Spring's First Blooms

Finally! Spring is starting to show her face. We have daffodils and grape hyacinths in bloom and tulips and crocuses are beginning to sprout. I missed getting a shot of the flowering pear in bloom in the backyard. Most of the blooms are on the ground and have been replaced with leaves. By the way, I had no idea that I had a flowering pear tree in the yard! I didn't know what it was. My sister-in-law told me when she was here. Nice to know. She and my brother also informed me that the tree that I was told was a river birch is actually a paper birch. They don't know which variety. I wish they would get with the program. I mean, how am I supposed to function not knowing what kind of birch tree I have? This is unacceptable.

We had lovely weather here yesterday, so we spent a great deal of time outside working in the backyard. We have some sort of ornamental grass growing on part of the hill behind our house (Again, my brother didn't know what type. Sheesh!). I cut it all back with the lawn trimmer Wednesday evening. I got a lot of it raked out and piled up shortly afterward, but had to finish yesterday. It's a tremendous lot of rubbish. Fortunately, our city does pick up lawn debris separately from trash, so it all gets mulched and reused. In addition to that, I started a leaf compost. However, it doesn't even begin to meet my needs in terms of its capacity. Unfortunately, when living in the city, your neighbors tend to frown upon a backyard turned entirely to compost. I tried to tell them I was being eco-friendly, but they didn't buy it. Anyway, after cleaning up that mess, I turned to the perennial garden. I left the leaves last spring for some extra protection for the overwintering plants. They had to be raked out with a hand rake and, in some cases, removed by hand. I also cut back much of the Snow On the Mountain and English Ivy that grows rampant. The last thing I did was lay out a small garden bed for Brennan. While my brother and sister-in-law were here, we checked out a local garden center called The Plant Kingdom. It was really nice, but the prices were a bit steep. My brother explained to me that I am paying for quality so that I don't have to buy new plants continually when the others die. I found this to be a lovely explanation for why my plants always die. I'm not the one killing them. I can blame the big box stores for the inferior quality of their plants. Yes, that's it. I'm not to blame Mom (who enjoys saying that I love to garden, but am not very good at it!). So, back to The Plant Kingdom. While we were there, a sales associate gave LB a pansy. She's already quite interested in gardening, so I thought it would be nice to give her a little space of her own. I plan to let her pick out some annuals and plant them (mostly) by herself. She's super-psyched. I am too. I need to teach her to weed straight away. Then I can assign her some responsibilities in my garden. I have a feeling that she would be quite good at searching out and uprooting the wild onions that are sprouting up everywhere!

Tim worked hard on the deck yesterday too. He finished the railing (that he made himself!), cleaned up a bunch of debris in the yard and reassembled our deck furniture. Unfortunately, we then had a gorgeous spring time thunder storm, so we couldn't eat dinner on the deck.

So the yard is shaping up. I intended to take some shots of it, so that you all could see the miraculous progress later in the summer. I didn't get to it before the storm. I'll try to get out there in the next couple of days and take some photos. I'm sure the before and after will be mind-blowing and you'll all be begging to see them.

Okay, different subject, Lost this week.... I cried and felt nauseous when Kate gave up Aaron. Ever since I had LB that sort of thing kills me. And what's up with Kate looking for Claire? Exactly how does she plan to get off of the island again??? And Jack, letting a kid suffer? What's up with all of the personality transformations? Are Jack and Sawyer switching roles? I love this show!

Okay, etsy. I sold seven items yesterday! I'm going to work on some new stuff today and hope to get it listed in the next few days. I did list one anniversary/wedding card this week.

I decided I needed a new feature on the blog. I'll call it the "Brennan of the Day." Although, I think you know that I won't actually post every day. But it will be the "Brennan of the Day" for the days that I post! We checked out this great children's music cd, "Mary Had a Little Amp," from the library that has a cover of "Pure Imagination" from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Maroon 5. LB loves to dance "ballet" to it. Yesterday she was doing just that and danced over to me and said, "I'm going to change the world." How sweet is that? I love that baby.