Double Rainbow

It rained through the sunshine tonight, and then a double rainbow appeared over our house.

R's little neighbor friend was excited too. They came out at the exact same time, and shouted across the street to each other.

There was enough rain to run down the gutters--great for splashing.

R and the rainbow.

Dashing back inside.

Guest Photographer

First, today's lunch:


Then some shots from today's guest photographer. R took these this morning.


Geraniums in the front window. Foggy, cold morning in the background.

I love her shot of the geraniums.

Rainy Day Red Balloon

A cool and rainy Sunday. The day was full of memories of our summer trips to Denver when I was little. The light in this picture is how that vanished childhood Denver looks in my dreams. I don't think it's all my imagination. It used to be greener and rainier than it is now.

Hylie and Flower

Last week, R walked into the house cradling a stuffed animal. I was distractedly thinking "Which toy is that? It looks so lifelike." Something about R's mesmerized facial expression made me look more closely. Then the toy's ears twitched.

That's how we found out we have baby bunnies living in our backyard. My heart was pounding out of my chest as I helped R get it safely back into its burrow without hurting it, and we invoked every dire consequence we could think of to make sure she never touches one again. Still, they're her little friends. She lays out trails of carrots and lettuce leaves for them. She studies where they go and leaves cups of water where they are likely to need them. She picks grape hyacinths and honeysuckle and leaves them by the entrance to the burrow "so their house will be beautiful." She will lie on her stomach in the grass for an hour, watching them hop out of the burrow, eat some grass, and hop back in. So far it looks like there are only two babies. She named them Hylie and Flower.

Every morning before R wakes up, I check the back yard for the mother rabbit. I always see her hopping around, so I know the babies are ok for another day. And every night before she goes to sleep, she whispers, "Mommy, that baby bunny was so soft. The softest thing I've ever felt."

Waiting for June 1

It's not really warm enough for peppers, cucumbers, melons and tomatoes in Colorado until early June. So while we're waiting to plant the front yard garden, we made one more lasagna bed today in the back. Probably for zucchini and summer squash.

I hope R never outgrows her love of raking dirt, because it comes in handy.

The salad garden is really taking off.


Looking north from the back fence, through the lilacs.

Watering in the garden apron the Easter Bunny gave her.

I am so excited for these peonies to open all the way. I love them against the silvery blue-green artemisia.

The first radish harvest!

What now?

There are some nice surprises when you buy a neglected house and start to dig out the overgrowth. Peony shoots pushing up under piles of dead leaves and pine needles. Looking deep underneath the backyard trees, and seeing the buds of giant purple Star of Persia alliums.

On the other hand, there is the "hellstrip." The impossible to landscape strip between the street and the sidewalk that bakes and scorches all summer. Neighbors told us that one owner had hand-picked river rocks and placed them between ornamental ground cover along the whole strip, and carefully maintained it.

That was a long time ago. Now there is close to 80 feet of this.

"Roundup, Roundup, Roundup and repeat," one neighbor suggested. I think that purposely using Roundup is one of the things we will have to answer for in the afterlife. But after seeing the alternative, I will never judge another person for using it.

I got down on my hands and knees, and dug up every one of these rocks by hand.

In between, I looked on the computer and found great ideas for xeriscaping the hellstrip. I got inspired to divide and transplant some of the xeric plantings in the backyard, and create the first beautiful waterwise hellstrip in the neighborhood.

Then I thought about how quickly well-intentioned xeriscaping becomes scraggly late-August-highway-median in the hands of someone like me with no knowledge or money. And I balked. D. pointed out that there is probably a reason that even neighbors with nice yards have hellstrips with patches of browning grass, or boring stretches of tidy rocks.

So I think we are going to take out the weeds, level the dirt, lay down a weed barrier, and put rocks on top. Smaller rocks, with fewer gaps for weeds. We will still have to pull the occasional weed, but there will be no Roundup. And the beautiful river rocks can be saved for another day and another part of the yard.

First Post

February, 2009. This month, my 5 year old starts kindergarten full time, and I start a blog. She is starting halfway through the year, because she kept begging us to go full-day. She said it would be "like having a play date all the time." So far, she likes it.

This is our life in our new (since June '08) house, just south of Denver.



Halloween '08. I didn't cut Papa Bear's eye holes big enough, but he was a good sport.



This is my R., feeding a lorikeet at the zoo last week. She is an Animal Girl. She wants to be a vet when she grows up.



She even likes goats.



This is my favorite baby picture of her. She was quite a baby. She kind of knew it all already. She was self-possessed and had a strong sense of her own dignity, but then she would lose it in epic colicky episodes. She had night terrors where she would stand up in her crib and scream and point into a dark corner until the hair on the back of my neck stood straight up. It was always unsettling to catch her looking at you like this.



Here is the note she wrote to me last week, to say thank you for sending her to school full-day. Not bad for a five year old, sounding it out on her own!



Here she is with my Dad in December, this past Christmas. They have the same sense of humor but they like to talk about serious things too.



This is her best little school friend. They go to Catholic school and love to have free days where they don't have to wear their uniforms.




Now that R. is full day, I pack her a lunch for the first time. We used to sit at the kitchen table together while she ate leftovers from her dinged-up Peter Rabbit plate. I read that Japanese mothers pack elaborate bentos to show their love for their children. I don't think I will ever be making lifelike anime characters out of pepper strips and colored bonito flakes, but I love to make it healthy and appealing for her to eat. I miss her in the afternoons. Last week I volunteered in the art teacher's room, and she said "Oh yes, I cried the first time I ate lunch by myself."

I started taking pictures of her lunches, and it made me want to start a blog.