Spring Clean-Up

We are TIRED.

Now that spring is here, it is time to get things growing again. We are supposed to get rain tomorrow and so we really needed to get the raking done and the garden area cleaned out.

All of the dried leaves and pine needles will hopefully feed my compost bin along with the kitchen scraps for the whole summer.

I had to shovel all of the mulch material off the area that I want to use for our vegetable garden this summer. And I had to dig up a big bunch of irises that were growing in the middle of that space. I know it isn't the best time to transplant irises, but I am doing it anyway.

We have a few bushes that are flowering- I must look up what they are. And I have things moving right along in our front-facing front yard.

Here is a photo of one set of the tulips that came up- but the weird thing is the stalks haven't gotten very tall. See how the flower is nested right in the leaves? I love the colour of them and am happy they are blooming, but I am guessing that our lack of winter has messed things up a bit. It will be interesting to see what else happens. I guess as long as nothing dies on me, I will take what I can get.

Here also is a photo of one of our "friends" that are around our yard and garden. I don't exactly like snakes so when I garden I wear tall boots! lol

I will post photos as the garden progresses.

Rich made CAKE!

For St. Patrick's Day, Rich likes the (American) traditional dinner of corned beef and cabbage. As I have only cooked it once before and he is an old hand at it, I convinced him to help me make it last weekend- and then we would have the leftovers on Tuesday, the actual St. Patrick's Day.

So that is what we did. The corned beef went into the crock pot and at the end, the onions, cabbage, and carrots with it. Accompanying it was Champ, which is mashed potatoes with scallions, cream, and butter- yummy!

The piece de resistance was the dessert: Chocolate Stout Cake. Holy cow, what a cake! Here is Rich frosting the cake (the frosting is bittersweet chocolate with cream!), and here is the three-layer masterpiece!

Rich is not fond of cooking, but makes a pretty great job of it when he does it.