robin's Plantain, Little Brown Jugs to name a few...

Introductions

I mentioned them the other day


And now that they have been named, I would like to formally introduce


Scooter

and Scout

They are 2 little Nubian boys, about 7 weeks old. They are tiny, act like little puppies and scream like banshees when they get lonely.

They are still getting use to the Bertie and Bella, who can be a little rude at times, but if the boys steer clear of them they are left alone.


And as a bonus they LOVE, and have already eaten, a lot of poison ivy. Paul and Cale can vouch for that. I don't think Cale is enjoying his introduction to poison ivy. But since the big girls would rather eat my butterfly bush than eat poison ivy, I am loving that the boys go for it first