Ah, Summer

 It occurs to me that I spend a lot of bad-weather days 

in the winter blogging. 

Lately, however, those days have been non-existent.

Instead, we have been hanging out at the pond

with our cousins...

 or the playground

 or in our clothing baskets,

 or, of course, at the beach

The beach might just be the best place to hang out in the summer...

especially when friends from Oregon are visiting

with their adorable little 18 month old red-head

who has never touched his itty bitty toes in the Atlantic,

(the problem has been solved)

or when there are hundreds of seagulls to chase,

but once in a while it is good just to hang out at home.

  I suppose where I am going with this is

Life is Good.

Maybe I will blog more in the winter.

Hope you are doing great!

Peace, love, and happiness

from the beach.

Some other pics I never posted...

Our family photo shoot...

 And a sunset on the beach.

One minute he is there..

 and the next, he is off again...

Birthday Wheels

I forgot to post about Orin's fourth birthday!

I should have plenty of pictures of him opening presents,

and blowing out the candles on his birthday cake,

but in my typical fashion, the more important the event, 

the less likely I am to photograph it.

Although I did take a picture of Orin on his maiden voyage

with his new pedal bike. 

And, no, of course I didn't forget to pack his helmet

(we were at my mother's house)

knowing that he was getting a bike...

who would do a thing like that...

opps.

Happy Four Ori!

My new job

I mentioned in an earlier post that I just started a new job.

I didn't mention that my job is one of the coolest jobs of all time.

I am working for the Association for the Preservation of Cape Cod

surveying rare plant communities around the Cape.

What this means is that I get to hike around beautiful areas

looking for interesting plant communities

and when I find them, I photograph them and map them. 

Here are just a few pictures from my first two weeks:

wild grape

bindweed

the beach at Wing Island

beech forest

skunk cabbage

salt marsh

salt spray rose

interdune pool

spartina

more spartina

 

I loved some of the places I went so much

that over the weekend, I retraced my steps with Orin and Casey.

Here they are looking at the baby osprey in its nest.

we walked out to the water at low tide

it took a while... but we made it

which sure made Orin happy.

Hope you had a good one too!

Growing Up

The other day, we decided to build a vertical pallet garden. 

Vertical gardens are great because you can grow a lot 

of plants using very little ground space,

which is especially good if you are sun or space limited.

We don't happen to have either problem

but instead just wanted to plant one because they are pretty

and we had an extra pallet.

Step one was to reinforce the back.

To do this, we used some old trim that has been waiting 

to go to the dump.

(Dump run, no longer needed!)

 Next, we stapled on some landscape fabric

(several layers to make it nice and strong)

 Then we hired a cute kid to fill the pallet with dirt...

 and plant it with some pretty plants.

 After it was planted, we left it laying on the ground for 2 weeks

so the roots could take hold of the soil.

The last step was to pick it up

(they are really heavy!)

and prop it against the house.

Waahhllahh!

Catching the Rain

Opps! I guess last month marked a new low point in my blogging history.

I just started a new job (more on that to come) and have been really

busy in the off hours working with Casey 

on a couple fun projects around the "farm".

One of the first was hooking up our rain barrels, now that we are solidly

in both the growing season and hurricane season, it is good to catch it

while it is coming so you can use it when it isn't.

First, we aquired some old olive and pepper storage containers off Craigslist.  

 Then we drilled some holes in the lid to let the water through...

and added a screen so the mosquitoes couldn't get in...

 and a spigot on the bottom to attach a hose for watering

 All that was left was to hack off the gutter

 and hook it up to our new rain catcher.

Isn't it beautiful?

Crazy for the ocean

 Yesterday we went to Seagull beach for an after dinner walk.

(Please note the use of the word "walk"

and the fact that Orin is fully dressed upon arrival.)

After abandoning his shoes, Orin splashed in the surf a little,

but soon complained that he needed to take his shorts off...

Then his coat and his shirt...

(You might notice that Casey is wearing a sweatshirt, boots,

and a jacket)

For a brief moment he stood on the edge of the water, 

and then he was in.

15 minutes later we dragged him out, purple-lipped and goose bumped,

but still entirely insistent that we let him play more.

"We will come back this summer..."

we assured him...

"When the water is warmer"

But he will not wait that long... there is no way.

I am staring to think he's part polar bear...

Bye Bye Grass!

Last Spring when we moved to the Cape,
our front yard looked like this: 

just a bunch of deadish grass that needed to be
fertilized, watered, and mowed in order for it to look good
(we only bothered with the mowing part)

Not only was the grass high maintenance, but it provided no habitat

for birds and other critters, no flowers for the local pollinators, 

and no food/ herbs for us.

It wasn't hard to decide that the grass needed to go. 

So, last year when a nursery was scaling back their inventory

I bought every herb they carried and planted them in the front yard

along what was to be a pathway through the garden.

I am pretty sure the neighbors just thought I was crazy.

 After the winter, it was time to move on to step two
of our front garden plan.

I gathered up some pavers that we weren't using on the
side of the house and put them around the garden-to-be 

to define where the path would go.

We also planted a bunch of other plants, mostly cape cod natives,

to provide food and shelter for wildlife.

The next step was to till the entire yard to
kill the grass in each of the garden beds

before having 6 yards of mulch delivered to cover each bed.

And lastly, I planted another 20 or so varieties of flowering

plants and herbs by seed.

The next step is to line the pathways with rock 

and then cover them with sand or gravel...

It might take time, but I think our work will be well worth it

in a couple years when the plants get established 

and start to fill in the beds. 

Now I just have to convince the neighbors of that... :)