Hiya!!

Well we are finally getting into our new groove with a new sitter, job, and lots on the Spring docket. We sat down a few evenings ago to really look at the calendar and it seems we are booked most weekends and a couple evenings a week until school gets out in mid June! We have a trip planned early July to have a Kolb family reunion and to spend time with my family welcoming our niece Grace into the world!  It’s all good stuff but we definitely need to pace ourselves! It’s nice to be busy this year with life and not a move. It’s nice to literally put down some roots and look forward to seeing the fruit.

The biggest gig around here right now is the garden project. When we were house shopping last year one of our biggest things on the list was a yard that could both fit and provide enough sunlight for a garden.  While the house and yard have some quirkiness we are excited that it does fit the bill to have space and sun for a garden. We are hoping our light green thumbs darken as we dive into this learning experience of growing lots at one time.

My mom is my garden consultant from afar. She is the one who planted the love for gardening in me. So much of her life as a young mom was spent being involved in serving others through our church as a pastors wife. Her garden was her own project that she enjoyed cultivating and sharing with others.  She always had some kind of garden no matter what parsonage she was in. The one that sticks out to me the most was the one that she did down the road from our house on the church property. Our yard had a steep slope and a zillion trees so a garden was impossible. She asked the leaders of the church if they would let her use a plot of land on the back of the property to plant. They agreed….not withholding their chuckles about planting a garden in a back field with no hose or water line. I can remember my mom saving milk jugs and filling the minivan with enough jugs to water the garden. Not sure how on earth she did it with three young children but it must have been a project that brought her sanity and joy because she pressed on! She recalled the shock of the small town Ohio folk when they saw things like eggplant growing in her garden.  They had never seen it and the thought of growing it and eating it was unheard of. That might have been the year she wowed us all with Eggplant Parmesan.   Even my not so adventurous husband is now known to request it. That and ratatouille…which by the way isn’t just a kids movie. We are looking forward to lots of deliciousness to come…or at least we hope!  Currently we have strawberries and herbs in the ground as well as flower pots. Next round will be tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, squash, eggplant,  watermelon, cantaloupe, zinnias and sunflowers.  The only thing missing is my mom being close by or able to just pop up!