April 29, 2012 Happy Birthday, Mom!



JB and MAX clearing the garden site



More wildflowers!
















Two more beautiful Spring days.  Friday was clear and cool, but Saturday was much warmer.  As we sat eating lunch yesterday, at about the same time we looked at each other and said, "Screw it!  Lets go somewhere!"  So we all hopped in my Jeep and drove to Leavenworth.  This all before we gave it a thought that not only was this a beautiful Spring Saturday, but it was the first weekend of Wenatchee's Apple Blossom Festival which draws people from all over this state and the surrounding ones.  Leavenworth is a small, "Swiss" town about 20 miles west of Wenatchee that sits at the foot of the Cascade "Alps."  There were WAY too many people and cars, so we turned around and went back.  We stopped at one of the larger orchard/fruit stands which was fun.  No produce available, but they had a great store with all sorts of interesting sauces and relishes.

Both towns and all the orchards were in full bloom.  A veritable feast for the eyes.  While trees and bushes are just budding Up Here, their blossoms adorn all the streets and fields Down There.  And all this against the backdrop of the snow-covered Cascades.  It was a great drive.

Thursday night we caught a mouse in one of the bathroom traps.  Don't remember having one all winter.

After we pumped water out from under the house, we spent Friday afternoon clearing more brush from our garden site.  I can only hope that actually planting and growing a garden is much easier than clearing a place for it!  I pulled and chopped, while JB used MAX and the small trailer to haul the cleared brush to the chipping pile and then pull out some smaller bushes.  It sure looks good, and we just have a couple more large scrub brush and some big roots for JB's Jeep to pull out.

Saturday morning the dogs went nuts barking and both ran up the south slope.  Just as quickly they came running back down, still barking.  We couldn't see anything, but we think it must have been a bear.

I brought in the last of the firewood from the porch yesterday.  We'll have to pull from the wood shed again but probably won't be using too much more.

Today is Dinga's fourth birthday.  It would have been my Mom's 89th.

Thought for the day:  Earth laughs in flowers.  Ralph Walder Emerson