John (the elder, not the younger) stole my camera and took pictures of a few of his babies.

In the spirit of saving $$ on watering (we will just have to spend it on gas anyway) we decided to dig out the horrible flowerbed around the front porch. Since the inside got a recent update, the outside needed one, too. As we had all the materials already here it cost us only achy backs and sore arms.

Before:

After:

Where to begin....

We have been a busy family in the last couple months. Remodeling, birds, bugs, and moths flying amuck in the house and the occasional squirrel (aka "Hunting Season for the felines"), tornadoes, gardening, and camping pretty much sum it up.

We started with planting the garden, which is now gorgeous. We ate our first fresh-picked salad last weekend. YUM! It has been a steady stream of planting, weeding, and cleaning up ever since then. I guess that is what you get with a big yard.

Some of Uncle Sam's stimulus money could have gone to a new TV or a laptop. We decided instead to do something practical with it, but still involve shopping. Until we started the project, our front porch had been just a crappy storage room. The floor was in such horrible shape that it could have caved in under any heavy use. It was carpeted of course with lovely 60's orange carpet pretending it was tile. Yuck! For only a minimum of money and a couple weekends of work, we now have a beautiful front porch/sunroom that is actually usable space. Home Depot is our friend.

The girls (Abby and Sadie) and Alexander proved themselves to be great hunters...each in their own way, of course. Sadie goes for small game, especially flies and moths. Everything else might ruin her figure. She might  help with birds that one of the others has already caught. Abby and Alex have become quite a good team and have bagged SEVERAL birds and one squirrel. Alex likes to bring them in after the kill and leave them for us as presents. How thoughtful. Abby, on the other hand, likes to do her chasing indoors and brings them in without a scratch. I bet you didn't know how fun it is to chase birds through the house with a broom. Safety tip: Birds NEVER go the direction of open doors....no matter what.

This past weekend we decided to try and get some R&R...and just get away for a while. We booked a weekend at our favorite campsite. The first day was gorgeous. We played, made a fire, took a walk, made smores......then it snowed.  We cut our trip short because of (literal) cabin fever. We were huddled around the small heater in a 10X20 cabin watching a movie on the portable DVD player. BRRR. Some camping trip. We'll try again later in the summer.

Check out the new photo album to the right and look at some of the pictures.