Gardening season has begun.
After weeks of rain, cold, more rain, intermittent snow showers and some ice, it appears that Spring has finally sprung.
My crabapple trees, including the Lucy-bird memorial tree have buds and should bloom sometime this week.
We purchased and planted a really nice forsythia next to Lacey's grave. I'm going to plant some flowers in the same general location.
I have to decide what to plant. I'm thinking of going with some tulips, then something like daisies that will flower later.
Jorgie and I dug out the area between the deck and the privacy fence. We had an ornamental grass (micanthus giantus) growing there, plus
iris's, a butterfly bush and daylilies. Jorgie did his He-man impression digging out the grasses, which have some serious roots that went down about 8-10 inches
and were a couple inches in diameter. We need to get the whole area dug down about another foot, then fill in with gravel
and landscape fabric. THe dirt is higher than the lowest part of the deck, and it was going to rot the deck if not tended to soon.

I moved the butterfly bush to a new spot- I was afraid the roots would dry out if I didn't replant it quickly. I put
it in a very sunny spot, so I think it will really take off this year. The poor thing is on its 4th move now. The first spot was
too close to a black walnut and it just didn't do well at all. The next spot was great for the plant, but too close to the house
It got up to about 10 feet in height and 6 feet across, and started to take over the deck. I moved it to the opposite side of the deck, and
when the fence went in last year, it shaded it too much, so it didn't do so well last year.
I need to find new homes for a big stack of daylilies. Rosemary is going to take some, and I guess I can find new planting sites
for the rest of them. The irises can be stuck just about anywhere.
I also bought a river birch about a month ago that is still in the pot. I have always wanted one, and now I just need to
figure out the best planting site. I had originally planned to put it out front, but I think I want it to be somewhere
where it won't get such heavy road dust. I need to figure something out quick before it gets any more root-bound.

I spent a week up in Michigan earlier this month. I had a nice visit with family. Mom and Dad had their 63rd wedding anniversary
the day before I arrived. My brother and sis-in-law planned a really nice party, and all the immediate family, sibs plus grandkids
came. We had it at a pizza place, and it was really nice- we had a private room, cake, the works. Mom and Dad really enjoyed it.
Unfortunately the weather was a bit nasty for my time in Michigan, but we made the best of it.
We took one walk around the Henry Ford Estate, on a day that wasn't too cold or rainy. The Rouge river, near the dam in front of the HF house
was blocked up with some really huge trees. I guess they came down in high water...Dad was puzzling over how they would ever get
them removed.
We also made a couple of trips to the Henry Ford museum. I had missed some of the exhibits when we went back in June. The exhibit on women's suffrage is really
good. Everyone should be required to watch the movie Iron Jawed Angels, which does a great job of showing what women went through
to get rights to vote. They certainly didn't cover that part of history very well when I was in school. It was all "yeah, women did some marching around and the
the 19th amendment was passed". Both my Mom and I said that we owe those women, and need to repay them by exercising our right to vote.
We also found out the the museum has opened up the Allegheny train. It was really cool to sit in the engineers seat.
The big surprise to me is how little you can see from the seat...no wonder train engineers are always hanging out the window- it seemed to be the only way to
see much of anything.

I also found out that Dearborn Michigan has the best Middle Eastern food outside of the Middle East. We went to a restaurant called Country Kitchen, which was funny, because around here, Country Kitchen is a pretty nasty cafeteria style restaurant. My brother John recommend the restaurant, and we went with him, his wife Cindi and my brother Dave. I just ordered what John got, Chicken Shwarma (sp?) It was amazingly good...one of the best meals I've very had, and the salad, was without doubt, the best salad I'd every eaten, anywhere, anytime. Kind of a bummer to be back in Columbia, where we don't have any decent Middle Eastern restaurants, although Casablanca isn't bad.

Not much else on the Jorgie news front.