Photo update

I never found my uploading-pictures-from-my-camera cable, so yesterday Mike bought a card reader thingie (it was on sale, plus there's a rebate, so it was practically free!), and so I'm finally able to post some pics that someone has been bugging me about for two months now!

This is the blueberry garden we're creating in the front yard.



The original idea was to create a privacy screen - the double windows on the left of the house belong to my bedroom, and I wanted to be able to look out of my windows and see something besides the neighbor's house across the street, so last spring we bought a truckload of dirt, added lots of compost and peat moss to it, and planted about a dozen blueberries. When we first built the hill, we used el cheapo paving bricks from the home improvement store as a retaining wall, which was not at all how I wanted it to look. Then about three months ago, Mike asked a friend of ours with a farm outside of town, if they had any rock they'd like to get rid of, and our farmer friend gladly told us to take as much rock as we wanted. This picture was taken a couple of months ago at the start of the "replacing the brick" project. We're eventually going to take down that white fence and build a low rock wall in its place. 



As you can see, the blueberry hill is slightly overgrown with grass - keeping it cut back is a constant chore, but I want the grass to stay there until I figure out what to use for a groundcover. In the foreground you can see the peach tree, which is producing all of seven peaches in its first year in our garden, surrounded by what's left of the daffodils and muscari. I'm sorry I didn't take a picture when the bulbs were blooming - it was so pretty! That little twig you can barely see to the left of the peach tree is the only blueberry we planted last year that survived, and this year is gave us a couple dozen very plump and sweetly tart berries. We planted two more blueberries in the late winter this year, so our "blueberry garden" has all of three scrawny blueberry bushes on it. To the right is the plum tree we planted this spring that is now heavily laden with fruit.

A view of our beautiful pecan tree. That's my dear hubby standing by his mini-van getting ready to go back to work after his lunch break.





View from the house side of the garden of #2 Daughter sitting beside the white climbing rose, which, according to Sora, is in the "creep" year. Those lambs ears in front of her were just three tiny little plants last spring - I think they are the most successful things I've planted so far!





Daughters #2 and #3 posing by the peach tree.





Remember the trellis we built out of leftovers so we could screen this ugly compost area? This pic was taken in late April when the gourds first sprouted...



...this picture was taken this afternoon. Much prettier, isn't it?





Trying to get seven kids to pose for a photo is not the easiest thing in the world. This was about two Sundays ago, and as you can see, Baby Princess was a little bit hot and cranky, so we never got a good shot. #1 Daughter is wearing the skirt she made for Easter; #2 Daughter made her own jumper; I made the gingham jumper and white petticoat #3 Daughter is wearing (and the matching petticoat on #2D, which you can't really see), and the gingham dress on Baby Princess. The boys are wearing coordinating shirts from the local stuff mart. Sorry guys! Maybe next year I'll get around to making Easter clothes for you, too!