Coming Home

Sometimes, when you come home after a week away, you find things like this.

And sometimes, you find twenty.

Twenty ginormous squash, that is.

Who knows how many carrots.

The Virginia summer did us in about a quarter of the way through.

There'll be more tomorrow.

I'm thinking we're looking at over a hundred when all is said and done.

(That's the carrot count.  And the temperature.)

I Love My Neighborhood

I wish I lived on a farm.  With acres and acres of fields to plant, care for, and harvest.  I wish I could have chickens and goats and bees.  I wish my children had unlimited space to run and play and explore.

But here's the thing.  If I had all that, I wouldn't have this perfect neighborhood I live in.  With great friends.  And tons of kids.  And dogs.  And ice cream at the bus stop on the last day of school.

I love my neighborhood.

Thief

Our strawberry patch is doing great.

And we're not the only ones enjoying it, either.

You'll never guess.

Guess what our garden gave us?

And guess who's been eating it up like there's no tomorrow?

I'll give you a hint...

EVERYBODY.

(Yes, even Jake.)

The Great Experiment

We've been working hard on fixing up our front yard, which is a pretty steep hill. It used to be a mass of weeds, dead ground cover, and more weeds. Really attractive. Our neighbors justloved us. (In our defense, it was like that when we moved in. And it only took us two and a half years to do something about it...)

We put in stone walls to create a terraced rise on the hill and decided to plant ivy as a ground cover on the lowest level, azaleas and a flower garden on the middle tier, and... well, we are still deciding what to do with the top, which rises a bit to the rest of our grassy front yard.

Over the Fourth of July weekend, I planted over 150 baby ivies. I love them. And someday they will grow to be big grown-up ivies. Did I mention I love them?

While I planted each individual baby ivy, Dan was working on the tier just above me, planting the baby azaleas. He loves them. Today, when he discovered some buds on them - a year before we expected any flowers - well, let's just say he was pretty excited.

And the top... I bought a packet of pumpkin seeds a couple years ago, but we never planted them. So we figured, hey, let's just see what happens! The boys planted six seeds straight across the top of the hill...

... they grew.

We are, again, the talk of the neighborhood.

We're planning on buying back the neighborly love with pumpkins come fall. But this one - our first-born - is ours.

Home

"Start by making your own home a place where happiness and love abound, through your love for each member of your family and for your neighbor. Try to put in the hearts of your children a love for home. Make them long to be with their families. So much sin could be avoided if our people really love their homes."

-Mother Theresa

Yesterday, my boys went back to school after the best Spring Break ever. No, we didn't go on a big fancy vacation. In fact, we didn't go anywhere. Not even to the store. I mean it, we didn't go anywhere. It was wonderful. A full week with nowhere to be but home. Together. It was wonderful.