Vacation Part 1: Colorado

As promised! I'm gonna break this up into two parts because a) I have a lot of pictures and it'll be easier to read this way, and b) I didn't really take pictures in Schroon, so while it was beautiful and relaxing and lovely, I don't have a ton to say. So the second part will be San Diego.



After about 40 minutes of utter panic at the lines for baggage check and security, we boarded a nice early flight to Denver. We flew Southwest, and, holy moly! I guess that's what families fly. So many kids.



(And remember, I'm a teacher. I like kids. But holy crap.)



Upon landing, we were bewildered to find flat.flat.flat land. Aren't we in the Rockies?!



Turns out, the Rockies are to the west. To the east? Plains. Bizarro.

Anyways, we did lots of fun things in Colorado. We drove through Rocky Mountain National Park and saw some beautiful mountains.

Traveling Buddy! 

I was nearly accosted by a chipmunk,

Which, as it turns out, was the least exciting of our animal sightings. Throughout the trip we saw hoary marmots, a moose, an elk, and Dan saw a prairie dog. He was thrilled.

Moose!

We also went rock climbing and whitewater rafting (sorry, no photos--we were too busy pretending to be extreme). The rafting was super awesome, we did an intermediate route (Level 3-4, for anyone who knows what that means) but we all agreed that we would have done something more challenging and exciting. Apparently the best rafting is in late May/early June, so I'm scheming to dash out to Denver for some rafting as soon as school lets out.



Or something like that.

We also did one hike in Rocky Mountain National Park. Because we were already struggling with the change in altitude, we decided to tackle a fairly short, easy hike (especially in comparison to last year's Half Dome Hike in Yosemite). We did an in-and-back to Jewel Lake.

The first "lookout." 

A ptarmigan! 

Other Traveling Buddy, pointing the way. 

I mean, seriously.

 Our destination was lovely, but it started raining on us halfway through the hike (we learned that Rocky Mountain weather changes at the drop of the hat) so we were quite chilly. We tried to enjoy the view anyway.

It wasn't hard to enjoy. 

Elk! 

Garden of the Gods, in Colorado Springs, was astonishingly breathtaking. We'd already seen lots of cool rocks, and I wasn't expecting to be wowed, but it was pretty awesome. Just, you know, enormous slabs of rock, sticking straight up into the air.

Oh yeah, and they're red.

Pretty sweet.

Of course, we also did our fair share of brewery hunting and beer tasting. The boys weren't thrilled with the selection (apparently the huge influx of microbreweries in Colorado leads to a lower quality standard?) but I thought it was fun.

Denver also has this really cool little pocket called LoDo (Lower Downtown) that's basically several blocks of shops, restaurants, etc. We found a fantastic Mexican restaurant, where Liz went into spasms about the tacos and I tried mole for the first time. Yum. Times infinity.



After five days in Colorado, we were psyched to head to San Diego for the remaining three!

Garden Terrace

Or something like that. It's no secret that I love to grow things, and my porch is no exception. We live on the second floor of a very old building, and we have a little (maybe 3 square feet?) porch that Dan has fixed up so I can plant things.



I've done a tomato plant and a strawberry plant, but this year I'm sticking to flowers and herbs. Simpler, and smaller.



It's doing nicely (much better, in fact, than my actual in-the-ground garden. Go figure)!

Petunias and Four-o-Clocks. Petunias are from Produce Junction, and Four-o-Clocks are from seed. 

Wildflower mix...when it first came up there was a ton of clover, but I weeded that out. (Pun!)

Basil, more wildflowers (not sprouted yet), chives, lettuce, and peas (also not sprouted). There's also mint, which is not pictured. 

Hanging baskets. 

It's very satisfying to see a crummy little porch (you can see the old dirty wood in some of the pictures above, it's not a lovely space) become much more appealing with a little green and effort. It's especially nice at night in the summer when I turn on those pretty lights. It gives off a very terrace-y effect for such a tiny space. 

Don't mind the equipment in the background, it belongs to my landlord. 

Garden Update!

We've had a cool spring here in the Philly 'burbs...I'm totally ready for the heat of summer.



For now. Give me a few weeks and I'm sure I'll be complaining about the humidity.



'Cause I'm dramatic like that.



Anyway, I'm resolutely plugging away with my garden, even though it's off to a slow start. I'm just thrilled to be playing in the dirt. In this post you can see some of the work I (and Dan and Dean) did on the fencing. It's so much prettier now.

Especially now that there's a bit of green poking through!

Two rows of Tom Thumb Lettuce, and one row of Bibb. And those little spikes in the background are spinach! They're all heirloom and organic, 'cause I'm fancy like that. 

(Not.) 

Peas creeping up the trellis...

There's also a baby zucchini on the other side, and I'm going to add some cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, and beans over the next few weeks. Eventually I'm hoping to propagate some basil and green onions too. 

Love this!!!

Dirt, Sweat, and Other Good Things

I've been excited for this year's garden since...about last August. This was for several reasons. Mostly, I really enjoyed having a garden, since I love being outside in general, and it's a pretty productive hobby. My in-laws (whose yard I use for my green things) collected enough vegetables for several salads and (if I remember correctly) some tomato sauce.



I've already got a few seedlings started indoors, but I wanted to improve my garden plot. I enlarged it last fall, but I wanted to replace the crappy mesh fence that the previous owners left, and install a gate so it's not such a nuisance to get in and out.



Somehow I don't have any good "before" shots of the whole garden...just shots of my plants and the inside. But this is the stuff the old fence was made of:

Two tiers of icky plastic mesh fence, and no gate.



Here's my "after"...

Dan and his dad spent quite a while helping me with this. I chose all the supplies, and they cut/hammered the poles down enough to fit the new wire fencing. I was especially excited about the new gate. It's actually a piece of fence we adapted for a gate by only staking one side into the ground. On the other side, we (and by "we" I mean Dan and Dean) lopped off the little staking posts so the fence could swing freely and pretend to be a gate.

It's super cute and classy, which I knew would make Dottie happy, since she loves nice-looking stuff like this.

As I said, I enlarged the garden itself, and I spent a good chunk of my time yesterday adding fresh composted dirt and turning everything over, getting ready to plant as soon as the Last Frost Date rolls around. 

Huzzah!

Of course, little dog had a great time too. She spent the whole afternoon running and playing.



Now it all comes down to April 20th...last frost, and I'm back out there, planting my seedlings and getting things growing!

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme

Ok, so none of those herbs are actually in my garden. Except the parsley.

This parsley is actually from last year. The winter was so mild that he just hung out there shivering, and now he's back in full force.


My in-laws bought a new house last fall, complete with a giNORmous backyard. This backyard came with a small, fenced-in garden. After a couple hints and an outright request, they ceded control of the garden to ME.


Commence joyous leaping and scribbling of amateur garden plans.


I'm by no means a skilled or experienced gardener, but I love being outside and growing green things (especially when they become edible green things). Dan even built me some planters on our porch, like window boxes but on a porch, and I've grown flowers, herbs, and even a tomato plant last summer.

He got pretty big for living in a 5-gallon bucket ($2 buckets from Lowe's and a $5 can of reddish-sorta-terra-cotta-colered spray paint are way cheaper than huge planters), and he yielded a handful of cherry tomatoes. He was supposed to be a Roma, but oh well. They dressed up a couple salads and were perfectly delicious!


Anyways, I'm super excited to have a real garden this year, one that goes into the ground. I've spent the last couple weeks cultivating some seedlings in peat pots, and now that we're just about to the last-frost-date for Philadelphia, a few plants have met their long-term homes in my in-law's backyard.


I've got peas, cucumbers and marigolds planted as seedlings (marigolds keep away rabbits and certain bugs) and I just planted some lettuce, direct-sow style, today. This is one giant experiment, and the first time I've planted a whole garden by myself, but I'm pretty excited. I figure if I can harvest a handful of edible items it'll be a success, since I don't really know what I'm doing.


Within the next couple of weeks I'll be adding tomatoes, broccoli, peppers, onions, and maybe some herbs (pretty ones--lavender and such). I'll also plant flowers in my porch boxes, and a few more herbs that I like to use on a regular basis (basil, maybe some chives or cilantro). There's even the possibility of a strawberry plant or two!


However, it's been awesome so far. I'm totally five years old--digging in the dirt is the most fun ever.