Well, Maybe Not 50.....

Wow, long time since I blogged! After 4 days of rain last week, Chuck and I were stomping at the bit to get out to our place and start digging in the dirt! It had to wait, tho' since we had already planned to drive to Kansas City on Friday. Olivia had a soccer game on Saturday morning and we had been waiting for a chance to see her play this year. It was a cold, rainy morning, but the game went on. I took some really good pictures with my phone camera, but can't figure out how to get them from email to my blog. The game was great and Olivia played really good. It's her first year and she is very motivated! We left after lunch and stopped off in Des Moines to catch Carson's 4:00 baseball game. More good pictures that I can't download. He's quite the player. Mostly plays shortstop, but we had a chance to see him pitch and he did really good. He will be playing most of the summer, so hope we can get there again during vacation.

Sunday: First project -- planting the strawberry
bed. I wanted to save the hollyhocks so we moved them to the back of the flower bed in the back yard. 8 good, healthy plants, already budded. Then cleaned the weeds out and planted 40 strawberry plants. My mouth is watering already, tho' I know there won't be any to speak of this year.








Here they are! 40 little plants all in a row. This should be the perfect place for them. They will get full sun all day facing the south. I can't wait!




Amanda and Braylon came in the afternoon to help with the planting. Braylon spent his time in the shade. He's sitting up good now and what a winning smile. He really enjoyed watching all the movement of the trees and the birds. What a cutie!





Monday: Chuck back to work, so I decided to tackle this area to the side of the 4-seasons porch. Mostly weeds, but a bush in the corner and an immensely overgrown patch of chives. The chives have really spread so I got rid of some and all the weeds and decided to plant an herb garden.







Not sure if there's going to be enough sun, but it looks nicer. By Tuesday morning, I'm feeling anything but 50. More like my own age, but determined that each day I'll be less tired.




Tuesday: Not much energy today. I spent a couple of hours pulling and cutting dead seed pods and blossoms off some of the perennials. I notice the iris are starting to bloom in big garden. I'll get some pictures of those tomorrow. It was a short day as I ran out of steam in a hurry.

Here's a picture of the huge farm kitchen. The eating area is equally as large. I'll be able to stretch my round oak table out to accommodate the 9 leaves and still have room to walk around it. No need for a dining room.




The four seasons porch is right off the kitchen/dining area and looks over the back yard. My mind is spinning with all the ideas I have for this place. One of the first will be to replace the PURPLE carpeting out here. Even Chuck says he can't live with that. Besides, it's sun faded. Why would you choose such a dark color with so much sunlight pouring in?


Today (Thursday) I'm feeling pretty chipper. No more aches and pains. I woke up at 4am with no interruptions in my sleep last night. Lots to do. Someone is coming out this morning from the nursery to help me identify some of things growing in the beds. Then I'm going to work on cleaning out the asparagus and raspberry bushes. This weekend we're planting the vegetable garden. And on and on and on......

Thanks to all you have been faithfully following this post. It's so fun to be able to share with you our process.

More to come.......