Kite Pictures

Just thought you'd like this, Maureen. Really cool pictures.

http://www.wimp.com/kitephotos/

To the most AH-mazing woman ever, Laurel!

AH-mazing

I'm engaged.

-Brad

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Just a photo montage of the weekend. No rhyme, nor reason to the pictures.

The Nabura are pretty nice when in bloom, too.

Next year, we're going to have it grow up and across a trellis. That should look really nice.

From the Garden

We had three ears of corn that came out pretty decent. The rest I left on the stalk too long and they dried out too much. The three were really good, though. Hopefully, better luck next year.

This is Nabura. Naoko loves this. One for the taste and another because each one costs $3 at the local Asian market. She'd picked about 15 already and there's probably about 10-15 more on the vine. Pretty good growing from just four seeds.

Speaking of the vine, it's been growing pretty crazy.

I think next year, the majority of our garden is going to be those Japanese items that are hard to find...and expensive when found.

Garden Pictures From the September Trip North

Maureen and I recently took Wilson to Oregon and stopped along the way home to see David in Medford, and borrowed the Derr's house in Napa to lay our heads for a night. While in Napa we stopped at one of our favorite spots, The French Laundry Garden.



It's always exciting to see what new they have going and figuring we never will eat at the restaurant, viewing the garden is the next best thing. We also like to learn something to help with our gardening.



These are new beds, but constructed in the method of their other beds. We are considering moving to this style instead of the wooden sides.



One of my favorite subjects is compost and I enjoy looking at other piles of rotting vegetation for ideas. Wish I had this much area for out compost. This is a portion of about 250 yards of compost. The Mayacamas Mountains keep watch in the background. John and Ashley could tell you the exact name of this piece I'd bet.



The next project here at the 'Zoo is a greenhouse. This one is way beyond our means, but gave us some ideas. If you click on the picture it will enlarge and you can see 8 foot tall hanging tomato plants.



This is me saying goodbye in the Field of Dreams method of walking into a field. In this case Jerusalem Artichokes.

Our Trip North

The view is beautiful, the weather is fantastic, the air is breathable....and Michael made breakfast....we are SO coming back!

ps. and Stephanie has done wonderful things with their yard...who knew?

Happy Day to the Menfolk. . .

Be ye Derr, Kellogg, Peeples or Garver.

Joshua's Graduation

Just thought I'd add a few from Joshua's graduation. He's already gone off to visit friends in Tennessee, so it was a quick celebration.

And me wearing the school colors was completely by chance. I didn't even realize it until I looked at the pictures the next day. Yeah, I'm just that observant. :-)

AMGEN Day

Amazing Transformation

These are just some of the plants from around the backyard.

Their transformation is really amazing!

These ferns will get much fuller to where you won't even be able to see the ground.

I really wish this one was in the front yard.

This is all mint and will get about 2 feet tall. It'll soon be gone because I'm going to pull it! This'll be one of Naoko's garden boxes.

I'll post the front yard later when they finish blooming.

If you remember last year, we had ducks visit us.

This year, the visitors are in the front of the house.

It could get noisy.