My yard/garden = my yarden

I'm ready to get that last sad, mopey blog post off of the top of my post lists, so here's a new one.  And just to add to the change of pace, a bit of 3-year-old silly-ness.  By the way, tall stack won't be 3 much longer = YIKES!

A few days ago, Abby & Audrey were playing together on the floor (oh my word, no one prepared me for the warm, fluttery fuzzies that just squeeze my heart space when these two love on each other!).  They both had coughy, snotty colds last week, and Audrey proceeded to sneeze right in Abby's face, whereupon the silly goose giggled "She bless you'd in my face!!"  Snicker...

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Every year when I stock up on my plants in May, I get more plants than I did the previous year.  True to form, I walked away with 20 plants this year.  And we have .17 of an acre of property front & back yard included.  As I was wending my way through the aisles of plants, all so earthy smelling and delicious, I decided to get something new this year that I hadn't ever tried before.  My theory was all well and good until I came away with about 5 new somethings, 3 of which are long and viney.  This resulted in a serious consultation with my co-landscaper while the kids were resting and then it caused me to pull out the shovel and start hacking up some grass.

The die have been cast, and we are going to rework some of the yard to better encompass viney things.  And, digging up grass costs no pennies.  Score one for the credit card balance. 

My blatant fail came about when I accidentally bought a jalapeno pepper plant rather than a sweet pepper plant.  I'd bet the contents of my closet on that little bugger than undoubtedly jumped into my cart on the sly that it will be my best pepper producer this year because kismet is nothing if not sneaky. 

A beautiful garden I do not have.  A gifted gardener I am not.  A work in progress we are, house and yard included.  (Shout out to passive voice for those who missed it the first 3 times.)

My aunt tells me that I might not be too far north to cultivate pecan trees.  This has slightly altered my dream house vision: find a place where I can plant pecan trees.  That would save some serious loot at the grocery store so that I wouldn't have to succumb to those buttery little nuggets of joy if I could just plant my own.

Now, I need to go do some serious recipe searching for how to use rhubarb, a plant that I have never in my life seen anyone actually use in person, though both of my grandmothers made/make rhubarb pies.  I just haven't seen them do it in person.  A week ago, I came away from a visit with my grams (I don't really call her that) with a good amount of the stuff, though she thought I didn't have nearly enough.  One batch of muffins later, I've only used 2 stalks.  Apparently at this rate, I still have about 6 batches of muffins to go.  Brunch at my place??