Last week we celebrated Jeff’s birthday. Though it was quite fun throwing him a surprise party last year (and he loved it), his birthday “style” is to be very content to keep things simple. We spent most of the day in the garden, which I think just about sums up his ideal way to spend his birthday. Add to that a birthday watermelon, eaten outside in the sunshine with bare feet in the grass, and putting a new string on his guitar and making some music that night, and he was quite a happy guy.

There were thoughtful gifts (my grandma’s best friends sent me home with a lamb roast from their family farm, bless their hearts, that we celebrated his birthday with), cards, and birthday wishes. We spent all the birthday money that my grandma sent, on seeds, because there was nothing else his gardening-loving heart would have rather spent the money on. Many years we hardly buy any seeds, often using seeds we’ve saved from previous years, which is something Jeff and Bracken really enjoy doing together every fall. But it was so fun to sit down on Jeff’s birthday, decide what to get, and put in our seed order. (We ordered from High Mowing Seeds and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds this year.)

But Jeff’s best birthday gift of all this year was getting to meet his grandson! (Oh, how precious he is.) And getting to spend time with his daughter and her husband. They were visiting Oregon for a quick trip and Bracken and I were back from our trip just in time to see them. Bracken and I arrived home from Iowa later in the day on Monday, and were able to meet up with them for a few hours on Tuesday morning before we needed to head to speech therapy, homeschool group and more that day, and they needed to start heading back home. Tuesday just so happened to be his daughter’s birthday (his was the next day, their birthdays are a day apart) so it felt lucky that we got to see them on that day, to celebrate together in person. I can’t say how grateful Jeff and I felt for that time with them, it meant so much to us to get to see them.

Some pictures I took in their motorhome and some in the beautiful campground where they were staying. (We saw some huge and awesome mushrooms there. Bracken didn’t poke that mushroom off with a stick, but I thought it was a good reference for size.) Sometimes I think about what things must have felt like for Jeff’s daughter when Jeff and I first got together. It must have felt very strange for her to have her father start dating someone only one year older than her. As I’ve written about before, it’s nothing Jeff nor I had ever imagined for ourselves (to marry someone with such a large age gap), but you just never know who you are going to fall in love with, do you? I’m so grateful that his daughter has always been kind to me and accepting of me. Bracken loves his half-sister and enjoyed getting to meet his new nephew (technically half-nephew.) Won’t be long before they’ll be running around together!

Oh, and some random garden ramblings: we got spring mason bees again this year. (We picked some up at Down To Earth in Eugene.) We keep checking the cocoons to see how many have hatched out and they’ve almost all hatched out now. We wanted them to hatch out in time to pollinate our blueberries and also our fruit trees. Some of our small apple trees (a few years old) are completely covered in blossoms this year and look so beautiful to me with the bright blossoms against a blue sky. They also look a bit funny to me (like an awkward teenage stage) because they look  like some twigs coming out of the ground with enough blossoms to cover a much larger tree. The cherry tree that we planted at the same time as the apples, only has a few blossoms, but is equally admired and visited.

Our honeyberries have flowers (yellow and bell shaped) on them for the first time this year! I have to admit, I’m getting very anxious at this point to know what a honeyberry tastes like! When we got back from our trip, the peas were really popping up and the lilacs started blooming. We were so excited that the smaller lilac bush started blooming for the first time this year, but realized that while very beautiful, it is a variety that hardly has any scent, so were a bit disappointed about that.

The chickens are getting lots of weeds from the garden with the weeding we’ve been doing lately, and they also got a bunch of kale plants we pulled up (after Jeff harvested all the flowering tops and any edible greens left.) One of Bracken’s “jobs” in the garden lately is to pick all the little daisies before Jeff mows (the fairly small amount of lawn we have.) He picks all the flowers out there anyway, it’s one of his favorite things to do, so of course he’s quite pleased with the task. I gave him a tiny glass bottle to use for a vase for his daisies and he added some forget-me-nots and buttercups too. He told me they were the very first buttercups in the garden, he was pretty excited to see them.

Jeff discovered lots of leaf hoppers on our currants this week. We’ve seen leaf hoppers around our garden, but have never really had a problem with them before. (I’ve been looking up some organic methods, things we can try.) I’ve mentioned before seeing ants in the squash flowers, but lately I’ve been seeing lots of ants in the blueberry and currant flowers. I’ve wondered if they help pollinate, but have read that they sometimes pollinate plants and sometimes don’t, so am unsure whether they would be assisting in the pollination of the blueberries and currants, or are merely visiting the flowers. Speaking of ants, for the first time ever we’ve been having a problem with ants in our kitchen. Unlike Jeff and I, Bracken loves having them, fully welcomes them into our kitchen, and collects them as pets. (Though he has kindly worked to transfer the ants outside one by one, because he knows we prefer them being outside. Quite the labor of love.)

I can’t say how wonderful it’s felt lately to be ditching our shoes and socks and going bare foot in the garden once again!