Astilbe

They don't have as extended of a bloom time as some other things do, but they're still fun. These particular astilbes have lived in at least three locations in our yard before we finally found a place where they are predictably happy. As you can see, they are quite well settled here, and we enjoy them every year when they're doing their thing.

New blooms in great-grandpa's garden

Last year the lilies Great-Grandpa shared with me came up, but weren't sturdy enough yet to bloom.

This year, however, we're going to get a decent showing, and I finally get to see what color they are!

From the looks of it, they're going to be a beautiful deep pinkish corally red.

Garden help

With a week long visit from my parents' friend from Wisconsin, we were able to get the front garden by the driveways weeded and mulched (with a thick layer of newspaper - free and ugly - and a thin layer of Menards' cheapest mulch), despite my being 36 weeks pregnant.

The girls were often swirling around nearby, and I was grateful for Rinnah's help throwing a few more annuals into the gap at the bottom that's just a little too close to the salt and the plow to be good for much. I've still got to figure out which perennials will be good down there.

I also gained a few plants (down here all sedum) from our neighbors who are moving and wanted a place to stash some perennials until they find a new place. Even better, she planted them for me, since the ground is a long way down these days! The sharing is definitely part of the fun of a garden.

Hydrangeas

"Mom, can I pick one of your white flowers - the big ones?"

Garden style

Who knew that disassembled bleeding hearts could make such great dress-up jewelry?

Great-grandpa's garden

The day after the blizzard...

It looks a little different out there in the yard this year than it did a year ago yesterday!

 or a year ago today!

Syrup

Even when nothing is growing in the garden, there are still opportunities to take advantage of its productive opportunities. We've been tapping our maple trees, and those of two or three of our neighbors since Reuben was a very small boy. It's now become one of his very favorite activities of the whole year, and he takes the work very seriously.

Tapping the trees - we use old milk jugs to catch the sap.

Matt's been using a three-pan system for the last two years. This makes the whole process go a lot faster, and he's been able to get a lighter syrup for the finished product, too.

Just to the left of center you can see a big cylinder of ice he pulled out of his holding bucket, using the Native American trick of just freezing off the water and getting a head start on concentrating the sap to get to the proper sugar content.

The whole rig in all its glory. Those cinder blocks are slowly crumbling - every year it's a little more "riggish" and one of these years he's going to have to purchase some new ones! (These are all still left over from the demolition during remodeling at our church years ago.)

Reuben's beloved job is to feed the fire.

 And the finished product from the first boil: nearly two gallons of beautiful, pure, home grown and home made maple syrup!