House-a-versary

In order to fully celebrate the 3rd anniversary of our home purchase, we, uh.... put in a new garden. I haven't taken any photos yet, but I guarantee it looks fabulous. Dave followed this method to get rid of the grass,and we moved our granite blocks that were formerly in the boulevard. Thanks to Andy, Nikki, and Kayla, Dave and I were able to get all we wanted done on Saturday before the rain came - of course, the rain never actually showed up, but we thought it was going to. It was nice to have some one else take charge of baby care for a little while. Photos soon!

What Dave isn't telling you

Dave decided that blogging just isn't for him, so it's up to me to tell you what 's been going on in our garden. As I've mentioned, Dave has been home with Gus and I for the past two months. Besides helping me care for the baby, doing the grocery shopping, preparing most of our meals, and doing the majority of the laundry, he has been gardening. But he only gets time in between juggling the responsibilities he has for his family right now. Hardly any time at all, right?

And yet, he's installed a new shade garden:Parts of this garden were planted last year, but only this spring has it really begun to take shape.
He's got big plans for moss to start growing alongside all of these other beautiful plants.
He's started planting around the new shed we got last year. Not pictured - the new and improved pumpkin patch and the morning glories.
At the end of last season, he put in a second rain garden, full of native plants:
He's been working hard on the front garden, and it's starting to look really good:
He finally got a chance to fill in the railroad tie garden on the side of the house:
Oh, and then there's the vegetable gardens.
Aside from the 7 raised beds that he has planted or transplanted seedlings to,
I see tomatoes, bok choy, garlic, cucumbers, lettuce, peas, asparagus, beans,
arugula, sweet peppers, hot peppers, dill, caraway, eggplant, spinach, rosemary, squash, peppermint, and parsley, to start.
He has also established a new work space for tools, complete with a hose.
And he made a new space for potatoes and corn, and has been using the cold frame since we had such a cold spring.
I didn't mention the raspberry transplants or the boulevard garden, or the rain garden from a few years ago. The lot has been transformed from it's original state - full of weeds and weedy trees, patchy grass and virtually no flowers. From this:
To this:
And those photos don't even begin to capture the scale of the change.

It's an amazing garden, and an awesome yard. It's all a credit to him, my master gardener husband. Gus is going to grow up in a place where he can tell the difference between radishes and beets, tat soi and bok choy. He'll know where the carrots we eat come from, and his first food this fall will be heirloom butternut squash, grown here in our yard. That's pretty special, if you ask me.

I'll try to do a weekly garden post, to keep you apprised of the changes. It's hard to believe it's only the middle of May, and so much is already growing!

this month

This month I learned that sleep deprivation is cumulative, and it will catch up with you.
I learned that I will be grateful for 5 hours of sleep when I get it, even though I never would have though of 5 hours as a "good night's sleep".
That hormones are weird.
That the desire to protect the baby bear is totally instinctual, and there are times when my mama bear instinct surprises even me.
That the happy gurgly sound he makes in the morning is the sweetest sound on earth.
That I don't miss work, not even a little bit.
That friends and family can surprise you even after you've known them your whole life.
That it doesn't really bother me when the dog licks the baby, so long as it isn't his face.
That even though he can't roll, he can squirm until he moves himself.

Life with baby Gus continues to amaze and humble me. This month his personality really began to show, and I can't wait until his baby googles have a little more meaning, and our conversations aren't so one sided. We make a point to spend at least an hour reading to him each day, and he's begun to really enjoy story time. I have to begin pumping soon, so in the next week he'll get to learn how to eat from a bottle. I'm very much looking forward to that, since it will give Dave the opportunity to take over even more of the baby care. Gus goes everywhere with us, usually in the sling. He can nearly hold his head up, so having him tummy to tummy in the sling works much better now. Today is Dave's first day back at work, and I miss him terribly. It has been so great having him here for the first two months with August . Now I feel like I have to start living life again, leaving the house regularly on my own. I'll get the hang of it soon, I'm sure. But this new phase will take some getting used to. For starters, I'm getting pretty good at typing with one hand. I have knitting projects to show off soon, thank-you gifts for my midwives.

Time goes so fast, I can't believe it's been two months already. Look at this little bug:

Pupper of the week

Explanation here.

Mobile

Dave and I finished the mobile for August. Dave has a better plan for it, so it isn't completely finished. For now, it moves okay, and at least the knitting part is done - 5 white sheep and 1 black. He wants to fix it up with a different construction, one that moves better.
In the meantime, Gus likes it, and it almost never fails to cheer him up while he's being changed. Attemps to catch baby smiles are a little blurry:

Answer

"Momma, were you a crazy person when I was a baby?"
"No honey, but apparently I looked like a total hippie."

Plums in bloom

The plum tree began to bloom today, reminding me that it's been a year since I started this here blog.
When I went back to look, though, I realized that the tree bloomed a few weeks earlier last year. I missed my official blog-o-versary.
Too bad. It's still been roughly a year, and I'm glad to say that I've kept a moderately good record of what this past year has been for us. The pregnancy, mostly, and the past two months with Gus. Dave doesn't think he'll continue to update his blog, so I hope to add more photos of the garden here for him to remember what he was working on.

Today, for example, was the Friends School Plant sale.

This is the second year that we've gone, but we were much better prepared this time.

Dave got a cart.
We stood in line for wristbands, and got in group number 3.The sale itself was chaos. There are something like 700 volunteers, thousands of shoppers, and what must be millions of plants.
I'd say we did pretty well, though. From the time we got in, we only spent about an hour shopping. We got tomatoes, eggplant, bok choy, lavender, thyme, rosemary, parsley, hot peppers, bay, begonias, coleus, boston ivy, and two juniper bushes.That's all I can identify from the photos. I know there's at least a few other things in there. All in all, it was a fun morning. Gus slept through the whole thing, and wasn't even cranky on our way home. We'll definitely go back next year.But we may start even earlier!