Spring Has Sprung At Last

.... and not a moment too soon.

Beetles, Basil and Bait

On the home front, we have had an invasion of Japanese Beetles , who have taken great delight in eating my basil. So, following the example of neighbors and relatives, I have set out a Bait bag trap. It contains something that smells wonderful to these little critters, and seems to work. You place the bait downwind of the object of affection (basil in this case) and they absolutely run over each other in their haste to get to the bait. You can watch them swarm in! This morning, I had one lone beetle feasting. Of course, the plant already looks like a free smorgasbord sign was posted there, but luckily they only ate number 1 plant, and ignored 2 others.

We picked tomatoes

Yesterday afternoon we picked the first tomatoes from our plants, and there are lots more to come! We have about a half dozen banana peppers almost ready and the japalenos are doing nicely too. Tonight we used some of the herbs in a marinade, so it will be interesting to see the difference if any between fresh and dried.

Not much else is happening here. We are still wishing for rain, yet loving the cooler temperatures we are having. We have not had the AC unit on except for 3 days in late May. That is welcome. it's nice to have the windows open and hear the birds outside.

Tomorrow I am planning to go to the Botanical Gardens with Rebecca and the kids in the afternoon. I'll go for my scheduled swim at noon, the earliest the pool is open for free swim. A neighbor and I have started going together on MWF and we have almost worked up to swimming 30 minutes. Good progress for us.

It's been great talking to Lufkin and hearing all the news and activities. I know everyone will be sad tomorrow when Brian and Christine and baby Michele leave to go home. They will move into their new house this week, so I am sure they are excited about that.

Mom and Dad, we are planning for you to come, so be thinking when. I think anytime you want to arrive after the 19th will be fine. If our neighbors are true to form, we will have fireworks right here in the back yard!

Spring Flowers

Our last few days have been very warm, and all the flowers are blooming, except the daffodils of course, which we think will come in full bloom after we leave for Texas. I feel certain they will not be happy little flowers though when we get a freeze a few nights from now. Since we'll miss their peak bloom time we will have to look forward to next year, by then we should even have more! At least we can hope! We planted day lilies, a forsythia, a few hosta and other lilies that all came from Rebecca's yard. Most are plants that will take care of themselves, and hopefully live through the summer. If we don't get the forecasted rain tonight I may have to go borrow a hose from a neighbor as things are pretty dry out back.

The next post should be from Texas! Since we won't have an internet connection (except Dad's) we probably won't we doing any photos, so enjoy these!

A sign of spring?

Today is the last day of January, and I see I have not blogged for the family this week. This last week of the month was fairly uneventful here in Virginia. The weather has been mild, and though we had a few nights with temperatures that were approaching freezing, we have enjoyed being able to go outside with only a light jacket. Some of the bulbs we planted are in bloom and the pansies are really putting out blosoms.

Friday I went swimming with the grandkids and Rebecca. I took them to "Nana's pool" (the clubhouse) and they really seemed to enjoy the water. I think that this will be something they will like doing. They do have swimming at the club where their family belongs, but I don't think they swim often this time of the year. The nice thing about the pool here is that we were there with only two other people, so the water was pretty calm and the kids had plenty of freedom to move about without worrying about being splashed by someone else.

Meadow Farm which is part of the Henrico County Public Park system had a meeting and orientation for new volunteers on Saturday. I had been thinking that I would like to do some volunteer work there as they have a variety of activities that they offer to the community. SInce it is the closest neighborhood part and one we visit often I thought it would be interesting. Their Sewing Guild meets once a month at the museum and they work on clothing for the costumes the farm provides for the volunteers who "interpret" the farm activities for the public. At the moment there are no activities on schedule that the guild itself participates in, but in the fall one of the weekends is centered on quilting. Coming up in April is the "Sheep to Shawl" weekend and they will be shearing sheep all the Saturdays in April. A group of spinners from another guild will come for the "Sheep to Shawl" Sunday to demonstrate spinning and other activities involved in getting the fiber into a finished article. Sounds interesting to me! Oh yes, there are new baby lambs at Meadow Farm now, is spring coming?

This morning we had additional insulation blown into the attic. We decided the added layer would help with the heating costs, and the payback period was short. Hopefully this next week when the temperatures go down we will see a small difference.

Finally, today marks four months in our home. From now on, I will only post in the house blog occasionally, and will provide a link from here so you will know something new has been added.