Clematis

Every year our Clematis produces more blooms.

Family Easter

Hunter, Jenna, and Kelly

 

 

Sam and Gracen

Beautiful sisters Sam and Tara

Lovely Marley

Gracen mugs for the camera

I wonder if this is how her school pictures will look.

She refuses to sit still for the camera.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quote of the Day

"The test of an adventure is that when you're in the middle of it, you say to yourself, 'Oh, now I've got myself into an awful mess; I wish I were sitting quietly at home.' And the sign that something's wrong with you is when you sit quietly at home wishing you were out having lots of adventure."

Thornton Wilder

Scary Oklahoma Skies

Spring arrived overnight and the tornado watches have already begun.

 

 

 

 

 

Oblivious of the weather Gracen decides to swingn

 

 

 

 

 

daffodils

We've been growing daffodils for over 30 years. They keep multiplying and I keep dividing them and they give us so much eye candy after long grey winters.

An interesting hybrid with double petals.

 

People in the neighborhood call this delicate little flowers Narcissus

 

 

 

Gracen is holding an interesting one.  It starts out with a yellow

trumpet and within a few days it fades to white.

 

Pink ones too.

 

 

from the large to the small

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally!

Daffodils finally bloom.  It's been a long, cold winter.

 

 

I spent the afternoon cutting seed potatoes

and dusting them with sulfur. These are

Yukon Gold. I'm also planting Red Pontiacs

and Kennebecs.

Young Riders

Our neighbor's grand daughter Sydney brought her horse down and gave the kids a ride.

 

 

 

 

 

 

While I took this picture Kelly captures the image on her cell phone.

Sydney, at right holds the reins.

 

 

 

I'm Getting Old

I got so involved editing the giraffe cake pictures I forgot to post the most important photo of all:

Jenna blows out her candles. Dorothy joins in because it's her

birthday too.

Dorothy's Latest Cake

Our grand daughter Jenna wanted a giraffe cake for her birthday. That was a pretty tall order (no pun intended).  It took some thinking but this is what we came up with:

I made this "skeleton" out of PVC pipe.

 

 

 

Dorothy placed the two layer chocolate

cake on the skeleton, carved it into shape, and

crumb coated it with icing.

 

 

Then wrapped it in fondant.

 

 

Several layers of fondant were needed to arrived at the correct contours.

 

 

Dorothy had me to paint the markings and sculpt the

head from a wad of fondant.

 

 

Except for the pipe skeleton everything you

see is edible.

 

 

 

 

 

Quote of the Day

Drawn forward by debt, desire, or both, Americans are emerging as the first addicts of the technological age, driven still by some ancient instinct for self-preservation that in our time of affluence is misplaced....It is in this blind pursuit of material prosperity that Americans have begun to push the boundaries of human adaptation, as is evidenced by rising levels of greed, anxiety, and obesity.

Peter C. Whybrow, M.D. from American Mania: When More is Not Enough

First Sign of Spring

Daffodils peeking out of the snow tell me Spring in just around

the corner.

 

 

 

Quote of the Day

Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people's approval
and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.

Tao Te Ching

Winter Birds

Cardinals don't migrate.  They are faithful friends that stick with us through the winter and brighten our dreary days.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quote of the Day

Even when I protest the assembly-line production of our food, our songs, our language, and eventually our souls, I know that it was a rare home that baked good bread in the old days. Mother's cooking was with rare exceptions poor, that good unpasteurized milk touched only by flies and bits of manure crawled with bacteria, the healthy old-time life was riddled with aches, sudden death from unknown causes, and that sweet local speech I mourn was the child of illiteracy and ignorance. It is the nature of a man as he grows older, a small bridge in time, to protest against change, particularly change for the better.

John Steinbeck

Thundersleet

This  morning we woke to sleet tapping at the window.  The temperature was 24 degrees and now continues its inexorable descent into single digits .Thunder rumbles in the distance. The Polar Vortex returns  and chills  us to the bone. Spring retreats into the future.

The sleet doesn't prevent the birds from availing themselves of

our hospitality.

 

Horses with their backs to the winds hope

for the sun.