Summer Lovin'

Theres been a whole lot of this happening around here- Bike rides! Without me because I have been busy/obsessed with flowers-more on that in a sec. 

Evanston is fully aware that they need to remind their citizens why we love to live here- so when the snow melts and the temps get over 60 they start doing their very best to impress the residents- and it works! This was the bluegrass festival. Fun times for sure. 

Later that night after we had all the banjo music we could take, we headed over to the Rodeo. The clown asked the audience if anyone was from out of country, I claim sweet Alberta as home sweet home, so up shot my hand. Mr cowboy clown was impressed and trucked on up the bleachers to see a true blue Canadian for himself- and I got a nice close up pic. Zane refused to be in it.. are you surprised. Also, the whole motivation for going to the rodeo was so the boys could catch a chicken. Well it wasn't quite as Brody imagined, and it ended up being about 50 kids and 4 chickens, he didn't catch one and he was devastated. Like sobbing and couldn't get it together and we had to leave. When he was finally able to communicate, it turned out he thought if the chicken was caught he would be able to keep it- and knew that this was probably his only shot at being a chicken owner. Sad Sad. He shares my heart when it comes to farm ownership and desires. Anyway, tomorrow I will call 4-H and see about how to get this poor boy some farm   experience. 

We have been backyard warriors! And front yard warriors. The improvments have been fairly impressive thus far, if the yard fund was bottomless it would be extra amazing, but thats just not the case.  I know that this really isnt THAT impressive by most standards, however, my track record with growing things usually goes like this.

BUY

PLANT

WATER.. sort of...or too much

WATCH

WONDER

GET FRUSTRATED

PLANTS DIE

BUYERS REMORSE

And then swear to never repeat. Ill fill my flowers with pretty rocks or something. 

I have kept these alive! And they are growing and spreading and doing pretty flower things. WOW. 

Some things I have learned. 

Those little tags that come in the flower are full of useful info, like how much sun and water. 

I treated those little tags like casual suggestions in the past. oops. More important then I thought apparently!

See the pine tree in back? I hate pine trees in the front of homes.Id love to pull it out actually- This one needed to be 'brought up' a good 3 feet.. well Dev was a gem and did it.. but its more like up 6 feet. oops. It looks a little odd, but hopefully once we do something underneath it will improve. We are both learning to appreciate the outcome of yard work. We dont like it any better but it has turned out to be a good family thing we can all work on.Brody and Zane are great weed pullers, I have become obsessed with my flower watering schedule and checking out their improvement. Im eager to see how things look come August.