O beautiful for patriot dream, That sees beyond the years, Thine alabaster cities gleam,

                            

 

Iran

more than 4,000 dead...30,000 wounded

Afghanistan...often forgotten second war

The New Car and picking weeds and playing

 

this and that with pictures

Saturday I put together and planted the 'crib' arbor.  Planted with Cucumbers and Pole beans.  Hali saw it and said 'Baby night night' and layed down in the grass under it.  I didn't think she'd remember it but she did.  I have planted the morning glories at the other arbor.  The yellow flowers are Leopard's Bane.  One of the Wisconsin native plants from last year's garden.

Kids weekend here, we've been busy shopping, playing, cleaning, gardening, etc.

Tags: Wisconsin Native Plants, Green Living, Grandchildren

Owen says he's going to try out for Bret Favre's position.

Here he's practicing

Hali's saying I don't think so bro.

Tags: Green Bay Packers, Brett Favre, Cheeseheads, Bay Beach Park,

sunny spring day

Worked in the yard, placing rocks around the little trees, pulling weeds, planting seedlings, playing.

Here are a few pictures from today.

1. My red maple is starting to leaf out

2. Owens Arbor Day Tree

3. My raised bed of Wisconsin native plants

4. Walter

5. Halis Arbor Day Tree

6. A few tulips in bloom that I thought were different..the rabbits like them too.  I sure do miss my ferals.

 

BIRCHES

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground,
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm,
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows--
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about notlaunching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree~
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

a favorite poem by Robert Frost

 

A nice spring day

Took Owen to library school yesterday and he had fun with the kids.  They had a little craft of making their Moms a bookmark for mothers's day.  It was cute with little finger prints on it and a cute little poem.  Owen decorated it with purple ribbon cause he said that was his mom's favorite color.  We also picked rocks yesterday for the garden.

 

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Cinco de Mayo

Did some yard work today and took some yard pictures added a few to this entry.  Also put together a May alter, I like to remember my mother that way.  Put down six bags of cocoa bean shell mulch and now my side yard smells like the Hershey factory.

This is Owen's Magnolia starting to bloom.  It's four years old just like Owen

My rhubarb patch..I picked some today for pie

Here is Hali's Magnolia which is just two years old like baby girl.  Here it's reflecting the beautiful sunset that we had today. 

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