lupin and columbine.

The front garden has been evolving nicely this spring. One of my favorite flowers in the yard is the lupin. I love how there are different shades of stalks of flowers all on the same plant. They seem so hardy and strong. There actually have been a few volunteer lupin plants in the garden from last year. Hopefully it would take over the front garden completely with all different colors. Jenn and I were at the farmers market in Columbia City last summer and talked to a man who I think was from Peru or Argentina and was telling us about the lupin there. He said that the stalks of flowers can get to be six feet tall and are just amazing. He said he'd been trying to grow them here, but they didn't do so well. Six feet! That would be glorious. You could just stand next to the plant and hug the flowers like you were hugging a person! Wow! Also in the picture are the columbine we brought in a pot from the apartment. They've been doing well too. The fact that all these flowers are blooming is the ONLY sign that it's not January any more. You certainly can't tell it was June from the weather.

So last weekend it was raining and I got a bit anxious about the status of the house painting (meaning we hadn't really even thought about starting yet). I was all gung-ho to buy the paint, grab a brush and start painting when Eric reminded me of the prep work. The dreaded prep work. Before we paint we have to scrape. Before we scrape we have to pressure wash. Before we pressure wash we have to move everything away from the house. Before we move everything we have to organize, throw away and put away all the crap that's cluttering out outdoor lives. And before we could do that, we had to build shelves in the shed so that we would have a place to put everything we had deemed as keepable. So we set to work building the shelves in the shed in order to embark on the long laborious tasks involved in preparing to undertake the long laborious task of painting...

Surprisingly, the building came off without a hitch. We had a good time doing it, didn't argue much, and the shelves turned out quite nicely. The only real downer was that the project did require a trip to Lowe's for materials. The dreaded trip to Lowe's... Good god, I hate that place.

So, there they are. The shelves. With stuff on them.

superkittencatnipmat

I was out on my Friday morning errands after dropping Eric at the bus. Today I had to go get Abigail and Eden some more food at the pet store and get some treats for the dogs who come avisiting. I picked out a big bag of mixed dog biscuits from the bulk biscuit area, which was fun and made me kind of want a cookie. I got the cans of cat food (buy 12 at once get 5% off--how can you pass that up?) and then was poking around looking for a fun toy for the kittens. All the catnip bananas and cigars and cherries just didn't have their usual pizazz. They have plenty of furry mice and pingpong balls... but then I saw the catnip play mats. It was purrfect! But $20!!! There was no way I was going to pay 20 bucks for a cloth mat I could make myself. So, I opted for the tub of organic catnip for 2 bucks and went on my merry way. When I got home I dug around in the craft bin and found some scraps of fun material (with a feather print on it!) and some muslin for the back and some cotton batting leftovers from former quilting projects. I cut out a good-sized rectangle of everything and then dumped the whole tub of catnip in between layers of the batting. Pinned it all in place. Sewed it. Yeah, I wish it was that simple... Try sewing something that contains a whole ounce of catnip with two kittens around. At one point I turned around and Eden had his whole head buried inside my sewing project while Abigail was burrowing into the batting like she was digging for treasure. In the end, I think it only took about an hour from start to finish... a golldang miracle in the land of katie-projects... They loved it! Now the kittens have had their fun and are taking a midday catnap.

we used to have cabbage.

We had quite a nice crop of cabbage starting out until.... dun dun dun... THE CHICKENS!!! They happen to like cabbage leaves quite a lot and seem to take bigger bites than I've seen them take of anything else. In seconds they demolished the cabbage population! If you'll notice the remnants of a large bite disappearing into the corner of Emily's mouth. I like cabbage. Steamed with a little butter, salt & pepper... So do the chickens apparently. Though they are not nearly so fussy as to insist on steaming it. It's been quite cold and wet recently-in the 50s and 60s and so we've been trying to keep the chickens warm at night. Eric and I were having one of our typical snacks of egg noodles with cottage cheese, so we made some for the chickens. They liked it quite a lot. There were lots of fights over the noodles. Crazycrazycrazy chickens. BAWK! They've also been getting warm oatmeal in the mornings. And big leaves of kale straight from the garden. This morning, when I took them their oatmeal Salvie (the next door neighbor cat) was pacing around our back yard looking in at the chickens in their coop. I chased him out of the yard. He has a bell on his collar, which can only mean one of two things... his owners think it's cute to hear the bell or... dundundun... BIRD KILLER! Poor chickens. They're just like sitting ducks... Luckily, they have their indestructible coop to protect them... though, it wouldn't protect them from dying of fright. Chickens actually CAN die of fright. They can get scared and their little hearts stop and they die. Poor poor poor chickens...

a rose is a rose is a...

I've never had a particular affinity for roses. Nor have I ever had a particular desire to have a rose garden. But, when we moved into our house, we were suddenly surrounded by roses. There were roses in every shade of pink. Pink roses. And lots of 'em. Last fall I was at Lowe's meandering through the pitiful remnants of their plants that hadn't sold throughout the season and what should I find but roses! A deal I simply could not pass up. The large containers of creeping roses were only $5 (normally $30-40) the small bushy roses were only $1 (normally $20), so I bought 4 big ones and 3 little ones. This spring they are COVERED in buds. Here is our very first bloom on the roses we planted and tell me-- have you ever seen anything quite like it? I mean...WOW!

painting schmainting.

This summer is the summer we are supposed to paint the house--a pursuit that seems more and more like a joke considering the completely NON-summery weather we're having. In the event that we DO get to have a summer with sunny-good-painting-day weather, we have some colors to choose. We have some paint combinations we're looking at (above). Any opinions would be much appreciated. I think we like the artichoke for the main part of the house. Everything else is kind of up in the air. Though, the more we think about it and stare at the colors, the more we despise all paint colors in general. We're thinking the green with the bluer purples for the main trim and the berry colors or grey for the secondary trim (ie doors and whereever else we can sneak it in).