Syd's First "Big" Catch

A short video of Miss Sydney and her first adventure in fishing. Aquaculture the only way to go.

Cacti!!! Is that how you spell cactus?

The above question was posed to me by Miss Syd. No sweetie the word cacti is plural for more than one cactus. Mom that's just weird.

We have a new book, used from the library for only $1, that the girls love it's called "Cacti and Succulents." Pictures, drawings and latin names all piled together into a book of happiness. Sydney and I bought this cactus last week at Bensell's Greenhouse. Today we were very excited to discover the new growth right on the tip of the cactus. Okay, of course it's on the tip. Really Susan, don't you know your meristematic tissues? But if you look really close you will see that there are four fingers popping out of the tip of the plant. Can't tell that she loves her plant, can you?

It's been a while....

If you haven't spoken to me recently I've been a little..... well, busy this year. My gift to myself, restoring a small piece of my sanity, keeping my blog. The Rapplings and I are always having adventures. When I don't record my days I forget all of the hilarious parts and focus on the smallish things that go wrong. So here's to keeping an accurate record of what goes wrong and right over the next many days.
This is a completely edited, for time and sanity, list of things that happened since I last posted in May.
I asked John for a dissolution.
Took the girls camping on my own.
Came home to CSB interviews.
Extreme home makeover on the girls rooms....thanks to all of my amazing friends and parents.
Found a job.
Started said job, with Americorps, serving at ToledoGROWs.
Started 13 credit hours
Received a dissolution.
Completed fall semester and did well.
Spent most of December with sick children and then a very sick self.
Nope I won't discuss the details. Does it really matter? What matters, is now. So on with the show....

Saturday at the gardens...

By special request we volunteered at the gardens today. Not normally there on Saturday's but there were so many willing volunteers we just had to let them volunteer. This is the zany crew, minus Miss Jodi, that worked at the Botanicals today. We had a great time planting in the Pioneer and AAS Gardens. I also discovered that Elder Wozniak has great mound building skills. He can plant cucurbits like no one I've ever met. Really seriously mad skills. Elder Carter has been hiding his great design skills....I've never seen a more beautiful spiral planting of celery. Never.

Faith shot this photo of Miss Kathryn. I love her hair all wrapped around her. 

While the adults were working the girls went on an adventure. These are just two of the beautiful photos that Kate shot today. They will be going up on our wall in the living room. 

The girls went hunting for gingko saplings to help Mr. Matt make into a bonsai forest. The hunting was pretty easy since the gingko's are growing prolifically under the gingko tree. 

Here's the catch! Lots of little saplings. 

I forgot to get a photo of the finished gingko forest. 

This is Faith's view from the golf cart. Love it. What you can't feel is the wind blowing through your hair or hear the girls giggling like mad the entire way to the greenhouse. Love kids, love them.

Very QG White Bean and Cumin Chili

I love experimenting, at least in the kitchen. Cumin, White Beans and Butternut Squash, let's just say the thought of these ingredients had me drooling. Here's my experiment, the results they were definitely edible.

The Rapplings on Sunday...

John took the girls for a walk on Sunday. They loved it and came back covered in mud. Miss Sydney, must take all of her botanical information along in her backpack. Very, very sweet.

Paige also being sweet. Kate way to go! You both look like you're having fun. Nice.

Party

These are some very happy girls. A party at Mr. Matt's house = fun and food. The celebration was the finale of TBG's annual Spring Plant Sale. Kate created her own cupcakes without mom's assistance, Oreos on top and in the center of the cupcake, with Oreo crumbles on the frosting. I hear they were delicious. Sydney is carrying the brownies I made. These brownies are amazing...click here for my recipe experience... Guy Fieri's Mexican Rhubarb Chocolate Chunk Brownies. They were called amazing among other adjectives.

Badminton the Rapplings were enjoying watching the garden guys play a game. Before we went home Josué and Sydney teamed up against Kate and I. Fun, fun, fun! The best part was Josué teaching Syd to be sassy at the net. I of course got to play while giving Paige a piggyback ride. The untapped talents I never knew I had. Needless to say, Kate and I were the "losers."

Jennifer, Leslie and I all having a great time! Sydney took home every last lime slice that was in the kitchen. 

I like your leaves they're real big!

I love the combination of the large green hosta leaves with the tall violet allium globes. Nice view on the way to the visitor's center at the gardens.

This is spring.

This is spring....

Our magical lake continues to make rain induced appearances.

I find boots here and there all around the yard. When I pick them up and there is an 1/2 an inch of water sloshing in the feet. That for me is spring.

Our strawberries plants are doing amazingly well. 

Now to keep Paige from eating them all.

Rhubarb...the leaves are amazing and extra ginormous this year.

Our raspberries are lovely and propagating themselves out of their beds already. 
I'll be putting them back where they belong later this week.

So this is spring at least for today!

Ten random things, How about you?

Ten random things about me...
1. I love the mountains and dream of them regularly.
2. I drink water, lots and lots of water without ice.
3. I love to teach people, anything and everything.
4. I can hear every little detail of what's going on around me.
5. Supersonic hearing sometimes becomes overwhelming in group situations.
6. When hungry I am mean and nasty.
7. I love to just be spontaneous ....as long as there is kind of a plan. Love my contradictions?
8. If I'm wenchy and I'm not hungry I just need to go to bed.
9. I have always been much more silly after midnight....ask my sisters!
10. Being a mom to three fiesty girls makes me happy and tired, but a happy tired.


So what are ten random things about you?
Thanks Karen for the inspiration. ~Susan

Neighborhood Lawn Kid....

This actor is hilarious. He plays Gibby on Icarly my favorite show that the girls watch. So here you go the first lawn commercials I've ever laughed at....
Great looking lawn even better looking daughters...Mo green means MO GREEN!
Green families love it, Families with dogs love it, You know who else loves it...Bobby loves it...second quarter's gonna be a monster.


They grow it I mow it.

Sunbeams...

This is Corgan. He's been a much anticipated addition to the Snyder family. The Rapplings and I got to meet him yesterday. I stole him for exactly 30 seconds before handing him back over.

This is the canvas I created for him Friday night. It has one of the girls favorite primary songs written on it. Jesus wants me for a sunbeam. If you listen to the link it's HILARIOUS! Accordion accompaniment.

The second verse I didn't even know existed, then I made a mistake and switched a word. Oh well hopefully he doesn't notice.

For all of my crafty friends; yes, it's dimensional and yes, it has glitter all over it, and a glossy clear spray coat! Jennifer thanks for the use of the black writing utensil when mine gave out!
Just received this link today!

We have a "problem"

Example 1. This lovely collection of moss is on the top of my piano.
Example 2. This dinner plate full of moss.
Example 3. and this plate of moss have happily established residence here in the Rapplings' kitchen. I have two more planters also growing moss. My love of all things green and growing seems to have infected the smallest girls here with an uncontrollable need to collect every piece of moss they can find. But I seem to be able to keep these alive in my darkish kitchen much better than house plants!

Must mean rain.

Every year I enjoy looking at these beautiful Narcissus for only a few hours. It never fails to begin to rain on the same day they bloom. Today I was smart enough to grab a pair of scissors snip the blooms on my way out the door!
Then I delivered all the yellow happiness I had to Miss Jennifer in the pouring rain.
Better yet is feeling like I have won a small battle against the inevitable spring rain.

Surprise!!!

Today I discovered that my shade garden is already in bloom. This lovely Pulmonaria that I added to the garden last year for it's fabulous spotted foliage, has flowers. I loved the surprise! I expected flowers but not until later in the spring. Happiness is a surprise in my garden today.
Pick one up for yourself May 7 -9th at TBG's Spring Plant Sale.

This is spring.
Forsythia, in bold spring bloom. Branches arching out over my old wooden fence. No frost to kill the buds this year. I love the natural look of forsythia. You can still prune and shape it but let it take on it's natural habit. Small, square or round forsythia all boxed in make me feel sad. It's like they didn't get a chance to live up to their potential.

These bright green leaves bring hints of what is to come. Yummy, raspberry deliciousness. Yes, they can become out of control, spreading beyond their allotted bounds. The sweet sun ripened berries make the extra work worth while. Hopefully the girls won't get to them before me this year.

Phenology....what's in bloom

Last year I learned a lot about phenology from the Ohio Master Gardeners. Updates on bloom time were kept by a dedicated group of gardeners. This would then give us cues on what else in happening or about to happen in our garden. Here is the definition of phenology.

phe·nol·o·gy

Pronunciation: \fi-ˈnä-lə-jē\

Function: noun

Etymology: phenomena + -logy

Date: circa 1884
1 : a branch of science dealing with the relations between climate and periodic biological phenomena (as bird migration or plant flowering)
2 : periodic biological phenomena that are correlated with climatic conditions

So it's all the "common sense" things our grandparents knew. They were a little more aware of how nature worked and would use signals from the garden to tell them when/what to plant and what pests would be appearing too. Here's a link to a great article, from Horticulture magazine on the subject. Here are a few out of their list...

• When daffodils begin to bloom, sow peas.
• When oak leaves are the size of a squirrel's ear, sow corn.
• When maple leaves reach full size, sow morning glories.
• When apple trees shed their petals, sow corn.
• When dogwood reaches peak bloom, plant tomatoes and early corn.
• When crocus bloom, prune roses.
  

Love that this common knowledge has actually become a field of research. By the way have you pruned your roses?

Moss and Munk..

So I've been having a hard time figuring out why our cat Munk(half of the Chip Munk wondercat duo) has developed two dark marks on both sides of his nose. I tried to clean him up to no avail. Tonight I caught him rubbing up against the wood in one of our moss planters. He could take it out to play with it. Instead I see him rubbing his face on one corner then the other, of the stick in Paige's moss. I guess the girls cats like moss too!
Here's some moss inspiration I found on etsy today.

Teresa's Plants great stuff....I mean moss.

New approach to recipes...

This is an amazing artist, Mel Robson, that my sister told me about. I love her work. Enjoy!

This is the garden being created at the Notre Dame Preschool. It's a sensory garden, which means this garden will be letting the children, smell, taste, touch and hear the plants. Okay so the sound part of the garden isn't as easy as it sounds, Ha! There will be wind chimes and a small water feature plus a few plants.
These lovely ladies are Christine, the garden's designer, and Denise Gehring, the garden's motivation. Christine's design is very fun with paisley shapes throughout. Sorry no photo but trust me I'll put a completed garden shot up in May.
I asked Kate to take photos she of course had to get the rototiller. It's bigger than ours so must be recorded as part of the day. Me raking, the day involved much digging, weeding, raking, sod replacement, placement of edging.... basic gardening. Fun to be out in the sun, and wind, working with great people.
The girls had a picnic and enjoyed the play ground. The high point of their day was when they were allowed to play in the preschool for a few minutes, there was a ball pit involved. Heaven for little girls. An amazingly beautiful preschool.