Winter's Winding Down

Greetings from The Heartland!
It's hard to believe it's been a month without updating. There really hasn't been much to report on, though. February gave us Winter, Spring and a taste of Summer, and early March has done the same.

Mom is still progressing along slowly, with good days and days she's very tired, but she still sneaks out on the porches for a little while on the nice days to see what Lynne and I have been up to out in the yard. Last Sunday, she decided she was feeling up to going down to the Church for Sunday School. This might not sound like much, but other than trips to the Doctor's offices, this was her first time away from the house since coming home from the hospital. Lynne and I take turns going shopping, so someone's always home with mom, but with her slowly getting stronger, we're hoping soon we can get out for a couple hours and visit some garden centers or even grocery shop together. Little things, you know?

Speaking of porches, over the last 2 1/2 weeks, we've gotten the back deck converted into a screened porch. The crew just finished up today, and they really did an excellent job. We've held off on a lot of landscaping and planting, waiting for them to finish up. Now we can get going on some planting. Meanwhile, the veggie gardens have been expanded to grow some things Mom has ordered for the summer, and the regular rotation of cold weather plants like spinach, lettuce, carrots, broccoli, and beets continues to rotate through the beds. Summer things like tomatoes and peppers, squashes and gourds have all been wintersown, and some have germinated, while others are waiting for warmer temperatures to sprout.

Kevin, Jenn and baby Celeste get down occasionally, and Dawn and the boys stop by often. It's especially a good time when they all get over at the same time, as the pictures show. Celeste is growing like a weed, and the grandsons, well, it their combined energy could be bottled and sold... ;-)

Back in December, there was a picture of a pear tree in the back yard that was in full fall colors, which it eventually shed. That tree has come back to life with spring just a week away, as the pictures with this post show. And, amazingly, we've had butterflies in the yard off and on all winter long.

The deer still show up from time to time, as does our semi-resident hawk. A couple weeks ago, we were very surprised to see 2 ducks up in one of the pine trees. Yes, that's right.... DUCKS! As in quack, quack!! If you look close in the small picture, you can see it at the bottom center.

Much of the back woods has now been cleared out, and Lynne is slowly turning parts of it into woodland gardens, instead of the saplings and trees, honeysuckle and grape vines, and occasional poison ivy mixed in. While clearing the woods out, we came across a stand of native blueberries. Hopefully, with a little TLC, we'll get some fruit off them.
Soon, many of the winter-sown seeds we've started will be getting planted out in the various garden beds. With the continuing drought, we're hoping we'll get some good soaking rains sometime really soon. It's been a dry winter so far, already almost 6" below normal for the year that is only 10 weeks old.

Next time around, we'll be posting pictures of some of the late winter flowers and the wintersown seedlings that have seen temps from 18 - 83 over the last several weeks, yet continue to provide entertainment for the eyes each time we walk around the year.

And, of course, no entry is complete without showing the cats doing what cats do best...absolutely nothing :-)

Thanks for stopping by and visiting. Please leave a note so we know you were here ;-)

Life continues to be well and wonderful, here in the Heartland.