***********HI PEEPS!!**********

Came home for 1 week and tried to get as much done as possible. Just returned to help with Mother-in-Law continuing chemo for a couple of weeks (4/3), then home for another week (4/17), before coming back for another planned round (5/2)...If all goes as planned.

Here are a few pix of how home looked when I left...

Here are the guys trying (later, successful :) to get the old tractor tires off using all kinds of means....

Some irises I'm hoping bloom this year---I've watered with dregs from bottom of koi pond. They look a whole lot healthier this year. I also took the mulch that had accumulated on top of the roots off. Apparently, they don't like that....That's a long stemmed yellow rose bush in the front right...

You can barely see the 6 cages containing tiny tomato plants to the right and 6 tiny pepper plants to the left (orange flags) in this garden not too far up from my back door...Managed to salvage them from some seedlings which I had tried to grow the last time I left home. (See earlier post!!) My 15yr old did pretty well :) If they live, we'll show updates!

I learned that you DON'T "prune" pear trees, as they get a bacterial disease called "Fire Blight" on the new, succulent growth which can kill the entire plant. The pineapple pear just above and to the left of this garden got this disease this spring. I pinched off the affected tips/pears and removed them from the area. I didn't get all of them however, I hope it was good enough. I learned from my Rodale's gardening book, that you must spray with dormant oil in the early spring in areas where this is a probem...I'm documenting all of these facts inside my gardening book under each season for each crop, hoping not to repeat the same problems next year...There's a LOT to learn. We lost our 2 goat kids also at about 8wks. Still trying to put all of the pieces together on that one :(

These are baby pears on the bigger tree closer to the house. I believe they are Asian pears, as they do not get soft until they begin to rot. You pick them when they just begin to take on a yellowish/green color, and the flesh just gives a little near the stem. They are more round-shaped.

This is a view from the back, west side of the house looking toward our little pond and the lane beyond which leads up to our oldest son's and his wife's home :)

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Of course I miss home and family and friends, but I am so privileged to be able to have the flexibility to come and help care for my Mother in Law who has been sooooo wonderful to her kids all these years!! We begin round 4 of chemo tomorrow. While she gets her treatment, my 9yr old and I work on school in the atrium lobby of the building, or get a flavored Kurig coffee or hot chocolate in the oncology waiting room and look through the various home/travel/gardening magazines for about 1 1/2hrs.

Today, my sweet husband is 49. Swwweeeet :)