Blessings

If you've never heard Laura Story's song "Blessings"...I highly recommend it...

Springtime Garden 2012

Spring started early this year, and with the busyness of the season, I finally took some time to capture a few pics from my garden.  Every spring the garden looks a little different...usually a few less tulips blooming due to the critters who eat the bulbs. I also have almost a dozen tulips with the blooms missing...someone has decided to eat the tops right off...either my stinker squirrel frienemies, or the cute fluffy not-so-little cottontails from the hedge across the road.  I've not caught either of them in the act.  Oh well...so it goes...   On the bright side, what has managed to survive is blooming and looks lovely!

Happy Spring!

"And He changes the times and the seasons..."

Daniel 2:21a

We've been feeling some lovely warmer weather for the past several weeks now, and finally the calendar has made it official...spring is here!!!  This is one of my favourite seasons.  I find that I have a renewed sense of energy and excitement now that the days are getting longer and the birds are waking us up with their early morning concerts (complete with the drumming of the woodpecker.)  I am the kind of person that always notices the weather and how much the sun shines.  (Must be the farm girl in me.) Maybe that's why spring is an incredibly invigorating time of year for me.  I find it more exciting than the clock hitting midnight on December 31st. There is just something about this time of year that puts more energy in my step and zest in my day.

We recently enjoyed a relaxing March break with the children, and we spent most of it right here at home.  We made an overnight visit to Wainfleet, and left a couple children behind to spend some quality time with Grandpa and Grandma.  We kept busy cleaning up around the yard, cleaning out the garden, going for walks, shopping, bowling, and finding our summer clothes (David was in desperate need of his shorts.)  The weather we were blessed with was absolutely uncharacteristic for this time of year, so we enjoyed it to the fullest and even hopped on the bikes and hit the roads and the trails.

We enjoyed a visit from some of the Pols clan, and uncle Andrew was kind enough to return our missing children to us as well as bring along his chain saw and cut down our pear tree that was infested with ants.  I am happy to see that tree gone...there will be no more messy rotting pears on the ground during the summer or bees and wasps feeding on those fallen pears in the lawn.  Owen stayed here to visit for a couple of days and after we returned him to his family, we went on an adventure to Niagara-on-the-Lake. We had a fantastic time and are so thankful for those days of refreshment.

Now we are back into the swing of things...school schedules and work.  The girls are seriously training for track and field, and I have added greenhouse work to my days that I am not in the classroom.  It's great to be "playing in the dirt" and watching the gorgeous flowers get ready for the gardens.  This week I spent one of my days transplanting annuals, and the other working in a sea of Easter lilies. Needless to say, my back was happy that today was a "school day".....it needed some recuperating time.

Signs of new life are everywhere you look. I took just a bit of time this afternoon to go out and find new fresh green signs of life in my garden...Makes me want to praise the Creator!!! 

Summer Garden 2011

Today we are thanking the Lord for blessing us with some rain...soft gentle rain.
So, I took advantage of the wet foliage and shot some pics.

Friday the 13th

(This blog post has absolutely nothing to do with Friday the 13th, except for the fact that it is Friday, the 13th of May.)

Just posting a few pics that I took this morning.  I took the day off today......I am home icing my shoulder and taking Advil.  I'm experiencing, once again, the reality that my body is no longer that of a teenager's.  The greenhouse work is catching up to me and my aching shoulder kept me up for the better part of the late night/wee early morning hours.  Hopefully taking a break will be just what this youngish body needs......

Early May Beauties

It has been a cold, wet Spring, but things seem to be changing this week in the weather department.  The sun has been shining and the rains have stayed away.  This is a good thing for those of us who are working in the greenhouse.  Hopefully this week the orders will start pouring in and the flowers will be shipped out!

Tuesdays are my LBS and piano lesson day, so I wasn't at the greenhouse today.  I had some time to catch up on a little laundry, (even hung some outside.....mostly 'cause my dryer is just about dead), and I even spent some time cleaning up the garden.

Tulips are finally showing off their stuff, the buds on the lilac are growing, and the burning bush is greening up.  The hostas are peeking and stretching and some of the early blooming perennials are in their glory stage.

So, here are a few pics of the beauties in my now weed-free garden, as well as a couple of my feathered friends, and one interesting shot of Levi showing off his talents on the sax.  Yes, that is him with the wig, and hat, playing a couple songs during the talent portion of our Kid's Club Parent Night. (His interesting get-up was for the skit that followed.)  He did a great job on his little solo pieces, and I think he loved the sound of the saxophone in the church.  Nothing like playing an instrument in there.......the acoustics are much nicer in church than in our basement!

Enjoy!