Who cares about flowers?

Well, it's been a long time and I have a ton of flower photos. I'm sorry my life isn't very interesting and the parts that are, I don't take too many pictures of. So here are a ton of pictures of flowers. Again, I'm sorry.




In the spring, my garden was filled with Forget-Me-Nots and Siberian Wallflowers. It was really great for a few weeks and then they died back and left a lot of bare space. My co-worker Sharon gave me some perennials to help but I'll need to do some serious rearranging next spring and keep the Forget-Me-Nots from taking over everything.





I have three of these planters on our porch railing. They looked really great until I neglected them during a heat wave. At the moment they are pretty shriveled but I'm hopeful they'll recover.





These were the first of the Columbine to bloom. I'm not sure why but this one plant had these two very different blooms.





These Columbine came next. They have similar colors to the wild ones I've seen around here, but a different shape.





Finally these pretty pale Columbine bloomed. I'm excited to spread the seeds from all three and have more next spring.





This area used to be filled with little rocks. Since it's one of the sunniest spots in my garden, that seemed like a waste so I got rid of them. I was going to get rid of the big rocks and branches too, but after I cleaned them up, I decided I liked them. Some of the flowers I bought but most are from Sharon. You can really see it but there are tiny little Hens and Chicks in the bottom left corner.





This is one of the flowers from Sharon. I had seen Bleeding Hearts before, and actually bought one, which won't bloom until next year. I'd never seen these before though. They're called Burning Hearts.






My Black-Eyed-Susans are going crazy this year! I keep tying them up and they keep growing so tall they fall over again. I love these things and I'm going to try to spread them out among the Forget-Me-Nots next year since they are basically in two big clumps right now.





I love Coneflowers and I thought I might have some growing, but they turned out to be weeds. After two years of failing to grow these, I broke down and bought some. Two purple ones and....






... one pale yellow one. This is actually kinda sad and wilty looking, but at least you can see the color.





I had a couple of volunteer sunflowers sprout up in the front flowerbed, and being a good Kansas girl, I moved them to a spot where they could grow happily and this one is about to bloom!





I'm not usually crazy about roses. They are pretty but I just don't get all that worked up about them and they always seem like a lot of work. I didn't plant this one. My ex-neighbor planted it about three years ago and I know it has been mowed over at least once. All that said, I'm really fond of this little rose bush and I think they are lovely little roses. Maybe roses aren't so finicky if it can survive neglect and being mowed and still put out pretty pink roses.





The Cosmos, Zinnias, and Morning Glories I planted in the front garden are blooming like crazy right now. Every time I go out there, there are several of these big fuzzy bumblebees flying around the flowers.




My rioting flowers. I love them so much. Unfortunately, the Morning Glories had already closed up for the day. I'll have to try to take a picture of them some other time.

Spring!!!

My first crocus ever bloomed today!!!!





Also, it rained for a couple days and now has been sunny and 70s the last few days (80 today!) and things are exploding! These weird looking things are rhubarb.





This little daffodil barely has leaves but it's putting out a bud already.





This is the same tulip plant I posted a picture of a couple weeks ago.





Here are the day lilies that were just poking through in my last post.






I am 90% sure this is Columbine, which I started from seed last year. Last summer however, they never looked anywhere close to as good as this looks now, much less bloomed.





I think this might be a baby purple coneflower. I have a ton of these coming up and same as with the Columbine, they never looked this happy or bloomed last year. Can anyone confirm that this is a coneflower? Maybe I have some lovely perennials after all, and maybe they'll actually bloom this year!!!

Long overdue and just plain long

I've been neglecting this blog for a very long time now and as I was getting ready to blog, I kept finding more and more pictures I forgot to post, as far back as last fall. Soooo, get ready! Let's see if I can get everything in order.




Here is a lovely fall bouquet I gathered on a walk last fall, along with some pumpkins I picked at a local farm.






Later Chuck and Melissa came over and carved Jack-O-Lanterns. Chuck is so good at carving pumpkins, he can do it with his eyes closed!




Here are the finished pumpkins.





And the reverse sides.




And on to Christmas! Here is the cardboard tree we have had every year since we moved to Vermont. I can't believe this was it's fourth Christmas!!!




This year I made ornaments for everyone in my family, which means I made a lot of ornaments. Here are a few of them. Almost all the ornaments you see on the tree went to my family.




Presents. We mostly give each other a lot of little things we would have bought anyway but wrap them because it's more fun that way.




Christmas day I made verenika, fried potatoes, zwiebach, corn and pie (not pictured). I have to say, it was pretty delicious, but still not as good as Grandma's.




For New Year's Eve, Chuck and Melissa invited a few people over to the house they were house-sitting at (with permission, of course), and cooked some delicious food for a delicious potluck.




I think Melissa was trying to figure out which clock was right, since they were all different and we didn't have a TV.




Here's me and Amanda Ann. Isn't she cute?




A couple weeks later, we got to go to Kansas to celebrate a late Christmas with friends and family there. Here's my Mom.





And Dad.




Luke right after his bath.





And Timo. As usual though, I didn't get decent pictures of everyone, and I got a silly amount of pictures of Luke. He's such a little ham, he just demands all the attention.





Luke loves many things in life but three of his favorite things are hats, Veggie Tales, and Papa. Here he's got all three. He has made his usual demands of his Veggie Tales watching companions that they must always wear a hat. Unfortunately for Dad, my parents only own two Veggie Tales videos, which explains my Dad's glazed over expression.




Luke got this little cowboy hat for Christmas and promptly made everyone take turns wearing it. My head is a little too big.




Here is the only not-terrible picture I have from the Bartel Christmas. Grandpa reading the traditional story while everyone listens, takes lots of pictures and the kids act cute. It's so nice that they are able to "schedule Christmas" for when we are home and it's always great to see everyone and to eat waaaay too much verenika.




When we go home I sleep in my old bedroom. The first few mornings we were there, before I adjusted to the change in schedule, I woke up fairly early to see a beautiful frosty, foggy morning.




Another misty morning. I have some silly videos of Luke but I haven't uploaded them yet, so those will have to come later.




Back in Vermont, my aunt sent us this awesome quilt she MADE for us. I was pretty excited to get home from work to find such a great surprise waiting for me on the porch. This is the top.





Here is Mosley posing.




This is the bottom of the quilt which is lovely soft flannel, and which we use as the top most of the time, as Mosley finds the ties on the top very tempting to chew on. Thanks Annette!





Melissa and I have been going on walks lately since it has been really nice here the last couple weeks. We made this awesome diorama mostly out of things we picked up on our walk and a few other odds and ends.




It all started when we found these tiny little pine cones.




Meanwhile, Mosley has spent most of the winter being cute and snuggly.





And silly and snuggly.




And some more cute and snuggly.





I didn't bother to clean up the leaves this fall, somehow thinking some of them would blow away or something. Clearly they didn't and as the little snow we got quickly melted, our yard looked seriously horrible. I started raking a little before I remembered I wanted to take pictures so the flower bed in this "before" picture is already mostly raked. This is the front of the house.





And after.





House side before...





And after.




Garage side before...





And after. Clearly I didn't get all the leaves out. Some still were frozen together with chunks of ice/snow. Some were in places I don't care about and I figure some of them can decompose and help the garden out. It's sooo much better than it was though. It took a long time and Joseph helped me haul all the leaves back behind the garage, which was a huge job.




I knew some things were coming up but I was amazed at how much green stuff was hiding under all those leaves!




Last fall I dug out that long garden in the front of the house and lined it with bricks I dug out of the other garden (don't ask me why there were so many bricks in my garden). I planted all kinds of bulbs and they are starting to come up already! Here are some tulips.




And some crocuses! I also planted daffodils and miniature irises and they are coming up too. It's supposed to be pretty cold tomorrow so hopefully it won't set them back too far. I'm soooo excited about spring! Also, for those of you who care, I'll be at Winfield this year for the first time since 2004!! It's been way too long and September seems like a long way away still but I'm sure it'll be here before I know it!