I love raspberries! They are like ruby jewels hanging in a green canopy. Our berries are coming on fairly well right now,too. Usually by the 4th of July, we are picking raspberries every third day, and strawberries almost every day. We have always had raspberries every where we have lived in Oregon. David's family let us have starts when we moved back to Oregon with our first baby, now we are on our third home with a raspberry patch. We love to eat them fresh, have them on ice cream and in salads, make freezer jam, sometimes cooked jam. the chickens like them as well, bouncing up to peck one off of the bush. Berries are the essence of summer to me!

One of our favorite things about living in the country is the bees! David's Dad is an old Bee Man and had hives for years, so David is comfortable with the hives. Our first year here, we found a swarm in the old apple tree, and David got out the old hive for them. So we started bee keeping! However last winter, we lost both hives, so had to purchase 2 new ones. Now we have three hives, after a swarm occured. We are determined to take better care of them this year, making sure they have plenty of sugar water, and honey to see them thru the winter , and getting established. the honey is wonderful and knowing that we are helping local agriculture stay healthy is great.

Finally the end of June has brought days in the 70's and even 80 degrees! We had to wait until the official start of summer, June 21 to get any sun and warm weather.
So my flower baskets are a tad behind, since I didn't plant them until April and then we didn't get any sun until this week!
The good news is our little chickens aren't so little and have graduated to free range instead of just the chicken yard. There are ongoing dramas of whether the big girls are eating the little girls food or vice versa. And even tho there are 2 roosts in the little girls hen house, we find 11 chickens on one and 1 lonely chicken on the other! Too funny.
We finally have the garden planted, lettuce, beans, tomatoes, squash. The established strawberries and raspberries are doing well. We may get a few cherries from the new cherry tree, and ou new little peach and apple trees are doing well, if the deer don't notice them!
David has now 3 bee hives, after losing both last winter. Two he bought from Glory Bee, our local bee supply store, and one is a swarm he captured. We learned from last winter and are determined to watch them more closely this year to protect them. We love the honey!
Happy Fourth of July!

It's cold in May here is Oregon! 47 degrees just now at 7:30 pm as I went out to take some pictures of the chickens. Our big girls were busy scratching in a pile of composting leaves, and the "little" babies were safely enclosed in the new chicken yard. The back of the addition to the chickn house shows that David has not yet painted the back section, altho the front is painted white. Last night we only had to catch 4 little ones to put them back in before closing them up for the night. Much better than the night before when it was full scale chaos, scooping with the net and 22 chickens screaming and running away from the giants. Sigh. Today was a 5 egg day, so I am happy, as I have been selling them at work. By August, we should be getting almost a dozen a day! I am ready for warmer weather, Altho my baskets are planted, they are not doing much as yet. the rhodies are almost ready to bloom, and the perennials are coming up, with iris, peonies, snowball bush just on the verge of blooming.

Happy Birthday, Nathan! We had such a great time with the Grandbabies last weekend. Violet especially loves waffles with "cream",( whipped topping).
Then after they went home, we had quite a windstorm, which blew down limbs all over and split a bigger limb on our big fir. Of course, this does not stop the big chickens from laying their eggs up in the tree!

Things are silly here in the country! We have had the chickens almost a year now. They have been an entertainment and a delight. We started out with 6 Aracauna hens, lost one to a cruising neighbor dog, and have maintained 5 free ranging chickens over the fall and winter.
Of course, our daughter had to name them: Sophie, Audrey, Gwendlyn, Danielle de Barbaraqe... I'm forgetting one, hmmm.

So the other day I came home from work and was standing on the driveway talking to David. I noticed the dog was laying on the grass , licking something round and light colored..... an egg! with a crack! I snatched it up, looking around to see where he could have found this egg. The girls were supposed to be laying in the hen house, in their nice nesting boxes. No more running off to the woods to lay. No more climbing over the fence to the woods to collect the egg, no sir.
"well, I saw the Dumb Chicken up in the tree" says the husband. ( sometimes we call the chickens by their characteristics as we can't remember their names) So I look up, and there in a crook of our dark old fir tree shines another egg. She was laying in the tree, and apparently one fell out, bounced down where the dog was sitting, and he thought " I am a good dog , aren't I!"
Sigh.
So David being the awesome chicken owner that he is, put the extra nesting box up in the tree, so she wouldn't just lay on a branch. And put a ladder there so he could climb up and get the eggs. So now we have at least 4 chickens going up into the tree, using the ladder as well, to lay their eggs up where the view is fantastic.

How did it get to be the end of April?
Well, altho it snowed on my daffodils 10 days ago, and is still around 36 degrees in the morning at 0615, Spring is officially here.After all, Easter is over! I have already planted 3 trays of perennials, and potted up 18 hanging baskets. Also I planted half a dozen mosses, creeping phlox and creeping thyme between stones on a path out to the arbor area. Then I got David to put a picket fence in around a new rose bed I started in February, so have started to "white wash" it, and am planning to plant morning glory vine over the arch at the gate. I need ideas for the actual gate as well. Maybe a twig gate, or Mabel suggested an old headboard to a twin bed. We will have to see. There are many more projects to go! The reason for this frenzy, is that some friends of the family want to have their wedding here in June, on Davids birthday. so I am determined to have it flowery and pretty. Really,it gives me an excuse to push to get projects actually done, that have been on the drawing board. Did I mention that I love spring?

Its Christmas time and a white Christmas it is. We are staying home this weekend,tucked in and finishing those little projects and surprises for Christmas Day. Grandpa David is working on a dolly cradle for a certain someone, and Grandma has purchased the baby dolly, Great grandma has been woking on dolly quilts and blankets. Of course if it keeps snowing, our little one won't make it down from Portland with her parents. We will not get ahead of ourselves and will merely check the weather online every hour or so.

What a gorgeous Fall we have had! I have enjoyed the colors so much this year. Lately, have tried to get the garden beds cleaned out and ready for winter- cutting back perennials, planting iris, daffodils,peonies, day lilies for next spring. Just since these pictures have been taken, all the oak leaves have fallen and David is busy mowing over them, raking and composting as much as possible. I have sprayed the shrubbery for deer repellent, but found the deer have still been munching on the hydrangeas, Japanese maples and other delicacies .I cut the lavender and hung it in bunches on the porch for color and fragrance. David picked 3- 5 gallon buckets of apples from one of the trees- much more than last year. I did get him to help me start the twig fence around the "Secret Garden", will have to finish it in the spring.
Our neighbor felled a large tree and let David get the wood for his Dad and Mom. they were so grateful, and the wood was so huge! We are still heating with pellets, David hasn't installed the wood stove in the shop yet. Maybe next year. Now it's time to put away the oak and wicker benches, the hickory porch swing and the porch chairs. The rainy season is setting in. Too soon for me, I was still trying to plant more gardens!

Happy Mothers Day! I am content now having heard from all 3 of my children! Just to hear their voices and know they are well reassures me. I know the Lord has His hand on their lives, but one of the hardest things for me to do, is leave them in God's hands. I have a compulsion to try and fix everything for them! However, their lives are their own and I can just provide love and support.
We actually have sun amidst the cool Oregon showers,today. I am blessed with flowers today, roses from my daughter and rhododendrons from my husband. The husband helped me plant four rhodies and two azaleas this afternoon. I have my hanging baskets planted and even tho we had temperatures into the 30's this past week, I think they are starting to fill in. I will hang them along the porch, and wait for the spill of flowers to signal the start of summer.
Now the planning intensifies for the graduation time. We have 2 graduating from college, and now trying to find jobs and their niche in life. Weddings and graduations abound, What joy to see the young ones stepping into their futures! Joy and adventure awaits!

We enjoyed seeing Violet and her parents last Sunday. She is getting to be a big girl! So much fun to see her growing and developing personality, expressing her likes and dislikes. She loves to have a book read to her, and studies the page with such interest. I know she will be an early reader! If you can believe it, we arose on that morning, the 20th of April, to find it snowing and at least 2 inches covering the fields and hills. It was winter wonderland in spring! What is funny is that it was 84 degrees the week before!
Just today I have planted my hanging pots with white wave petunias, purple verbania, white allysum and verigated creeping jenny. I am getting ready to put in some day lilies, in a sunny bed which needs more flowers, and have plans for at least 4 more flower beds! Ah spring! Now if it will just not snow any more this season! Of course it is spring in Oregon.

I just realized I had not added an entry for awhile. Its hard to believe we had this snow only a month ago! Now my daffodils and primroses are coming up and showing color and soon Easter will be here!

I already have plans to add more flower beds as soon as the weather cooperates. I have the beds all marked out surrounding the fire pit area, with lilacs which were planted last fall, budding, a baby hedge so to speak, on each side. Also the rhodies we bought at the Small Woodland Tree sale. I plan to put a large quantity of perennials in those beds as well.
In the works are an arbor at the far end, the day lily bed, the Secret Garden, the cut flower bed. All which look, in my head,exactly like the pictures on Martha Stewart magazine! I also plan to put in a drip irragation system as we go, there is too much area to drag sprinklers around.
I have been busy pouring over the gardening magazines for even more ideas!

As you can see, our little Violet is growing! She just had her first birthday Dec.17, with lots of great grandparents,grandparents, 2nd cousins and aunts and uncles. The child does not lack for anything! I haven't posted for a while, and need to get some wintery pictures. This Christmas is very low key for me, so I don't even have a picture of the tree! Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and happy New Year!

We have been having such warm lovely days- up in the 70-80's! David finally got us started on the fenced vegtable garden, and is getting the tomatoes going. We have strawberries in pots and his raspberries are doing well, the deer haven't noticed them yet. Mabel and Curley helped me get my birdhouses on posts, and an old mailbox to put hand tools in. I do have roses blooming on the porch and the porch swing is up.