Mom come HERE!!!!!

This little treasure was found in our front yard by Miss Sydney. They have never noticed moss until this year and now are discovering it everywhere. My yard has always had quite the great supply hidden here and there. This moss will quickly be shaded over by the grass growing in around it. Check out the very tiny ice crystals in the grass, cameras are amazing.

Peeking through....

The gardens are showing many signs of life this week. The greenhouse is full of volunteers, plants and seedlings. My favorite the thousands of bulbs that were planted with much hope last fall are finally beginning to brave the weather. Spring it's almost here!
My walk through the shade garden with the Rapplings included a snowball fight and lots of wet socks. We go through way to many socks in this house.
We met a new friend on our walk. She was enjoying the antics of the girlies. She had many questions which I was actually able to answer. I also told her she was welcome to come and volunteer at TBG. Me and my shameless promotion of the gardens. She mentioned what a blessing it had been to run into all of us. So sweet. I'm just glad my children didn't scare her out of the garden.Snow drops the first beauties to bloom this spring.

Paige's tuffa....

Very exciting stuff to get the pot you made back. Paige is one very happy little girl. I was given permission to carve her pot so I did. Paige's very tiny pot had less room to work with, hence the arc design. Miss Sophia on the other hand created an ark size container that gave me lots of room to play with. The regular hypertuffa finishing treatment, at TBG, involves knocking off the edges and making the top surface more pock marked and naturally formed. This is very fun, in a destructive sort of way. Demostrated by Mr. Matt and Josh a volunteer/Owens Landscape and Turf Grass Management student. As a quick side note, normally you take the plastic form out of the center of your hypertuffa pot but Paige insisted it stay.
This is paige's baby plant material... small blue succulent, sorry I don't know the genus and species yet. I love that she says baby plant and then adds material as an afterthought. Can't tell she spends a lot of time in the greenhouse can you?
It's nice to be able to start a new tradition to replace one I loved so much. I remember creating my own ceramic bowl with my grandmother in her ceramics "studio". I hand formed with supervision and painstakingly wrote my name in then glazed with two different colors of blue. I must find that bowl... I put it away to avoid small children who break things. One crack straight through the center was enough. I see a lot of hypertuffa pot creation in the Rapplings future.