Backyarding

We've been really loving it, this backyard of ours. We already have many fond memories created outside, birthday parties, gardening, hula hooping... Little ones often spend good part of their day out in the backyard, either watering plants, themselves or one another. Oftentimes Maya will grab a book, put a chair right in the middle of the grass and spend a good hour or two reading non-stop, like a diver who won't even poke her head out of the water for a breath of air. In those hours, reading IS her air...

I already mentioned how I was thrilled to discover a couple of currant bushes this spring. We weren't sure if they were going to be black or red ones. I was secretly hoping for black, but knew I'd still be delighted with either kind. They turned out to be beautiful shiny bright red currants. And the bushes are full of them.

So far we've eaten them plain, turned them into jam (kids loved our fluffy buttermilk pancakes with it), put them into lemonade and on ice cream.

Now we are waiting for the grapes. Oh yes, we also found a small patch of grape vines draped over our fence. This backyard is full of surprises, and we couldn't be happier with it (unless we could re-landscape it and add some chickens to it :)

Never too late

I dared myself to look at the last date I posted anything. Over a month ago, oy. And it's not for the lack of things to write about. After all, in the last few weeks, we've had 2 funerals, a birthday and an anniversary... And then there are 3 April birthdays that I didn't get a chance to write about. So in my own fashion, I'll start with the most recent 'event' and hopefully will be able to do some flashback blogging in the next few days.

The 'event' I'm referring to may not seem that big to some, but it made for a pretty exciting night around here. We finally planted our 'garden'. On Monday. On May 30th. A bit late? Maybe. But to me it's better late than never, especially since we are mostly planting herbs this year. Our yard in this house is nice and spacious (at least compared to out previous one, and for the neighbourhood we live in), but it's all grass with small grass-less parts around the fence. And since we are renting, we can't really landscape it the way we'd like to. So we are trying to use the little space we've got, planting all kinds of herbs in clay pots that we found sitting around in our backyard. In my mind I'm hoping for something like this, but knowing that between Mark and I, we've got at least 2 brown thumbs (both of them are mine), I can only hope that some of our herbs will grow big enough to be used for a dish or two. My guess, it will be mint. After all, it's pretty indestructible, from what I hear. Or is it?

The prospect of our plants dying in the near future aside, I think it's still worth doing all this work, if not for harvest, then just for the sake of learning and discovering things. I, for example, spent 15 minutes squealing with joy outside once I realized that the bush hiding in the corner next to roses had delicious looking green currants on it. I can't even begin to describe my excitement over this. I LOVE currants, black ones especially. I grew up eating currants all summer, then collecting buckets full of them, hand-trimming the ends on each berry that needed it with my mom/aunt/grandma/great-aunt and then smashing the berries mixed with sugar to make the most amazing currant jam. Living in UT, I was only able to find currants at the Farmer's market and they are expensive enough that I only buy them in small batches, which get frozen and rationed over the winter time, being added in small handfulls to green smoothies on special occasions. I still don't know if our bush will surprise us with black, red or white currants, but having it in our possession, even if it's only while we are renting this place, makes it [for me] about the most valuable thing located on this property.

While digging for some dirt to mix with compost, kids were thrilled to find lots and lots of fat juicy worms. Sadly, to our kids they as close to pets as they can have in this house.

Speaking of kids, they are still a bit too excited about all the planting we did on Monday night. They simply don't know what to do with themselves in the backyard now, while there's a wheel barrel half-filled with soil mix waiting to be used. Which, of course, leads them to all kinds of trouble, like digging where they are not supposed to dig (and killing half of our Thai basil in the process) and stripping naked in our not-private-at-all backyard just to run around through the sprinkler. I have to admit, the sight of Elijah making laps in his birthday suit with the most gleeful expression on his cute mug made it impossible for me to go out with a straight face and tell him to come inside to get dressed. Luckily, Mark was home by then :)