Monday, December 19, 2011
Monday, December 5, 2011
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Happy as can be
Here I am with Echo and Jason, enjoying some leisurely rocking.
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| From Steve and Aimee's blog |
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Who still looks at this?
I'm testing the new blogger app for my phone, and am curious: who still looks at this?
I like blogs better than Facebook, so if you still look at this, please email me to let me know. It will prompt more baby photo updates once the boy is here.
I like blogs better than Facebook, so if you still look at this, please email me to let me know. It will prompt more baby photo updates once the boy is here.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Great news!
Aimee was offered a permanent researcher position at Dow on Thursday! They have been working to be able to open a position for her for quite a while, so this is a great step. Congratulations, Aimee! She starts the new job in two weeks. We celebrated with a homemade cake, which we also used to double for celebrating our friend Scott's birthday.
I was given a lot of help by members of the Master Gardener Association in putting up a hoop house in our back yard. It's like an unheated greenhouse, used to start plants earlier in spring and keep them going later in fall. I won't get to use it this fall because it's up too late to really get anything going, but I hope we are having some early spring salad greens by April.
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| From Celebration for Aimee and Scott |
I was given a lot of help by members of the Master Gardener Association in putting up a hoop house in our back yard. It's like an unheated greenhouse, used to start plants earlier in spring and keep them going later in fall. I won't get to use it this fall because it's up too late to really get anything going, but I hope we are having some early spring salad greens by April.
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| From 2010 Summer garden photos |
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| From 2010 Summer garden photos |
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Lots of summer fun
We've been having too good a time this summer to update the blog much. Here's a brief summary:
Recently, we went to the county fair with our friends, Scott, Elle, and their daughter Ondine. Most of us had fun on the ferris wheel. Guess who didn't.
I took Aimee out to Traverse City for our 5th anniversary. We stayed at a great bed and breakfast on a cherry orchard, just east of East Traverse Bay. We had some awesome food at Trattoria Stella, visited a couple vineyards, hiked the sand dunes out to Lake Michigan, and ran through a corn maze. At the end of the maze, the farmers there convinced me to buy a few of their trees, so now we have two apple and a pear tree to remember the anniversary. Not that it will mean anything if I end up killing the trees...
And who can forget the Munger Potato Festival early in August? Fried tater tots, a ranch dressing fountain, a parade, an RC half-man begging for candy, and a potato gun. Awesome.
There are more pics in the folder than I linked to here, so enjoy!
Recently, we went to the county fair with our friends, Scott, Elle, and their daughter Ondine. Most of us had fun on the ferris wheel. Guess who didn't.
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| From Summer 2010 Fun |
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| From Summer 2010 Fun |
I took Aimee out to Traverse City for our 5th anniversary. We stayed at a great bed and breakfast on a cherry orchard, just east of East Traverse Bay. We had some awesome food at Trattoria Stella, visited a couple vineyards, hiked the sand dunes out to Lake Michigan, and ran through a corn maze. At the end of the maze, the farmers there convinced me to buy a few of their trees, so now we have two apple and a pear tree to remember the anniversary. Not that it will mean anything if I end up killing the trees...
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| From Summer 2010 Fun |
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| From Summer 2010 Fun |
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| From Summer 2010 Fun |
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| From Summer 2010 Fun |
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| From Summer 2010 Fun |
And who can forget the Munger Potato Festival early in August? Fried tater tots, a ranch dressing fountain, a parade, an RC half-man begging for candy, and a potato gun. Awesome.
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| From Summer 2010 Fun |
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| From Summer 2010 Fun |
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| From Summer 2010 Fun |
There are more pics in the folder than I linked to here, so enjoy!
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Trip to Mackinaw City/ Mackinac Island
Went on my first trip up north with Scott, Elle and Ondine. We had a great time riding bikes around the island, eating fudge, and visiting the cutest little yarn shop. We also snuck in a trip to the old mill historical adventure park. Yep, historical adventure park!
Our rented tandem, not nearly as cool as the one we just bought.
The Grand Hotel
Bald eagle speck
Bridge to the UP
The Island
Native Orchids
Really cute yarn store
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| From Mackinaw/c |
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| From Mackinaw/c |
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| From Mackinaw/c |
Our rented tandem, not nearly as cool as the one we just bought.
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| From Mackinaw/c |
The Grand Hotel
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| From Mackinaw/c |
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| From Mackinaw/c |
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| From Mackinaw/c |
Bald eagle speck
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| From Mackinaw/c |
Bridge to the UP
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| From Mackinaw/c |
The Island
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| From Mackinaw/c |
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| From Mackinaw/c |
Native Orchids
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| From Mackinaw/c |
Really cute yarn store
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Garden preparation 2010
It's been a while, so I am going to put on a nice big update today.
I have been spending most of my free time getting my square foot gardens and other garden areas ready for planting. I have taken more trips than I would like to admit to get compost, spent a fair chunk of change getting materials for the raised beds, and put a lot of work into moving a lot of dirt. Since spring is definitely here, though, I have been enjoying almost every minute of it. The excitement all started when we saw our first flowers, some English Primrose. Apparently these are hard to grow, but we did not even know we had them and have done nothing to take care of them. These photos are from a couple weeks ago. They have even more flowers on them now.
You might remember the blueberries I planted a couple weeks ago. Here they are now, with some leaves poking out.
I spent a couple hours today putting up trellis wire for our blackberries and raspberries. The blackberries are looking very strong, and we should have a lot of fruit since I learned how to prune them properly. Turns out the fruit grows on second-year side branches, and cutting the main stem and side branches to the right length helps get the best crop. The wires are going to help me keep a nice row, because last year the grapes (where blueberries now reside), raspberries, and blackberries grew too much and covered the whole area (greener photo below from July last year).
For those few to whom I have not explained square foot gardening, let me show you with pictures. The back story is that when I decided to get into gardening late 2008, I went to the book store and decided to get only two books. One was Reader's Digest All New Illustrated Guide to Gardening. My parents had gotten us Reader's Digest Guide to Home Repair as a wedding present, and I love the format and information density, so I thought the garden book would be just as good. It is. The second book was The All New Square Foot Garden, because it looked like a fun, easy way to construct an orderly garden. I stopped myself at buying two garden books. I did not want my garden shelf to look like my cookbook shelf, covered in 35 books that rarely if ever get used (although I am going through most of the cookbooks occasionally to make use of them all). I still have not bought another gardening book, but as part of my Master Gardener class we got quite a few last fall that have been great additions.
Anyways, here is one of my three square foot gardens. It has the grid for order, the PVC conduit to drape weather protection over, and the steel conduit trellis with nylon netting for vine plants. You might notice in the background some Earth Boxes, two of which I got from my fantastic mother-in-law, and three I got from Kendra when her and Paul moved to Massachusetts last summer. One had a 5 foot tall cherry tomato plant on it when we drove it across town!
This box is going to be covered in strawberry plants, which should have shipped from Stark Brothers yesterday. I got two June bearing types and two ever bearing. The chicken wire cage is for rabbit protection. I have one for each box. I do not know how I will use those and the weather protection, but I will figure something out (the book is not that explicit on this matter).
Ah, and here are the first few plants. I have broccoli in the foreground and leeks behind in the raised bed. All this work and so far this is all I have to show for it!
Here are two tiny pea vines popping up from a self-watering pot Kendra gave me.
The previous owners had a circular tower of strawberries, although it was not very full of plants. I let some spread last year and they are coming up this year. After I get a crop from them, I promised Aimee I would remove them because we will have the raised bed and this structure is not the best. A couple of the plants are just now getting some flowers.
Now, I go out in my garden almost every day to look at everything around the house. We had moved some asparagus root rather brutally last fall, and I did not expect it to survive. I audibly gasped when I saw this 5-inch spear poking out today! There are two more from other root stocks too. Maybe we will have a good asparagus harvest this year.
To summarize, if you are still reading this, you should come visit later this summer because we are going to have a fantastic bounty of fruit and vegetables.
What has Aimee been doing this whole time? She still gets me to go to yoga once or twice a week. She is training for her half marathon, including running 8 miles yesterday and 3.7 today. And, she is using her new sewing machine to make pillows and soon to make a quilt:
It's all very tiring.
Gypsy still avoids the camera, so we have few pictures of her, but here's a good one of Echo hiding from the vacuum to end the post:
I have been spending most of my free time getting my square foot gardens and other garden areas ready for planting. I have taken more trips than I would like to admit to get compost, spent a fair chunk of change getting materials for the raised beds, and put a lot of work into moving a lot of dirt. Since spring is definitely here, though, I have been enjoying almost every minute of it. The excitement all started when we saw our first flowers, some English Primrose. Apparently these are hard to grow, but we did not even know we had them and have done nothing to take care of them. These photos are from a couple weeks ago. They have even more flowers on them now.
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| From Spring 2010 |
 |
| From Spring 2010 |
You might remember the blueberries I planted a couple weeks ago. Here they are now, with some leaves poking out.
 |
| From Spring 2010 |
I spent a couple hours today putting up trellis wire for our blackberries and raspberries. The blackberries are looking very strong, and we should have a lot of fruit since I learned how to prune them properly. Turns out the fruit grows on second-year side branches, and cutting the main stem and side branches to the right length helps get the best crop. The wires are going to help me keep a nice row, because last year the grapes (where blueberries now reside), raspberries, and blackberries grew too much and covered the whole area (greener photo below from July last year).
 |
| From Spring 2010 |
 |
| From Garden around the house |
For those few to whom I have not explained square foot gardening, let me show you with pictures. The back story is that when I decided to get into gardening late 2008, I went to the book store and decided to get only two books. One was Reader's Digest All New Illustrated Guide to Gardening. My parents had gotten us Reader's Digest Guide to Home Repair as a wedding present, and I love the format and information density, so I thought the garden book would be just as good. It is. The second book was The All New Square Foot Garden, because it looked like a fun, easy way to construct an orderly garden. I stopped myself at buying two garden books. I did not want my garden shelf to look like my cookbook shelf, covered in 35 books that rarely if ever get used (although I am going through most of the cookbooks occasionally to make use of them all). I still have not bought another gardening book, but as part of my Master Gardener class we got quite a few last fall that have been great additions.
Anyways, here is one of my three square foot gardens. It has the grid for order, the PVC conduit to drape weather protection over, and the steel conduit trellis with nylon netting for vine plants. You might notice in the background some Earth Boxes, two of which I got from my fantastic mother-in-law, and three I got from Kendra when her and Paul moved to Massachusetts last summer. One had a 5 foot tall cherry tomato plant on it when we drove it across town!
 |
| From Spring 2010 |
This box is going to be covered in strawberry plants, which should have shipped from Stark Brothers yesterday. I got two June bearing types and two ever bearing. The chicken wire cage is for rabbit protection. I have one for each box. I do not know how I will use those and the weather protection, but I will figure something out (the book is not that explicit on this matter).
 |
| From Spring 2010 |
Ah, and here are the first few plants. I have broccoli in the foreground and leeks behind in the raised bed. All this work and so far this is all I have to show for it!
 |
| From Spring 2010 |
Here are two tiny pea vines popping up from a self-watering pot Kendra gave me.
 |
| From Spring 2010 |
The previous owners had a circular tower of strawberries, although it was not very full of plants. I let some spread last year and they are coming up this year. After I get a crop from them, I promised Aimee I would remove them because we will have the raised bed and this structure is not the best. A couple of the plants are just now getting some flowers.
 |
| From Spring 2010 |
Now, I go out in my garden almost every day to look at everything around the house. We had moved some asparagus root rather brutally last fall, and I did not expect it to survive. I audibly gasped when I saw this 5-inch spear poking out today! There are two more from other root stocks too. Maybe we will have a good asparagus harvest this year.
 |
| From Spring 2010 |
To summarize, if you are still reading this, you should come visit later this summer because we are going to have a fantastic bounty of fruit and vegetables.
What has Aimee been doing this whole time? She still gets me to go to yoga once or twice a week. She is training for her half marathon, including running 8 miles yesterday and 3.7 today. And, she is using her new sewing machine to make pillows and soon to make a quilt:
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| From Spring 2010 |
It's all very tiring.
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| From Spring 2010 |
Gypsy still avoids the camera, so we have few pictures of her, but here's a good one of Echo hiding from the vacuum to end the post:
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| From Spring 2010 |
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