It has been a while since my last post...been a VERY busy two weeks as I was away on business so the week prior and the week after are always busier than usual.
This past Sunday, April 22 was earth day so I thought it is only fitting to have a garden update. It would have also been my father's 88 birthday but he passed away 9 years ago this coming September. Here is a picture of him by some wildflowers taken by my older sister Ginny. I know that I got my love of nature from both my mom and my dad and fondly remember many days spent out of doors as a family. We had an old mobile home in the country near a lake called Lake of the Woods Club where we would spend summer weekends. It didn't have running water, but we loved it. We would make aluminum can pull-tab chains and drape them throughout the forest making trails for us to follow, have bonfires at night, fish and swim during the day and each night have a new report put on by us kids.
When we were younger, we moved a good bit mainly because our family was growing from 2 to 4 to 6 and finally 8 children. One of the first houses we lived in that I can remember was on Ingersol Drive and it is where I met my oldest and best friend Kim Mulhall (now Kim Hickey). We sold the house to the Spencer family when I was about three years old and I distinctly remember meeting Mary, who was my age, and vaguely remember her red hair and her frilly pink dress she was wearing when we were standing in the front yard of that house (Mary's family still owns that house as far as I know). Mary Spencer ended up going to the same St. Albert's Catholic school that I attended with Kimmy and we are still friends over 40 years later. Below is a photo of us in 2005 just before the 20 year reunion party for our graduating class from Alter HS. I didn't actually graduate from Alter, but I had gone to school with so many from the 1985 graduating class, 9 years with many of them, that I felt more connected to this class than the one in South Texas.
After Ingersol, we moved to the house on Rosalyn. This was one of my favorite houses from childhood. It had a HUGE backyard with apple trees and my mom, with help from my brother-in-law Steve, planted a BIG garden in the back. We had 52 rabbits at one time in cages along the side of the backyard and other animals including dogs and cats. I remember many fall days picking up apples from the ground and from the trees so that my grandmother could salvage all good parts from the apples to make pies and apple sauce. I would spend lots of time in the backyard looking at bugs and watching the plants grow. Below are several photos of our garden this year and one showing Nicole standing in between two corn plants. I have no idea how the harvest will be, but we are having a good time trying and Nicole is such a good little helper, often going out after school to water the garden without even being asked.
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| Nicole in the corn! |
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| Our fav, tomatoes! |
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| Praying for some cantelope. |
The last house that we lived in before we relocated to Texas was on Claridge. There was a North and South Claridge and at one point, we figured out that there were at least 25 kids of various ages living on the loop. I remember walking to school in large groups, climbing the big tree in the front yard with perfect limbs for getting up high, playing kick-the-can into the late hours on summer nights and building all kinds of forts in the snow. As I sit here writing this post, it is really driving home the realization that I had a few months ago that our current home really is a combination of my favorite homes as a child. Nicole lives on the street with her very best friend, Grace who she has known since she was 18 months old (Kim and I met around the same age). There are some really good trees in the backyard for climbing. Presently, there are only 9 kiddos on our cul-de-sac of different ages but we often walk as a group up the elementary school that is a block away that I have dubbed the "Arrowpoint Gang." Nicole and I have a garden in the backyard and will have chickens again, maybe even rabbits (sorry Alison). Either I am trying to relive my childhood or pass on the best parts of my childhood to Nicole or maybe it is a combination of both.
I will update the garden growth over time....
Next Post: Diva Dash
PS. For those grammarians out there, I fixed some of the typos. If you find anymore, send me an email and I will correct them ; ) .
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