Running

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I started running again. I read a book my mom had, Born to Run, and I realized that I don’t necessarily hate running as I always thought I did. I have very fond memories of running. So I started to do it with my husband in the mornings. I like it a lot. I’m in horrible shape and still walk a lot. But I do not care. I’ve always hated running because I try to push myself, rather than just accepting where I am and working from there.

I do not have a pair of running shoes that work either. The pair I picked this morning gave me a blister. And today Peter decided to wake up early and I realized I needed a jogging stroller too. Our regular stroller does not work at all. (And it’s kinda tilted anyways).

Except I just spent a lot of money on a camera for my birthday. I’m very excited for it. My old camera is old and takes horrible pictures. It’s held together with duct tape. The battery doesn’t last very long. I keep having problems connecting it to my computer. It was time for a new one. I went ahead and bought a nicer one that cost more, but found a good deal on a slightly used, older model. Should be here tomorrow…

Do you know slip and slides are still fun when you grow up? See…

It’s just plastic film bought for the garden, but it worked great as an extra wide and long slip and slide. But Peter didn’t think it looked like a good idea. Then yesterday Joe, Peter I wanted to go play with water in the back yard. Couldn’t find a kiddie pool at Wal-mart, so we ended up making one with black plastic and 4 x 4’s. Its a good 4′ x 8′. Much better than the sled from last year. Peter still had some reservations…but he would sit on the side and had fun there.

Battle Creek to Grove Creek

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I always  want to wake up early and go hiking. It just never happens as planned. The few times it has happened before usually involved camping. Then came a free Friday combined with an appointment I scheduled at 1:00. I was tired of going on short hikes, and had a few long ones I was eager to do. I could either wake up early and go on a long one, or do yet another short hike. I was all for waking up at 5:00 and going.

Peter agreed. At 4:30 in the morning he started to crying, “Ma-Ma.” I tried to get him back to sleep, but something was up and he wouldn’t. So we got up and made it to the trailhead (which happens to be awesomely less than a mile from my home) by 6:00. Our goal was to hike up Battle Creek canyon and down Grove Creek. I’ve done this hike at least twice. It’s a good one. Joe had yet to go past the first waterfall up Battle Creek.

Mountains are funny–I was hiking east, yet I was also delaying sunrise by doing so. It was nice a cool for the first couple of hours.  Actually a little too cold–I could tell Peter wasn’t enjoying it. His parents were a bit negligent in the jacket department. Peter walked a little, but mostly rode in the pack and even slept a little. We breezed by the falls and other sites, more intent on making decent time. (The falls are nothing new anyways.) It was a gorgeous morning with all the birds out.

We caught the sunrise at 8:00, right when we hit Dry Canyon trail. After a short snack break, we set off across the flat. We sung together a little (it helped Peter be happy), but mostly we were quiet enjoying the beautiful landscape around us. We dropped down into Grove Creek and right into fields full of mint and stinging nettle. I can’t tell the difference between those plants very well so just avoided both.

We reached the falls at Grove Creek. I hadn’t remembered them from my previous hike, but with all the spring snow melt they were gorgeous. By about 10:00 we were past anything all that pretty and just had a couple of more hours hiking. It was getting pretty hot too. The mile between Grove Creek and Battle Creek was hot, boring and tiring after already hiking 7 miles. I was done hiking by the time we got to the car at 12:00. But it was a beautiful hike, a great way to start a day.

Kudos to Joe for carrying Peter most of the way, and Peter for napping while on the trail. Here’s the pictures, some of which came from the hike last week.

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Bedroom

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The biggest task I did this week was to paint and finish my bedroom. I had decided to paint it green. While waiting at the store, the previously chosen shade of mellow green fell prey to a long wait and I instead choose a lovely bright green. The name of the paint is granny smith apple, which describes it pretty well.  I’ve lived in rentals for the past five years, so its nice to have a bedroom I can actually paint. I rearranged the furniture as well, and I like the end results. All I want now is a reading chair for the corner.

Life is pretty busy. Always seems to be. My husband went to school about 40 hours and worked 20, and I was still recruiting him for painting and picture hanging. He is such a great guy, never complains about any of it. My sister came down to visit this weekend, and we went to a parade and hiked Battle Creek Falls. She also let me shoot her bow. It was very awkward, and at first I just couldn’t get it. I’m very right eye dominant and had to shoot the bow with my left eye. I had to put a tie over my right eye, but after I did I shot the bow and hit the target. It’s pretty fun.

Shrub Bed

Everything is growing and mostly loving the heat. I noticed my peas, that are about 3 feet tall and look pretty healthy, just barely got blossoms on them. I’m wondering if it’s just too shady where they are, or the weather was funky (it has been strange), or its’ not a great variety. Hopefully I”ll get a handful. The tomatoes are also blossoming. I’ve got over twenty plants I think, so I’m excited for the bountiful harvest soon to come. Now it’s just weeding and wait time. I’ll probably fertilize a little as well soon.

I finished the shrub bed shown in the last post. Here’s a better after picture. I’m very pleased with how it turned out, now it just needs to survive the summer.

I go hiking a lot, and I’ve been trying to take pictures of all the wildflowers I’ve found. I’m posting some. I’m still working on my id skills, but I’ve marked what I know. If you know something I haven’t marked, please comment to help me out. I’m too lazy right now to look them all up. One hike was interesting. At the trail head the sticky geraniums were in bloom. Then further up we came across glacier lilies. Normally glacier liles are the first out and geraniums are in late spring, but with the change of altitude mixed in they were at the exact same time.

I also realized I really stink at taking pictures of all the ones I see. There’s also chokecherry, Utah ladyfinger and Indian paintbrush.

Big Springs Hollow

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The benefit of living with my grandparents is that there are tons of people visiting all the time. It’s loads of fun and I am never lonley. Life has been super busy and fun lately as well. I love summer. There is so much to do outside. We’ve always loved to go hiking, but often lack the time. This week we took a whole afternoon and went on a longer hike.

The plan was to hike up Big Springs Hollow and maybe even hike clear over and down Rock Canyon. The hike went well. Peter hiked a little, but was mostly content enough to stay in the pack (and take his nap for a big portion.) I’m very luck to have a crazy in-shape husband who can lug him around. (Joe really doesn’t exercise but he still manages to stay in shape and look great. Carrying Peter helps us stay on the same level.)

So we weren’t exactly sure where we would end up, just following the trail and we came to this:

I’m not quite used to needing snowshoes in June, and was ill prepared in a pair of Chacos. We turned around, but I don’t think we were very far from dropping down into rock canyon. We’ll have to try it again sometime. After turning back and getting out of the snow, we set up the hammocks and took a good break. Total we hiked about 8 miles, which is the longest hike I’ve been on for a couple years.

We were nearing the end of the hike, almost to the car. Peter was walking, and enjoying the flooded section of the road we where on. The flooding soon fizzled out which made Peter very confused. He pointed at the mud saying “Wa-wa?” and decided the best option would be to turn around and go back to the puddles. That was not an idea we approved of, so we had to convince him there was water further down the road as well.

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Shrub Bed

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I installed this foundation planting in the backyard of my parents:

It’s been a fun project to do, from the initial design stage and finally installation. It was installed to help hide a wearing cement foundation and the recent addition of an air conditioner fan. It doesn’t do that yet…but it soon will.

My mom loves lilacs, and had planted one by her bedroom window. I expanded on that idea and used a variety of flowering shrubs (including more lilacs, this time dwarf varieites), to create a longer season of color and a variety of evergreens for year round interest. I did an initial design a few years ago, but it just sat. With the addition of the fan, it bugged my mom again and she brought it up. I took charge and within the week the shrub bed is mostly installed. (That is why you hire projects out: they actually get done,)

While shopping for shrubs, I found a bunch at a nursery I liked and went ahead and bought them. Later on I was ordering mulch from a company that mostly does wholesale, and took a look at their nursery stock. They had a bunch of the plants I had already bought, but for a lot better price. I went ahead and re-bough and exchanged them and ended up saving about $100. If you are in Utah County, go check out Wholesale Landscape Supply. Pretty good selection, great prices.

After we bought the plants, we got a truckload of mulch and a bunch of cardboard and layered them in the area. We planted right through all that. I am hoping this gets rid of most of the grass, all my shrubs will be well adapted and not die. You should plant shrubs in a hole that is twice the diameter and no deeper the planting ball. The depth we were good on, but not always the diameter. I still think that the most important thing about planting woody plants is just avoiding planting them too deep. I’ve seen plenty of plant die from just being buried.

Still left is some more mulch and some edging. Then hopefully this will be a gorgeous long lasting shrub bed.

Almost Summer

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The rain stopped, and the sun has come, although it is still a bit cooler than it normally is. Peter and I went swimming for the first time. He loved it last year. We haven’t gone for months, and it scared him a little. By the end he was at least having a lot of fun splashing on the edge, but didn’t like going in the pool. I’ll have to go more to get him used to it.

We hiked up Grove Creek a couple weeks ago, and then hiked the “G” last week. I had never done it before, and the short hike fit the amount of time we had.

One of the best moments I had was playing with Peter outside. It was almost nap time for him and I was tired too. I laid down and asked him to come take a nap. He laid down and used my arm as a pillow and surprising fell asleep. Then I did too. It was the most refreshing 10 minute nap I’ve had, laying in the grass under the sun.

Compost Day

Can a gardener have too much compost? I went and got a load for the garden. (Incidentally, I moved. Now I have a new yard to take care of. And the first thing I did was made sure I had a garden design. I’ve been doing them for other people, and I’m now a lover of my own product. Wouldn’t landscape without one. ) I top dressed all the beds by about an inch. It makes a great mulch, although it’s probably not stopping any weeds anytime soon.

I’m surprised that more people don’t do this. I like this post where she applies it to her lawn too. I used yard waste compost from the dump. It’s cheap at $20 a yard. The only problem with it is it can be somewhat variable in quality, including problems like high salts, but with low application rates (one inch or less) that shouldn’t matter too much. The layer of compost should help replenish my soil and also help break up the clay. I only wish it had been done consistently a long time ago.

I decided to start extending out my planting beds as well. Since we just moved I had lots of cardboard boxes. I flattened them out and laid them down with compost on top. We’ll see how it turns out in a couple months.

I also planted a new berry patch with ever-bearing strawberries, a fall bearing golden raspberry and a June bearing red raspberry. Some of the strawberrys I planted last fall in my old garden. They looked like they would be loaded soon, but with the move I’m not expecting much of a crop this year.

It’s flower time as well. While I was compiling a list of perennials I come across here, I was surprised at the number that bloom in late spring to early summer. In my garden I have peonies and columbines. I love using the peonies as cut flowers and I’ve been giving them away all over. There’s a big row the length of the driveway, so there’s plenty to share.

I also have harvested my first crops including lettuce, radishes, and chard. The veggies gardens all look great, although I was sad to lose my striped Armenian cucumber and french melon plants. I was excited to try both, but I guess I’ll have to do them next year instead.

Rain, Sun, Rain

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It’s been quite the wet spring. We finally got a bit of break this week from the rain, but it’s back again today. I have yet to turn on the irrigation system. (I did see someone hand watering their yard the day after a week long rainstorm. Why do people think that lawn is aquatic?) I finished planting up the veggie garden (I have three spots this year to garden due to an unforeseen move.) Now I’m starting to think about the ornamental part of gardening. I want to get a good perennial bed in somewhere. I also have to move the few perennials I planted at my old apartment. They are a few weeks a way from peak bloom, so I might miss out on some good blooms.

I’ve been killing off a section of grass in the front of the condos. I’ve sprayed it twice with round-up. After the first time, it was extremely spotty. To cover that up, I mowed it extremely short with the mower. I think it’s worked pretty good–the only problem is now getting funds for mulch. Hopefully people don’t mind the dead grass for a while. I think it is better than the dying grass that was there. The section I was killing no longer had irrigation due to foundation problems. And I was more than happy to get rid of some of the mowing and trimming I have to do.

Lately I’ve been thinking about all the lawn everywhere. People tend to think of it as a low maintenance plant, but it’s not. The only way lawn takes less maintenance than a good shrub bed is with a large-deck mower.  At my condos where I do maintenance mowing takes forever because of the amount of grass and all the trimming I have to do. I would much rather have good shrub beds.

But I think the reason behind the huge amount of lawn is relatively low installation cost, and a lack of weeding in other garden beds. It’s really easy to let garden beds get overrun with weeds. I think if someone was out weeding every week, like they mow, the overall time of maintenance would decrease with more shrub beds. Now I want to actually try this out.

Move

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We have moved. This was unplanned as of a month ago. I certainly wasn’t looking to move from a great neighborhood and a good deal on our apartment. But then my dear grandma asked us to move in with her. I had been working on their vegetable garden and helping out for the past year. We got along pretty well so it seemed like a mutually beneficial relationship. No more rent for us (which helps out a lot during school), and free labor for them. So far (all of three days) its been really nice. Still some adjusting, but I’m mostly excited for the new living arrangements.

Moving was pretty uneventful. No big moving van, just a truck and a van, but we still got it done in one morning. I still have boxes to go through. It’s a little strange moving into someone’s house. All my kitchen stuff is very confused. It doesn’t know if it’s needed or where to put it, so it is sitting downstairs in boxes. (And that’s a big improvement over my last place–there is actually storage space here.) I have about every type of finish of furniture in my bedroom–dark brown, three wood finished, maroon painted, and white. I kept a lot of my furniture as well as some of my grandparents and its currently all jumbaly.

Peter is enjoying it. He love grandpa and has to go find him all the time. My grandparents also have lots of fun toys, including a new selection of cars. Peter has also been watching a lot of the movie Cars, which enables me to get things done. I’m glad Cars is a good movie since it’s been on so much. Now I’m very excited for the second.

We took a hike on Wednesday up Rock Canyon admits all the moving. Peter even hiked a fair bit which was quite fun.

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