Raised From The Dead

I’ve mentioned before that my husband is a phenominal cook…well he also has a beautifully green thumb and can do wonders with landscaping!  Though it hasn’t been my strong suit in the past, I have learned a great deal from him over the years on what goes well together (colors, height, bloom times, etc.) and how to take care of things.  Actually, my unwritten job IS to take care of the annuals and perennials and do a pretty good job of it.  But there’s always the exception:

We make a trip once a year down to a nursery in the Twin Cities called Gerten’s; biggest nursery/landscaping place I personally have ever seen.  You name it, they have it.  LOVE this place.  So last year we make our trip and are loading up our carts with mostly perennials since husband also likes to move things around 2-3 times each summer (front yard to back yard, back yard to up front, left side of trees to right side of trees, you get the picture) which always creates some open spaces.  My job is to say “I like that” and then he reads about it and determines whether or not it will work.  We get done, pay, and are both scratching our heads walking back to the car with our purchases wondering how in the world our bill got to be so high.  We’re going over the receipt line by line when we notice that one particular little tiny bush was 75 freaking dollars!!  It was no bigger than a large grapefruit! 

 It’s a Fern Leaf Peony – isn’t it cool??!!  This is what it is supposed to look like eventually.  The one we purchased had about 3 bulbs on it that we thought looked quite eager to bloom for us.  After about a month of wondering why they didn’t look like they were progressing at all, I started reading up on care of them and the first thing it said was that you need to be careful not to saturate them with too much water.  Well guess where we planted it?  In one (of two) spots between us and our neighbors that get double the watering of anywhere else because we water and so does the neighbor, and the areas between our houses get double the watering.  There’s not a lot we can do about it because this also happens to be a spot where the GRASS desperately needs the water to keep it green, so…another month goes by and we finally determined that we KILLED IT!  It’s looking all icky and slimy and…dead.  Really bummed, but we tend to learn from our mistakes.

So imagine our absolute shock – and joy – to discover this yesterday while starting to do some of our spring landscape cleaning: 

IT’S COMING BACK!!  And look how many of them there are (we counted 10).  IT’S A MIRACLE!  I do realize that sometimes it takes a year or even two for some plants to really take to their environment (i.e., we have a few dwarf lilac bushes that didn’t really take off until their 2nd full year here) and I thank GOD that maybe this is one of them!!  I feel like I’ve been given a second chance to raise this little guy, and hopefully better than the first attempt.  So I have about 4 sites bookmarked that all deal with Fern Leaf Peonies and am ready to shower it with TLC!

It’s also nice to see the Day Lilies coming up, too.  I leave a lot of the early-season chores to husband because as the weather gets warmer now, and the bulbs start to come out of hiding for the season, we also have some UNinvited guests doing the same thing:  snakes!  So if I’m forced to have to go anywhere near the yard (like to take these pictures) for the next probably 4-6 weeks, I carry this big sharp spade-looking thingy with me everywhere I go so I can defend myself.  And yes I HAVE had to ginsu a few in the past; I tried the catch and release thing, but that only worked for about 3 seconds in my head – my arms were faster and smarter.

Here’s another example of TLC…it’s all in the eyes!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And TLC that’s addicting… I am seriously in love with these socks!  These are the “Saucy Socks” for our Saucy Spring Sock Swap that officially kicked off (partners assigned) on Saturday.  The pattern is very easy and knits up quite quickly, which is great because I can get a few pairs done in a short period of time – one for my partner and a couple for me!

Love From Husband

My husband gave me this card tonight…I’ve saved all of the cards he has ever given me since we first started dating.  This one…this one really is the best; I actually cried reading it.

         

AND, as if that weren’t enough, he’s sending me to a lace knitting class at Double Ewe starting at the end of the month!!

Money Tree

SEE – they really do exist:

                 

There isn’t a lot to this story, just…everything: the UPS guy showed up at my door with a box, and I opened it, and it was a Bonsai Tree (it’s called a Money Tree!), and it was from my BF Patty who appreciated me helping her with some blog/coding stuff; even though she knows that I LOVE doing it and that I view it as HER doing ME a favor when she lets me play around in her stuff.

There’s just nothing quite like the love of your best friend, who always seems to know exactly when you need a “hug,” is there?  For now, back atcha Cakers:
 

Valentine Surprise

This is really so out of character for my husband; he views Valentine’s Day as a “Hallmark holiday” and he usually invests a couple bucks at Hallmark for a nice card.  So this was extremely (and pleasantly, of course) unexpected!  What I love even more than the gorgeous flowers is the time and effort he put into getting just the right thing.  These are Peruvian Lilies that are grown and shipped fresh from the Andes in South America.  There are 100 flowers!

A gift from the HEART is truly the most cherished gift, isn’t it?!