Spring harvest

When you don't water your winter garden all winter long, you'll be lucky if anything survives. If your plants do survive, you won't harvest anything decent until late March, which is when you should be planting your summer garden (speaking from a high-elevation desert standpoint). At any rate, I'm pleased to post photos of what's going on in my garden right now.
From left to right: Sugar Snap Peas, Grape Hyacinth, Broccoli, Elberta Peach, Cabbage, Pear, Mint, Bearded Iris, Blackberry, Asiatic Hybrid Lily, Romaine Lettuce, Beets, Lady Bank's Rose (not shown: baby carrots, garlic, cauliflower). I'm thinking I'll plant some more early spring bulbs like tulips or daffodils, because I'd like some more color early in the season (my irises and lilies won't bloom for a while yet). In the meantime, we're enjoying the fruits of my (small) labor. On Sunday, we went to a friend's house for dinner, and even though the fridge was empty because I'd been gone, I told my friend, "I'll just throw together a salad." Love it.

Fun in the "sticks"

My parents live in the middle of nowhere, but they have an amazing backyard. Their fully enclosed courtyard is a safe place for the kids to run around, and the weather was so beautiful while we were there last week, that we left all the doors open. We ate lunch out there, the kids played on the swing set and in the playhouse, and we roasted hot dogs in the outdoor fireplace. The kids also love riding on the tractor with Papa. They spent hours on there with him, and he taught them how to control the bucket. They also spent some time helping Papa with a little construction work on the pavilion that will house the BBQ and bar area. Real tools are so much more fun to play with, and thankfully they couldn't hurt the scraps of lumber they were banging on!