Favorite Things

Home-made, bite sized banana bread.
















Thanks, Sarah! It was delicious!

Sneak Peek of Things to Come

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Front Yard, farther along

more

A new method

I can't seem to find time to post everything I alwasy want to post.
As a result, a lot of my posting ideas fall to the way side.

Let's try one pic at a time.

For now, it's front yard continued. Soon: Assateague Island!

The Front Yard Under Way

I hope you're ready for some serious posting.
I've got more pictures than you've ever cared to see of our front yard as it finally begins to take shape.

Behold:

I didn't take any "before" pictures, and these pictures sort of miss the yard itself, but...remember when we first moved in?




































Now, imagine this dirt-lot-full-of-weeds with weeds standing 2 or more feet tall.
We actually got a ticket for the weeds because they looked so bad!

Anyway, Mark has been slaving away. He dug up everything. There must have been decades worth of weeds with their brilliantly deep and complicated root structures putting up quite a fight against the shovel. Once all the hard work was done (I did help a little--I shook the dirt clods out of the grass and weed clumps and then threw the weeds away) Mark enlisted me to help shop for cool new plants and I even helped put some of them in.
































Mark seeded the front area with the same grass seed we used in the backyard. This time it grew twice as fast (in less than a week grass popped right up). We suspect that it is the abundance of sun as well as the large amount of fertilizer Mark used--compared to the backyard which is entirely shaded by a huge tree and on which we used far smaller quantities of soil product.
































See how helpful I am?
















This is one of my favorite grasses that we bought. It's called Blue Fescue.
I will say though, it is far less remarkable when it's burried in the ground--all you have left is a little tuft on the top...I just didn't realize how much the bright orange pot was adding to the look.















































It's time for bed now...more pictures soon (I hope).

Oregon Ridge Saturday Hike

Last weekend Mark and I went hiking...(well, the term "last weekend" has pretty much expired for this story since its taken me two weeks to finally post).

Our plan was to hike as much as possible this summer and to explore all the neat places in Maryland. We sort of started out our stay here in Maryland as pessimists--just missing "good ole California." But it turns out there are lots of great and beautiful places to be out doors just minutes from Baltimore.

This place is called Oregon Ridge for some reason. Just nearby is also "Oregon Lake," which is the remains of an old iron-ore excavation which has now been filled in with water, grown over with foresty wildlife and prepped on one side with sand, life-guard platforms, snack bars and ticket takers. The "lake" was sort of closed for the season (open season starts after Memorial Day), but the gate was still left open for hikers to pass through on the state park trails. It was pretty, surreal, and very odd. Mark and I stood there looking back and forth in confusion for several minutes before heading out on our hike.

Mark also talked me into entering the small nature center at the beginning of the trail. I tend not to like nature centers because there is often an overwhelming display of taxidermical "art."
Well, this nature center did have one room with stuffed heads on the wall, but they also had the coolest science room that seemed like what I imagine an 8th grade science classroom should look like. There was a live, glassed-in beehive hooked up to the window (I stared at that for quite a long time), and cool snake and toad and turtle displays. It was a very small place and very few people were there, but it was so nice and charming and comfortable. I liked it a lot.

I also really enjoyed our hike.
















































































Look at these crazy, crazy gobs of caterpillars (or worms). I've never seen anything like it!
They were all over this one big tree and a few other trees nearby. There were probably 20 or 30 nests in total.

















We also stopped and and ate lunch at this beautiful little pond half way down the trail.
For some reason the only thing I thought to take a picture of here was our dangling feet from where we sat on some rocks. It wasn't the most quiet/relaxing rest stop though. Some hiker and his friend had brought along a beautiful dog that was very smart and well trained. The hiker was a pretty loud guy who was very proud of his dog and kept all pond visitors well informed of the dog's capabilities of fetching a giant stick from the middle of the deep pond over and over and over. The dog was definitely having a good time, though.