This big boy started preschool! He was nervous, but did just great. His preschool is small, with just a handful of other kids in the basement of his teacher’s house. I think it will be just perfect for him. His favorite thing on the first day was playing in the sandbox.
It’s been a year since family pictures, so I got out the tripod and set to work trying to get everyone looking nice at the same time. (My husband was just as bad as the boys at being smiley and agreeable. Due to the lack of enthusiasm from everyone we do not attempt family pictures that often.) I ended up with two I liked, and I only need one, so it was a success!
Peach Days is big in Brigham City. There is a parade, massive car show, carnival, vendors and lots and lots of people. 
Truthfully, I don’t love it. It’s a bunch of people I don’t know, people trying to get me to spend money on things I don’t want, and a sunburn without the experience of enjoying outside. I did my best to enjoy it, and I had fun. Curtis and I were even in one of the parades. 
Positive thinking is something we all know we should do. It’s very simple, but easy to forget. I have a tendency to be very critical, and I’m working to overcome this. I want to fill my mind with positive thoughts: about myself, family and people around me.
One day, I found myself gossiping. It didn’t feel like that at the time, but I was casually criticizing others and allowing those around me to do the same. When I left, I felt awful about myself…Doubts crept into my mind about what I was doing in life and what people thought of me. I wondered why I suddenly felt so awful and remembered all that gossip. It was the direct cause of my insecurity.
After quick repentance, I felt much better. I want to focus on what I think about others, not what others think about me or what others think about other people. And when I think about others, I want to think only positive thoughts and allow all the bitterness to fade away.
We finished the inside of the house. After getting done with the remodel, I tidied up everywhere. And now we’ve turned our sights outside to the garden. My goal right now is to get all the hardscape, edges, and mulch or groundcover in. Plants will come next.
We have a lot of projects out there that have been ignored. This path needed a couple of hours to get installed. It has been like that for about two years. Now it is a path, not random stones.
Here’s another project that didn’t take that long. We had grass here when we moved in. It hadn’t been watered for two years. It looked pretty bad. Now it is a beautiful clean slate, I want to fill it up with plants soon.
The tramp just off this picture was leveled out. I attempted to seed more clover back here this spring, but it failed. The weeds outcompeted it. I’ve done it before successfully, and I will try again next year, this time with a little more work beforehand to get rid of the weeds. And I really want to get rid of that huge pile of sticks!
Can you find my boys? At Bridal Viel Falls in Provo, UT.
Sometimes I rediscover play.
My son and I were outside playing. We used some old boards to make bridges for the swales (irrigation ditches really, but “swales” sound much more interesting).
After, I was looking around the yard and what looked to my adult mind like a pile of garbage had transformed itself into an opportunity. It became a fort. I was out there for almost an hour building a hokey, horrible fort. It was the best part of the day.
Play isn’t about results or achieving something. It’s just having fun.
Here’s a glory shot of one late afternoon’s work. If you notice, I prefer to freeze things and not can. It seems to be much easier and I’m also not worried as much about food poisoning. Shredded zucchini, salsa, tomatoes, refrigerator pickles, and peach jam. Oh, and if you want to make jam, this product makes it super easy.
When I was in college, I did some research on strawberry varieties. I was pretty well informed when I went to buy some. I have two patches of strawberries. One patch I don’t even check, it doesn’t produce. I’m not sure on the variety, I got them from a friend. This is just one day’s pick from the other patch, and my variety that beats all others is Evie 2. It might be harder to find and more expensive but double or more production is worth it!
How big of deal was the first day of first grade? It was so uneventful that I forgot to post about it. He went back to school, said it was pretty much like kindergarten and that was that.
I had yarrow growing in the front, and it started to get a bit overgrown and scraggly. So I employed one very good tip for perennials: Cut back after flowering. Not all perennials need this but it makes a huge difference for the ones that do. (If you want to know what perennials need what, read The Well-Tended Perennial Garden.)
It’s a simple matter of hacking back the perennial to withing a few inches of the ground. It feels a bit like you are trying to kill the plant. But don’t worry. Within a few weeks, the plant regrows. Instead of a scraggly eyesore, you will have a nicely tended perennial. In addition, it helps prevent the plant from reseeding, if that’s a problem.
In this picture, the yarrow in the foreground was cut back two weeks ago. The one behind that was cut back minutes before the picture was taken.
Now I also have my lettuce, which I purposely did not cut back, even though it is a common practice to rip it out after it starts bolting. Lettuce will usually re-seed if it is allowed to mature. I quite enjoy free lettuce. 
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