The Jam

Yesterday I was invited to make fresh strawberry jam at a friend's house. I brought half a flat of fresh strawberries from a farm stand near my house and didn't need nearly that many for the amount of jam it made. Yum!

The Big 3-5

Yesterday was Chad's 35th birthday. He had to work so the celebrations were minimal but he still had a good day. Happy birthday one more time, Chad!

Vegetable Garden

Yesterday our landscapers brought in our vegetable garden box. They also laid the DG (decomposed granite) and attached the flower bed sprinklers.

This morning Chad and I purchased fruit and vegetable plants and seeds. The timing was right so we decided to plant them in the garden box today as well. This year is the test year to see which crops do well in our yard and which ones are a flop.

Here's a list of what we planted:

Beefsteak Tomatoes
Grape Tomatoes
Early Girl Tomatoes
Roma Tomatoes
Silver Queen Sweet Corn
Flame Seedless Grape Vine
Birdhouse Gourds
Burpless Cucumbers
Red Bell Sweet Peppers
Green Zucchini Squash
Charleston Gray Watermelon
Cantaloupe
Sequoia Strawberries
Overbearing Strawberries
Red Cored Chantenay Carrots
Sweet Spanish Yellow Utah Jumbo Onions
Chives
Sweet Basil
Cilantro
In the background of the photo you'll see the two Washington Navel Orange trees in pots

Rodeo

Today Chad and I went to the rodeo. We didn't know what to expect but it was a lot more fun than we thought it would be. We've already made plans to go again next year.

Here's Chad in his new hat.

Birthday Weekend

This past weekend Chad and I celebrated my 31 birthday with our good friends in Washington DC. Our visit was a blast and we really enjoyed spending time with them. As an added bonus our friends also happened to be awesome tour guides. Here's a list of what we did:

Sights:

The Beltway

The Library of Congress

The Capitol Building

The National Mall and Memorial Parks

The Metro

Newseum

Chinatown

Georgetown

NLM/NIH

Downtown Silver Spring

Bethesda

Bowling

Eats:

National Museum of the American Indian Cafeteria (lunch)

Five Guys (dinner)
Rita's (dessert)

Potbelly (lunch)

Jackie's (dinner--thanks Dad and Mom!)

Pirate's Tavern

LA's Kitchen (breakfast)

Mia's Pizza (dinner)

Rita's (dessert--we HAD to go back one more time)

I'm afraid I probably missed a few things but that's the general idea of what we did during our 3 full days with them. Sounds busy and fun, right? It was.

Grass

The grass was laid today and it looks great. There are slight curves at the top along the fence and it's exactly what we wanted. It's so nice to see green in our backyard.

The birds are already enjoying it too.

Bench

While Chad and I were on vacation (more on that later) the landscapers built the bench in our back yard. They also laid the brick around the extended patio and I really love it. We're almost there!

The Concrete Is In!

At 6:30 this evening the landscaping crew finished pouring and smoothing the concrete. It looks great and I'm really happy with how it turned out. The next step, after the cement dries, is the brickwork and I can't wait to see how that turns out.

Yard Update

The landscaping crew has been hard at work since my post last Thursday. They worked all day Friday and Saturday, taking a break on Sunday, and were back at 8:00am this morning. They dug all the trenches, installed the sprinklers and valves and began framing for the concrete. Here's the most recent photo I have of the progress.

Our Backyard

As I mentioned in an earlier post we signed a contract with a landscaper last Friday. I took photos of our dirt lot last night after the guys came out to mark where the sprinklers will be. Here's what the main part of our yard looked like, for those of you who haven't seen it:
This morning at 8:00am the crew arrived again with a Ditch Witch. (If you don't know what that is, click here.) They trenched all over the yard and were gone by 11:00am. Here's what they left: The sprinklers will go in those deep trenches. After that they'll lay the concrete, then do the brickwork (or maybe it's the other way around?), build the cement retaining wall/bench, build the redwood vegetable garden box, lay DG (decomposed granite) around that box and finally, lay the sod. Chad and I are going to plant the trees, plants and vines ourselves after the crew is done.

Container Gardening

This weekend my parents brought us a huge glazed green pot for our front entryway. (Thanks Dad and Mom!) Last night Chad and I went shopping at Lowe's for shade plants and this is the combination we came up with. We already had the fern in the center--it was kindly planted by a bird at Chad's house in San Diego. The rest of the greenery is new.

Happy Day

Today is my grandma's 80th birthday! Happy Birthday, Grandma!

Patio Trees

Last night Chad and I bought a couple patio trees for our front yard. We planted them this afternoon in place of the asparagus ferns we planted in the fall. We're going to move those to the back yard this May. The trees we bought are called Tara's Pink Cape Mallow and are really 4-foot shrubs shaped to be small trees.

Oh, and we signed a contract with a landscaper today. Finally!

New Friend

This week I noticed a new friend in our back yard. He's a large grasshopper about 4.5" long and lives in our wisteria vines. Today he decided to show off his acrobatic skills and do the splits for me and my camera.