peepers

This morning, Nova and I woke up early. We stepped outside and listened to the early morning sounds. Finally, Nova said: "It must be Spring now because I can hear the spring peepers!" Only in the South could we have snow on Monday and Spring weather less than one week later. I'm enjoying it. I love layers of warm clothing, I love snow, I love fires in the fireplace, and all of the other things that come with Winter. However, Spring is irresistible, too. We enjoyed every minute of the day.

Tim bought an outdoor building which now functions as his "shop". He is having a blast organizing his tools, building shelves, and getting everything ready for carpentry work. The kids helped him this morning with various projects before running off to play in the warm sunshine. Nova wanted to learn how to ride the tricycle, and he had two very willing teachers.



We have about twenty gardening projects going on at the same time! Some of our seeds are now sprouts! Hurray! The yellow pear tomatoes and the black krim tomatoes are shooting right up. I'm so excited! We are working on clearing out and tilling, so that we can plant soon. My grandad brought over a huge pile of mulch this afternoon. We are going to make "paths" through the garden beds with the mulch, and cover the actual beds with straw so that the kids will have a good place to walk. I saw the idea in Clover's gardening book, _Roots, Shoots, Buckets, and Boots_ for brown "walkways" and golden "beds". This will hopefully help the kids remember where to walk. In past years, their excitement over helping with garden chores has led to some plant trampling, and I'm hoping that my plan is going to eliminate that problem (or atleast improve upon the situation). Tim and Grandad had lots of help with unloading the mulch...