July...

We are almost through the rush of July birthdays. Adam's is next week, and that will take care of it for our families. I just posted a picture of the girls having a "stair party" - i.e. practicing for all our combined birthday parties! They had fun. When they were done, they threw all their guests down the stairs. We'll have to work on hostess behavior...

Timber!

For those who haven't heard, we bought a very old house last fall, and have been thoroughly enjoying having a place of our own. However, as everyone knows, home ownership is a lot of work, and in our case, adding a few decades worth of neglect adds to the excitement. There was a huge old tree hanging over our roof, which Adam and a few neighbors were finally able to take down a couple weeks ago. In addition, Adam has taken down a few more smaller dead trees and dead parts of trees. We've been told our yard was quite the jungle some time back. We've definitely had our work cut out for us this spring!

Sonny-boy

After 15 years of dreaming, I finally took the plunge and bought a canary this past week. What a sweetheart! I didn't realize that even baby birds (he's only 2 months) could be so social! We're calling him Sonny (or Sonny-boy) right now, though that might change. We've been back and forth on name possibilities, but so far Sonny is sticking. He is a quiet but cheerful little guy, very busy in his cage, and very curious about everything going on in the house around him. He seems to enjoy having his cage brought into the kitchen so he can be close to the girls and I during breakfast and morning chores. The girls think he's great, and love saying "Goodmorning sunshine" to him when they get up. Kaelin gets most excited, and will just start to squeal and laugh at him. We're not actually he is a "he" yet, since he's so young, but of all his sibblings (there were 4 babies from his nest), he was one of the most active. He talks a lot, but because he's a canary, it's a quieter chirping, almost like he was outside. Once in awhile he really gets going, and it sounds like he's ready to break into song, though that's not supposed to happen for a couple more months. By the way, here's an interesting trivia fact - songbirds, like male canaries, have to have a special "songfood" to help them develop their vocal cords and make them sing! He'll get started on that in a few more weeks, and then we'll see what happens.

For Popcorn Lovers

It's official! I am totally sold on Orville Redenbacher popcorn. Adam has been telling me since we got married that OR microwave popcorn pops better, and I definitely agree. But I hadn't tried the regular popcorn - in my stovetop popper, no less. But I decided to splurge this week, just to find out how it compares. I paid over $5 for just under 2 lbs, vs. $1.43 for a 2 lb bag of Jolly Time. I splurged some more and bought the OR bottle of butter-flavored oil. I followed the recipe on the bottle for a batch of popcorn in my stovetop popper, and WOW! I don't think I found a single half-popped or dud kernels in the entire batch! And the flavor was just like theater-style popcorn, minus the butter and salt, which I could have added. The butter-flavored oil stuff can be poured over the popcorn, in addition to using for popping oil. Anyway, I obviously can't afford to do that every day, but I think it's definitely worth it when you want really good popcorn at home!

Welcome to my blog

Today is cold, wet, and rainy, and wonderful. When I created this blog, I started to call it Flower Farm. I have been given almost 100 perennial plants this spring, and I am so excited to have perennial flowers. I can't wait to see what our yard looks like in 2-3 more years!