Spring is here!

What an amazing weekend weather-wise here in Indiana. We went from having cool high 40's weather at the beginning of this past week to 80 on Saturday and Sunday! With the lovely sunny weather and warm temperatures, wildflowers and plants in our garden have really popped, as the lovely Hepatica picture to the left shows. In the garden, the strawberry crowns have started to leaf out and are peeking out from under their straw blankets. Radishes and spinach are starting to pop and and the onions planted a few weeks ago are going strong. We went from having 1 asparagus stalk poking up out of the ground Friday night, to almost 12 stalks up today, and growing fast.

Yesterday, Ryan and Sarah's Dad installed the laminate floor in the living room. It went pretty smoothly except for the starting point and ending points which required some shimming, and cutting to make sure things fit perfect. The end product looks fabulous, and has really brightened up the room. We will be calling the furniture store tomorrow to let them know that we are ready for them to deliver our sofa and loveseat. Hopefully they will be able to do that this week, as they called a couple of weeks ago to let us know that our order had arrived. We are excited to have everything all put together, and being able to relax a little bit.

Another highlight of our weekend: our Sunday evening meal. We ate asparagus fresh from the garden, fixed in our favorite way: steamed with lots of salt. Then we fried the 3 morel mushrooms we found in Mom and Dad's woods yesterday, and finished off with tortilla chips and salsa made from last year's tomatoes and peppers. Saturday morning, Sarah made rhubarb muffins for breakfast with rhubarb that had been picked that morning.

Spring: the season of hope

It's hard to imagine with all the rain and clouds and chilly temperatures that in a few short months, summer will be in full bloom including 90 degree temperatures and ripe tomatoes off the vine. Right now though, we're betting on that time coming. Yesterday, while the sun shone, and the air was balmy at 60 degrees, Ryan and I planted the earliest of our crops in the garden: potatoes, cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, and the long awaited strawberry plants and blueberry bushes we had ordered when there was still snow on the ground. We planted onions a little over a week ago, and they are just beginning to sprout.

Other things we're planting hope in: turkey eggs. Our turkey hen, Esmerelda, has been dutifully laying eggs every other day for a couple of weeks now, and when the mood hits her, she will sit on them for a little while. We've saved some of her eggs back, replacing them with camoflauge plastic easter eggs, so that not all of them will have been possibly exposed to freezing temps. She's not to picky about what eggs in her nest look like as long as there are the right amount of them there.

Otherwise, we're trying to get our living room finished. Ryan has been working hard this week to finish applying brick veneer to our plaster covered chimney, and priming stairway trim. All we have left to do is get the floor installed and finish the woodwork and stair bannister. The furniture store called this week, and said that our couch and loveseat are in, we just have to schedule a time to have them delivered. We are looking forward to getting all of this done in time to spend most of our summer outdoors.

Even though its cold and wet today, our garden and animals are not the only things reminding us of spring. The bizillion irises that prior owners planted on this ground, and lilacs bushes that are finally developing buds after being deer eaten for years are abounding. We think it helps to have a watchdog tom turkey that makes a commotion when he hears any kind of movement or sound in his territory.