Dandelions!

For no reason other than that we love the 100mm macro lens, here are some pictures we took today of dandelions in the front yard. On a day where hockey was deeply, terribly bittersweet, it’s nice to find beauty in the simple things, to be reminded that all is not misery and woe.

[Posted by Schnookie]

April 25 At Maple Hoo: A Morning In Pictures

There’s not a ton of new or exciting garden news to report here yet, what with this being a ridiculously chilly spring so far. Last year we had no real concerns about the last possible frost date, since we were confident it was over once March was in the rearview mirror. But this year it seems more likely that we’ll have one more crazy cold night before Mother’s Day, so we’re being hesitant to move any of our delicate summer belle plants even into the cold frame, let alone into the garden beds proper. But today was one of those “taste of the season to come” summer-esque days, with the sweltering sun and the temperatures near 90, so we took the opportunity to document the grounds in photograph.

Our peas are still wee little winkies, and we don’t have a lot of hope that they’re going to yield anything before we need the bed they’re in for our pepper plants. We were kind of wishing the potatoes, which have been lagging, wouldn’t sprout so we could keep the peas and move the pepper bed into the failed potato bed, but no such luck. When we went out this morning, sure enough, the potatoes were just starting to poke up out of the soil. We’ll just have to enjoy taking pictures of the peas while they last.

The garlic, meanwhile, is coming in like gangbusters. It’s a veritable forest already, and tonight we’ll be pulling up a few of them to have some green garlic in our Saturday pasta dinner.

Elsewhere in the yard, we’ve got all kinds of blossoming, growing things to be turning the 100 on. Like the azaleas:

And the petunia I got as a door prize (!) at a meeting this week at work:

And the peach trees:

And the apple trees:

Even the dandelions are pretty:

As are the ladybugs:

And inspired by Sarah’s fern photo from last week, we stopped by Boomer’s fernarium in the backyard and took a few shots there, too:

[Posted by Schnookie]

Garden Update: The Seedlings Are Growing!

As much as the weather here is trying its hardest to stay on the “chilly” end of the springtime temperatures spectrum, it can’t fool us into thinking summer is never going to come. It might not be warm out, but the sunlight’s getting more and more garden-y, and in our little plant window the seedlings are getting readier and readier to be in the garden.

Our baby onions have all been moved to their bed in the garden (and look typically tiny, pathetic and unlikely to ever amount to anything, as onion seedlings are wont), so now the windowsill is just filled with tomatoes and peppers. Today we finished transferring the peppers from their planter-trays (which were just take-out containers from the place we get frozen ravioli from) into peat seedling pots, and if the first wave of transplants was any indication, they will spend a few nerve-wracking days looking horribly shocked. But after a while, they’ll stop being such drama queens, stand up straight, and start growing in earnest.

Meanwhile, our tomatoes were put into their peat pots a few weeks ago; they’ve even had two days sitting in their trays in the garden, to take the sun, but they’re still a long way from moving into the cold frame. They’re such delicate little things.

They’re also tall enough now that they’re flopping over, because they can’t support their own weight. Man, being a gentlewoman farmer is so much work because these damn plants can’t do even the slightest thing for themselves.

Of course, it’s nothing a few bamboo skewers and some kitchen twine can’t fix — after a few fussy minutes of untangling the leaves and trussing up the wee plants, our tomatoes look sturdier, happier, and even more eager about a summer of giving us tons of delicious rewards for all our labors.

The Works and Other Maple Hoo Blooms

A few years ago, Schnookie and Boomer spent a Saturday planting “The Works” — hundreds of bulbs for a variety of daffodils. The majority of them ended up around the base of the locust tree out front; they looked so spectacular the first year they bloomed that our neighbor asked if she could copy us! This year I decided to take the 100mm out to take a tour of some of the different kinds we have growing. While I was there, I stopped to take a few shots of other blooming wonders in the yard.

Posted by Pookie

Living The High Life, Sabres-Style

So last week our dear friend Katebits reported that she had attended a Sabres game in Buffalo, and in the doing, sat in the really, really, really swanky seats. How swanky, you ask? So swanky that they have waitress service, to bring all the food and drink you could desire directly to you at your seats. Pookie and I have been to literally hundreds of hockey games, and we’ve hobnobbed with the high rollers a few times in our days, too, but we’ve never managed to swing in-seat waitressing. Katebits told us all about how wonderful it was, with the not having to get up and wait in line and miss action while refilling your beer, but the thing that really stuck with us was that her friend Robin had a hot fudge sundae delivered to her.

A HOT FUDGE SUNDAE. DELIVERED TO HER SEAT. DURING A HOCKEY GAME.

I’m not normally a hot fudge sundae kind of gal, but hearing it put that way, I suddenly had to have one. Sure, it wouldn’t be delivered to my seat, and it wouldn’t be at a live sporting event, but we could totally make up for that by being in our pajamas and watching hockey in HD at home.

Coincidentally, Smitten Kitchen had a post about hot fudge sauce just a few weeks ago, so as soon as Katebits tantalized us with the notion, we embarked on a week of planning to build our own sundaes.

We ordered sundae dishes from Crate & Barrel. We arranged our weekend plans around stopping to pick up ice cream at Jann’s Sweet Shoppe. We made a special grocery run to get whipped cream, sprinkles and cherries. We forgot that we didn’t have corn syrup, so had a second special grocery run to get that at the last minute. And after all of that, it took us about 15 seconds to devour our sundaes.

You know what I recommend? I recommend these sundaes. The hot fudge sauce (which I made with Grand Marnier instead of rum, by the way) is so phenomenal that you won’t even notice there wasn’t personal waitress service.

We Love Our Camera

So it was sunny and warm today, and we did all kinds of yardfun in the garden, but the best part of the day was taking the 100mm macro lens out for a spin. Here’s a look at the moss growing between the stones in the slate path in the backyard.