We're back!

 Joseph planted this flower "box" in the front.  We have 4 total and can't wait for the flowers to begin spilling over the edges.  Gotta be easier than the hanging baskets we killed last year, right?  (By the way, I just LOVE it when the boys match clothes by accident.  For some reason, it cracks me up.)

Charlie's little lavender plant.  He's very proud of it.

And happy.

It's May now, so the lilacs are blooming.  

Our back "serenity garden" was discovered by the deer in the early part of spring.  But it turns out, they left some for us after all...

In addition to flowers in the front, we planted lettuces, peas, and spinach in the back.  In cinder blocks.

I'm trying to sell my baby clothes.  The 24mo girls stuff sold (for enough to buy ice cream after we finish the climbing box--see below).  Nothing else sold.  Not even at the scout yard sale this weekend.  (Though to be fair, they actually had a pretty lousy turn-out and made very little this year.)  I'm beginning to think I may need to just accost people on the street, give them a bag of clothes, and run.

And yes, a climbing box.

A friend of Mary's gave us a slide, 2 swings, and a monkey bars.  My plan was to build a simple, little swing-set for it.  Ahh, me and my wishful thinking.

Here is the slide, sad and lonely on its side for the past 2 weeks.

Elisabeth couldn't take the excitement.  She didn't even make it home from (the 3hr trip) to Home Depot.

Here is Joseph, hanging out in the car with half (yes, half) of the supplies.

 

Let the drilling begin.

Here is everyone, half done, at 9:30 last night, when I begged them to reduce the plan and let this suffice.  (Puh-leeze!)  

They agreed.  It was planned for too much. (The plan was 2 boxes of this size, with a 10 "bridge" between where the swings would be.  There was also some talk of turning one of the box bottoms into a chicken coop!)  So I returned about half the lumber and bolts, and they attached the slide and went to bed.  (Side braces coming soon, as well as a ladder for the slide.  Swing/s to go up later.  Maybe monkey bars across the top and a fire pole down after that.)

Today, Joseph swung up some rope and began to play on the 8x8x10 box.  Lil'Nathan used more rope to make a giant spider webby thing.  ("It's 3D.")  We'll see about that.

But Peanut Pants loves it.

If you are sick of hearing about the garden, skip this post...

We are going to make this look like a wishing well.  Or maybe we'll just plant it with flowers.  (It's hiding the top of the propane tank.)

Serenity Garden with the birdhouse.

Looking from the other direction.

A rock box, instead of a sand box.  Why?  We have cats in the neighborhood.  'nuff said.

Current view of garden.

Closer.

I told Mary these beets would never survive.  She is delighted that I was proven wrong.

See my better scarecrow?  (Mary asks that you pay no attention to her in this photo, please.)

A peek inside our largest zucchini.  Now we just need some bees.

He's grown.  Must be all that good NH air.

My favorite flowers. 

This is what I had in mind for our garden...

This is what I got....

I am WAY more talented in my head.

(After a week, we took it down and replaced it with something we found at a yard sale--much closer to the original vision.  Mine looked like Charlie-on-a-stick.)

Our Gardens...
(These are already old, but you'll get the idea.  I'll make the pictures big for detail, even though they'll stick out of the border.)  :)

We planted the tree stumps b/c we couldn't dig them out.  I love it.

 

And between them we put the Japanese Maple, named Maiko.

We've changed the look of this, our Serenity Garden, a little.  The stones around the stump on the right now go all around and we've added stones around the other stump and the tree.  The stones around the tree have been filled in with... smaller stones.  It's lovely.  We've also added a little birdhouse the kids painted.  We still want to put stone all around the perimeter.  And I'm not yet sold on the ring of irises.

Also in the back are Mary's lettuces for her guinea pig.  They love it there.  :)  (The little spinach isn't doing too well, though.)



And this is our veggie garden.  Along the top tier are 7 tomato plants and three watermelons.  Level two is beans, eggplants, and pumpkins (along the fence).  Level 3 is squashes and another watermelon.  There are now kale plants in the 6 holes on the left and chard plants in the 6 on the right.  Oh, somewhere we've got 2 struggling beets, too.  Marigolds fill the other holes.

Along the side (where you'd be standing if you took the above picture) of this garden, is our herb garden--now also with straw.  Chocolate mint in the separate box, 4 basils, one parsley, one oregano, one dill, one bug geranium (planted by a helpful Charlie, but originally planned for elsewhere) and now a lemon balm where that "hole" is.

Now we go around front.  One of our flower "buckets."  See the little corn plants in the background.

 And this is a full view of the front of the house.  We had to get hangers to lengthen the hanging baskets b/c we couldn't reach them to water them.  :)  That's the flower bucket from the above photo.  You can barely see the little corns.  On the far left are two blueberry plants and a raspberry in the center (yes, in a container--and no thorns!).  The overgrown geraniums and irises may not still be there next  year.  Just sayin'.  (Under the stone wall, we put the drainage hose for the sump pump.  "Free" irrigation system!)

The herb and veggie garden on on the right of the driveway.  The Serenity Garden and lettuces are in the back of the house.

Oh, and the elephants from India are on the piano.