May, where did you go?

Because all that we ever seem to be doing lately is going to the pool, May flew by.

I am officially a swim mom, I think a title that is much more involved than a soccer mom.  At least compared to my past days as a soccer mom.
Swimming takes up every available evening that we have.  Not that we are complaining, we are thrilled that Bayli has found something that she LOVES and is pretty good at.
And Chase is finally starting to love it as well.  Although we tease that he will be a Clown Fish forever (the lowest level).  But at least he is willing to do most of what the teacher asks without screaming. 

Bayli's first few weeks of swim team were...terrible.  She was pretty much an emotional wreck up until she had actually swam a few laps.  She would cry through warm ups and be uneasy about getting into the pool.  She is a nervous Nelly that expects herself to do the very best the first time.

After being her shoulder/leg to cry on, we finally came to a pretty good turn.  We just had to explain that every kid is nervous to start something new, you are here to learn not do things perfectly the first or 100th time, your coach is there to help you so ask all of the questions that you need to, and you are going to make lots of new friends.
Seriously as soon as she starts swimming, she calms down and is fine.  With a bit of bribing, Jed was even able to get her to sign up for her first swim meet.  June 22nd is coming up pretty fast.

I did the Red Rock Relay in Moab with some of my girlfriends.  Seriously, it was so hard. 70 miles of Moab awesomeness.  We were all pretty proud of ourselves.  We did a lot better than we thought that we would.  I was runner #1, so I had a difficult time sleeping the night before.  Not to mention the fact that I was battling a cold.  My first leg was nearly 8 miles.  I knew right when I hit 5.5 miles, my IT bands started getting twingy.  Even with all of my rehabbing, I have only maxed at 6 miles.  But my PT drilled it into my head, don't go past that point or you will give yourself some serious setbacks.  But in a race, you just keep going and run through the pain.  So I kept a reasonable pace, knowing that I had another 3 miler later in the day and it was steep.  Otherwise, I would have pushed my pace and tried for a better time.  I averaged about a 10:30 min/mile on my first leg. Then I puked and peed my pants because running is so fun...Rock on!!! 
My second leg was insane.  3 miles, 6500 Feet elevation with a 1000 feet increase.  Nuts I tell you.  I never saw a single runner run that entire leg.  It felt SOOO long.  And my knees were in so much pain, every step hurt, no matter how I would change up my form.  Even walking hurt, which I did the most of on this leg.  Oh, and it was so dang hot!  If it wasn't for my team mates, I wouldn't have been able to keep going.  I love my Mother Truckers, no girl could ask for better friends. 
We finished about middle of the pack with an overall time of 11 hrs 45 min with 10:50 min/mile average. 

Chase finished off his first year of preschool.  We have loved his teacher Miss Karen.  She picked up on his personality pretty quickly, and figured out how to deal with his grumpiness as well.

I have some new additions to my yard, that my cute little neighbor gave me last year.  Only 4 of about 25 iris' bloomed this year, so next year will be an even bigger surprise I am sure. 

This little cutie is one that my very own plants, with the help of the pollinators, produced on their own.  It looks like a hybrid of my purple and someones white Japanese iris. 

Took advantage of the opportunity to use my bug lens to check out this guy, so glad that Jed knows how much I love bugs and plants!  I have loved the new lens. 

I used it to check out the tiny blooms on my smoke bush as well, lovely.

We have been so couped up lately, that any little or big excuse to get out in the yard is snatched up quickly.  I call our illness basement-finish-itis.  A seemingly never ending project that is making us ill.  Hey, but we are painting.

Last week, Jed came up with a couple of BIG excuses for us to not work on the basement one evening.  Of course it was on a swimming night, meaning that we aren't home until nearly 6:30 and the kids are starving.  Not to mention the fact that Jed had just been diagnosed with a pretty serious sinus infection that had been plaguing him for about two weeks (he was not functioning on his normal brain level, I don't think that he would have undertaken this task if he had been, at least not that night).  At least he has a wonderful brother that answers the call.

He brought home four trees, three of which were replacements for my Blue Atlas Cedars (RIP you lovelies in Arbor Heaven, they hadn't fared well since the blasted freeze of Fall 2010).  As much as we LOVE the cedars, we knew that our location was just not meant to be, so Jed looked to his buddy for some better ideas.  He came up with Norwegian Spruces.
My nearly 103 year old Grandma is Norwegian, so they must be a good tree.  Of course we did a bit of hasty research just to make sure, then pulled the trigger.  We treat every plant in our yard like a marriage.  We have to love nearly everything about it, and commit to it.  That is probably why we are so passionate about every plant in our yard, they each make up a piece of our "marriage"  and commitment to our yard, the extension of us.
He also brought home another London Plain Tree, the one by our playground is looking a bit on the ill side.  So we decided to get it a friend just in case it decides to kill over.  We had ordered a 2 inch caliper tree.  It ended up being  a 3.5, which in tree language is ginormous.  The root ball alone was over a yard wide.  It was quite the undertaking.  I wish that I had taken a few pics of that beast before it got into the ground.
A few days later we also added an Autumn Blaze Maple to a spot we have been holding for just the right tree in our front yard.  This Maple is a cross between the Silver Maple, which does terrible in Utah, and good traits from the Red Maple.  We are hoping for success with this one.  Everything that I have read about it sounds pretty good.  And the fall color will be beautiful.  Hopefully it does better than other Maples!

The ginormous tree that better never die dang it. 

One of the Norwegian Spruces.

  Bayli's spark for bird watching has been spreading to the rest of the household.  She has got me on a pretty steady process of adding things to our yard to attract new birds and attempting to identify them.  Our latest little friends who have been frequenting our hummingbird feeder and who we are faithfully putting out oranges for are our Bullock's Orioles.  Not being a huge birder, I would guess that this is a pretty rare treat.  Everyone is in love with them, I wish they visited more often. 

We have also been loving the Say's Phoebe that squawks at us every evening and the other visitors we have spied just a few times, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Western Kingbird, and the family of Goldfinches. 

joyful spring

I am loving the warm weather.  This winter has been filled with couped up, work on the basement-ness.  Not that we aren't excited about getting the basement done, it's just that we are outdoor kinds of people and love working in the yard.

Just over a week ago we planted our cold tolerant seeds in the garden (peas, carrots, onions, spinach)  and then last week I started most of my other seeds indoors (peppers, tomatos, basil, cilantro, broccoli, squash).  This is the first year that I am going to attempt to grow all of my plants from seeds,  I am not convinced that it is cost efficient yet.

As much as I love working in the yard and spring cleaning, pruning back plants is not my first love.  My shoulders and arms remind me of that often.  We have so many plants to prune back in the spring!  I have to keep reminding myself that my plants will look and grow so much better.

I love undergoing the annual bud hunt frenzy.  I am finally being able to use my new camera lens that Jed gave me for Christmas.  I have yet to try it out on some insects, I can't wait!

Right now my favorite is the blooms on my Squawbush (ie Skunkbush).  It is covered this year.  I am hoping that it actually might bare a bit more fruit this year.  I intend to try getting soft cuttings and seeds from it.  It has been one of our favorite plants that we have been saving a few spots around the yard for. Fingers crossed that this is the year!

I am also super stoked about the new buds popping out from our Cut-leaf Lilac.  I can't wait for its blooms to come!  I intend to get some soft cuts from it as well.

We are hoping that this is the year of the plum.  Our plum tree has been...LAME.  I think that in the 3 or 4 years that we have had it, we had 3 plums.  But this year it is actually covered with thousands of blooms.  Fingers crossed that it doesn't freeze and we get a good crop. 

I am also excited to see the pretty blooms on our Peach tree.  A few have peaked out, but in a few days it will be covered as well.

A few other plants that have been making me happy are the Vinca flowers that have started blooming on the hillside, the flowers on the strawberry-like ground cover (the real name is on the tip of my tongue and I don't feel like searching all of my books for its real name), and the flowers on our Quaking Aspens (mostly cause I can't wait to hear their leaves in a breeze).

I LOVE SPRING!!!
All this plant talk reminded me that I need to purchase my book, oh joy!

blooming, an unexpected gift

Jed and I both have a love for the desert and the beautiful plants that you find therein. When we were planning our yard and on the hunt for plants to nurture and enjoy, we knew that we had to have Yuccas.

Who would've thought that there are around 40 varieties throughout the US and Mexico? I always thought that a Yucca was a Yucca.

Some varieties were easy for us to find at the local nurseries.
(ie the Ivory Tower Yucca, Harriman Yucca, and the Navajo Yucca). I honestly do not know for sure if these are the varieties in our yard, but they look like them.

The one variety that stumped us in our search, and of course was Jed's top pick, was the
Banana Yucca. Or for those that care about the scientific name, Yucca Baccata.

For being a native variety, we could not find it anywhere.
It has a much more stately appearance than most Yuccas that you see locally. It has broader leaves that are more firm and pointy. It also has a more gray/blue-green color. It supposedly gets its name from the banana like fruit that it can develop which apparently tastes like sweet potatoes-hmmm.

Anyways, we were finally able to find our treasured Yucca in our favorite little Southern Utah nursery, a few years back. Jed payed a pretty penny for that plant!

We have watched it slowly grow. It hasn't taken off as fast as our other varieties, but we knew that it would one day.
This year, we again thought, is it going to do anything? We wanted to see more growth and maybe a bloom. But as spring began to close, no such luck.
Then, we noticed something fantastic occurring. It was growing a bloom!!!

You never saw a family so excited about a plant in your life, at least we'd like to think so. And it delivered, what a beauty!

It fascinates me how the blooms are more nestled into the base of the plant. Other varieties let them shoot up and tower above the plant. This variety reminds me of a wall of spikes surrounding an army, defending it from the unknown.

I love how it's leaves have a hairy-like curling on them. It makes them seem a little more delicate but also more threatening, like barbed wire on a fence.

And the blooms, of course, are gorgeous. As all Yucca blooms are.

Another variety that we purchased at the same fave nursery was our Red Yucca (not technically a Yucca). We never thought it would do well. Even now the base looks so limp and delicate, but it decided to bloom as well!

a paved space

Every year we add a pretty large project to the completion of our yard and home. This year the task has been to place pavers to our walk out/dug out area in the backyard. This has actually been a project that has taken multiple preceding projects to get to the end result.

1. remove the dirt from the entire back of the house (this was mostly done when we were building, but Jed had a lot a finite tuning to get it right).
2. place rock retaining walls-2006 (Only a small section was done when we first built. Jed's work looks way better than the excavators, but it did take a VERY long time).
3. plant the hillside and rock walls to prevent erosion-2006/2007 (We cannot count how many Vinca plugs we stuck in that hill).
4. build the deck-2007 (we love it!)
5. plant trees, shrubs, and a bit more ground cover on the hillside-2008 (We enjoyed this year immensely. Chase was coming. We had our basketball court installed. Jed completed the lawn area. The kids enjoyed the addition of the playground Jed built.)
6. 2009 More excavation to the walk out area. The sprinkling system to the hillside was completed. Also, Jed placed a drainage system with a 10 foot deep water runoff container. (The kids loved throwing dirt back in the hole on dad.)
   

You can just imagine our excitement after so many years in getting to the point to have a completed backyard. Placing the pavers is like icing on the cake.

As with all of Jed's projects, it was done with complete meticulousness. He preps and preps and preps. And then he preps more, getting the layout just perfect. It was so fun watching it come together.
Being that I am growing a little person, I was no good for the type of work that was needed. I got to sit back and occasionally tell him where to put the next paver, yeah pretty much the foreman-haha.

In the end, it turned out just as we have imagined over the last few years. We love it! And, as with all projects, you hope that you don't look in the back of your mind to the next addition, but you always do. Nothing is ever completed.

iris of my eye

In case you didn't know, I LOVE Iris'. They are definitely one of my top favorites. I guess that I will claim them as my favorite rhizome.
Interesting fact, the Greek translation for Iris is rainbow. I would guess that it is because there is such a variety of colors to pick from.
If I had the space, and the plants didn't have to be split so often, I would want one of each.

This was our plants second spring after being last split and transplanted. The flowers have been abundant. We have loved watching them stretch upward and unveil their beauty.
They have thrived in our yard (minus the yellow that never made it). They have thrived so well, that some plants have nearly doubled in size since last spring. They are due for some splitting later this season. Always a sad thing to take away their perfection and scar them until they fill back in the following year. But, I want them to remain in a clump formation, not spread as they would like. They would surely take over the rest of our plants if we would let them.

If you want to add one of these beauties to your yard, let us know.

springing to life

As with every season, we have a wonderful time watching the changes that occur in our yard. This Spring has been no exception.
In addition to the lovely plants that spurt out leaves and new blooms, we have been able to see the growth from the seeds planted in our garden.
We have planned our garden in spurts this year. We planted Romaine Lettuce, Spinach, Onions, and Garlic in late March. These cool loving plants have flourished, especially the Spinach. We have Spinach coming out our ears! If anyone would like some, come on over, it is very tasty. Bayli is often found snacking on it mid-play.
And our Romaine lettuce is also delicious. It is so nice to be able to eat it while at it's tender baby stage.


We have been surprised by a few plants. We love Blue Oat Grass and have multiple plants throughout the yard. It had taken us a while to find it. It is not common in local nurseries. We found our first starts at a small town family nursery in Southern Utah. And have since found a few local starts. Last year it seeded, giving us multiple surprises throughout the yard this spring. The funny thing this year, is that unlike years past, some plants have already shot up their tassels. We usually don't get to enjoy them until later in the summer.
As usual we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our "late bloomers." The Sumac and Gambel Oak are always one of the last plants to unveil their leaves in our yard. Of course, I always have to wait for my favorite things to arrive-isn't that how it works. Not to mention that I hate waiting for my Iris' to bloom. I should be more patient because they come and go so fast.
Seeing tiny blooms form is always exciting. We know that it will spring the beginning surge of the Honeybees that love to come and visit the Bluebeard and Sage. And the lovely Hummingbird Moths that will feast on the prolifent flowers of the Butterfly Bushes. The Robins and Bayli's that eat the fruits of the Currant bushes-so tiny yet so delicious.

beginning blooms of the Snowball Bushblooms on the Amur Maples
ever so tiny blooms on the Currant Bushes

Seeing the shoots of the Hostas gets me filled with warmth and relaxation. Every year as they mature, they arrive sooner and sooner. I can't wait for their blooms to come this summer. Hopefully we will be able to enjoy them with an adjacent paved area rather than the empty barren dirt that sits like a scar, reminding us of all that we have accomplished and the baby steps away from being completed.
The plant that I believe Jed and I have both been most excited about, is our beautiful Cut-leaf Lilac. It is perfect for our Xeriscaped yard. It has a more desert-like appearance than other varieties, and seems to be hardier in the drier climate. It maintains it's gorgeous green hue throughout the summer, unlike the other Lilacs in our yard that seem to get overheated and dry looking. It bares gorgeous blooms that have a more spindly look.
We have been very tempted to take out our other Lilacs and replace them with these lovely's. Unfortunately it has also proven to be a harder plant to find. It was a happened-upon pick from my dad's greenhouse. He doesn't even remember anything about it when we inquire if he has more. I guess we might have to venture to our favorite little Southern Utah nursery to see if they might have some.