A piece of land... turned into a GARDEN!!

I bought my house in 2004.  One of the biggest reasons I bought this house was for it's garden spot.  I've had a garden in it every year except last year.  I needed a summer to just hike and hibernate inside, because Wade was leaving for his mission, and I really didn't want to be tied to a garden when I could be playing with him.  Ironically, he ended up having school in Logan for most of the summer, and wasn't down much.  I was really missing tomatoes in the fall.
REALLY missing tomatoes.

I wasn't going to repeat the same mistake this year.  I had a 5 year accumulation of yard waste pile in the garden that had been waiting for someone to take it to the dump (and growing each year).  The back third of the garden was so rocky and full of sucker trees and overgrown weeds that it just kinda ran wild.  There was a pile of old pallets in the back corner, old fence pieces and some trash.  The soil has been so bad in my garden, and usually I do better feeding my garden to the massive amounts of ANTS that live there, than feeding it to my kids.  Morning glory and grass lined the fence line, and I wasn't going to battle all of it to get garden in it.  I just planted inside of that area.

Then, two things happened.

First... after life went crazy last fall, I had an older guy in the ward take me under his wing.  Boyd Stewart is his name.  He shoveled my walks, brought me grapes, and walnuts... and MORE walnuts, and more walnuts.  He is the MASTER GARDENER in the ward, and when he found out I had a big garden space that needed some love, he was excited to help.  He came and brought his truck into my yard and hauled away the pile that had been waiting to go.  It took him 3 loads to get it all to the dump.  He has since helped with manure, brought me 84 raspberry plants, 13 blackberry plants, grown radishes to eat, a flower hanging basket and so much more.  He has been so nice to have around.  It's like having a "dad" in town, since I don't have one.

The second thing to happen, was, on February 21, 2015, I met a guy who sleeps, eats, breathes and CONSUMES gardening.  And building.  And creating... and so many more things.  Jason Day is his name. The first two days he was at my house, we had the back corner cleaned out and big plans in the works.  I didn't much believe his dreams of grandeur... A FENCE?  A garden GATE? A DUCK HOUSE (let alone ducks!)  Now, here it is more than 3 months later, and my garden is cleaned out... from east to west and north to south.  There isn't a space that is given up to weeds and trees.  Jason (the 2nd thing) and Boyd (the 1st thing) hauled in 88 wheelbarrow loads of manure and spread it.  Jason has taken down much of a barn in the neighborhood and moved it to the backyard for use on the fence and the DUCK HOUSE (yes... an actual duck house).  He has planed boards, dug post holes, built a gate (from the original gate I took from the barn), sunk screws, watered plants, hauled tons and tons of rocks, built a fence, dug out grass, put in more time and effort than I could have ever asked for (or hoped for).  It's been such an awesome adventure to work on the yard with someone who loves to do the same.

I have had more than one person in my life say "Why don't you do something relaxing today"... and when I spend the day in the garden, they chastise me.  THIS IS RELAXING, I explain.  My version of relaxing and stress reduction is their version of work.  I love it!

Jason has definitely been my inspiration for all the ideas I'm able to get implemented thus far this year.  I've made many different types of plant markers that have been on my list of things to do, got most spring veggies in EVEN BEFORE MAY (that has never happened before), and we've had half a dozen fires that we have sat next to in the evenings already.

I'll update more on the yard in another post.  I want to show the garage and it's progress... the basement progress since the LIFE OVERHAUL from the fall, and a few other things... but for now, this is my garden update.  I'm pretty excited about how it has started this year.  Pretty excited about my partner in crime in the yard and garden.  Next year I hope to have things just improve on this year...

here's to a summer FULL of fresh VEGGIES!

My spring "break"

My kids were away for most of Spring Break (Moab with the grandparents), so I had time on my hands.  Hayden and I have a different version of what a break looks like.  His includes taking naps and watching a movie he's been wanting to see. 

This is what mine included this week:
Rake garden
Stair climber workout
Rake yard
Mow yard
Fertilize lawn
Plant spring flowers
Till garden (until my tiller rebelled)
Plant three rows of spring seeds
Treadmill class
Twelve miler with Arica
Walk Provo trail with Lawrence
Bathroom cleaned
Three doctor appointments
Grocery shopping
Edge lawn
Email parents/students about homework
Email Brenden (while running)
Birthday cards for April
Einsteins with Becky
Plan two weeks for school
Dig out perennials from vacant lot
Make math quiz
Haydens meeting
Spray round up on entire empty garden spot
Plant perennials
Fixed broken pipes in yard
Buy garden seeds
Go to wades tennis match
Had TV guy come to fix broken receiver
Spent two days (5+ hours) in the yard
Got text from Brendens mission president
A million other little errands

I missed the kids, but glad I got stuff done.
Bad part... I am having trouble walking today. So sore.

Brenden, Park City and a Banjo

My missionary boy takes off for Canada in five minutes.  Kinda strange that I wrote my LAST easy "dearelder" letter to Brenden yesterday (they can be written and delivered on the same day) and the last $2 package that I could send was delivered on Saturday. Now I'm going to be spending time at the post office, and Brenden will actually get letters with stamps on them, instead of printed off of the internet. Which means he will get more lovely pictures from Aspen as well...lucky him.  I heard from him this morning, but it was frustrating because his calls kept dropping.

It has been a crazy week. We did go to Park City with Mary, and even Wade was able to come. We stayed at the Marriott, swam, and went shopping at the outlets. The highlight of the trip was the alpine slide and the lift ride to the top of Deer Valley combined with the hike down the side of the mountain to the bottom. For the mountain adventure, I didn't exactly plan great, and wore my Nike flip flops for the trip, and decided to make the hike down anyway. My feet were horribly filthy by the top we reached the bottom of the 2.5 mile trail, but other than that, my feet felt pretty good. The alpine slide was fun too. Wade and Aspen rode on one cart and raced me down the mountain. Aspen hates to lose, and every time I was a little bit ahead of them, she was start yelling at Wade to speed up. I think she gets her competitive nature from Hayden :) 

Hayden & Aspen

Walking Sticks... an essential

My hiking attire :)

Wade and Mary at the bottom of the switchbacks

Only two weeks left until school starts and I'm trying to ignore it's impending approach every day. I always get emotionally a mess (I know, shocker...) this time of year because of all the stuff that I end up still wanting to do before the summer ends. This year is no exception. Wade and I still need to get to the top of Mount Timpanogas, and I have lots of sewing still to do. Wade is at cross country camp today through Wednesday, so he will be back on Friday...that gives us two weeks to try to get to the top. Oh yeah, and try to get to Lagoon too sometime with my tickets I won. 

Wade went and worked with Hayden this past week, so he earned enough money to finish saving for his.... BANJO! It's been kinda cute watching him try to figure it out. He had to take it home yesterday to show it off.

Mission Letters, Music and Torrey

YAY YAY YAY!

(and did I mention YAY?)

Tuesday is always the day I wait with anticipation for missionary email, and if I get really lucky, I get a short little email of my own... and then the MOTHER LODE comes the next day, the ACTUAL... "I get to hold it" letter!!! So Tuesday came and went, Wednesday I was gone, but by the time I got back on Thursday I just KNEW my letter would be waiting. 

No luck. Thursday afternoon mail... no letter. But today... YAY! YAY! YAY! 

I picked up Wade last night at the train... this time with no "suspicious characters" hunting him down after arriving.  Last time he had to make a connection and got approached by some of the local scaries... offering him "candy". He is currently asleep on the couch. 

City & Colour

Between last night and today, he is kinda worn out. We went to Avett Brothers last night, and... what can I say?.. I'm a fan. City & Colour opened for them, and they were a band I could totally see Brenden sitting in behind playing the drums for. Very much "Brenden style". 

Avett Brothers

After only 6 hours of sleep (and amazingly, for Wade, going to bed before midnight) we made it to 7 Peaks today, too. Because there are so many fires burning right now, the sky was horribly smoky.  There is a fire in Neola, Duchesne (close to a possible explosive situation), Delta, Fairview (2 fires), and one along I-15 south of Spanish Fork. Another was just announced about a half an hour ago with major evacuations from Herriman. The Colorado fire ended up wiping out neighborhoods and over 300 homes, so far, and is still burning. It's crazy. It is especially crazy when you consider that some are started by stupid people out shooting off fireworks, or target practicing in the horribly flammable conditions. Just dumb decisions. Hayden jokes about maybe pushing our house to the fire line and letting it "get devoured". It would be probably worth more burned than standing :)

The "cabin" with the swing

On Tuesday, Hayden was home and his worker guys were working on a floor, and we decided to take a drive. We headed south thinking we would stop in and say hello to Grandma and Grandpa Fraser, but about Provo, Hayden called Grandma and she had plans... so we just kept driving south. We stopped in Richfield and bought a couple changes of clothes, some bathroom supplies and a pair of shoes each, and just kept right on driving until we got to Torrey. We both love Capital Reef, and we both love the Lodge at Red River down there, so we checked in and decided to stay a couple days. We ate at Cafe Diablo... twice, drove to Boulder after a hike to explore and eat, and sat in the hot tub a couple times. Aspen found a dog at Cafe Diablo to play soccer with the first night, which she named Serena (seriously... everything gets names with crazy strange names... and they change all the time!). There was also a cat at the lodge, which received the name Pixie... or Sabela... depending on the day (and the minute).

This is Heaven... I'm sure of it

Morning Shadows

Writing Utensil = Happiness

We only did one hike while we were down there, but it was a big one. Hayden thought it wouldn't be that big of a deal to just do a two miler (to OVERLOOK POINT) a mile above Hickman Bridge... the same hike you and Wade did last October. Yeah... well, Aspen lasted about 1/2 mile, then she was whining, and begging for rests. Hayden and I took turns packing her on our shoulders, which is NO small incline. By the time I was done with one portion of my turn, I was sweating like crazy... and it was only 9am. We only had to hear "How much longer" 23,512,502 times... luckily. 

One of the 12,386 breaks she had to take

But the end result...

It was beautiful. 

It was worth it. 

It was TIRING! 

Barely Survived the Aspen Workout

We managed the full 4.6 miles in just over 3 hours... far from the lightning speed you guys did it in, but we survived. Even Aspen, who had a ride 80% of the time, and she thought SHE was going to die, but Hayden and I... survived. On the way down the stairs at the end she was riding on Hayden, and I kept calling her SELFISH. She finally asked what it meant and I said "It means you are being mean and making dad carry you the entire way... he is tired and needs a rest." This was met with silence for awhile, then she said, "No, he's great. He's doing just fine".