A Pretty Volunteer Day

Do you ever volunteer?   Today I volunteered to help with the spring plant sale at my church.  The Youth Choir goes on a Summer Tour and they sell plants/flowers to help raise the funds.  Well, today was the day that the plants were to be delivered to our church.

The truck arrived at 9:00 a.m. and we immediately were able to start unloading the plants. 

There were over two hundred ferns in the church's order!

 

 If you like to volunteer, this is a great job!  You don't really even feel like you are working!

That's Linda, she owns the greenhouse and raised all these beautiful plants.  I know it's a lot of work for her.

  It took us about 1 1/2 hours to unload the two trucks.

     

  

  Once all the plants are unloaded,

it's time to fill the individual orders.

 

   

 

There is a lot of counting and a lot of double-checking to make sure that all the orders are perfect.

  

 

Here's an order that is ready to be picked up by the youth/parent that made all these sales.  They will deliver the orders to their customers this afternoon.

Now if this wasn't already a busy day, I was also volunteering in the afternoon at one of the local schools.

 

I am in a garden club here in town.  Our club belongs to the Garden Clubs of Alabama.  Our club is in District VI.  We have a Junior Club at one of the local schools and once a month, we go to the school to meet with our members.  We always start our meeting with a horticulture lesson.  Members bring plants and flowers from their yards and share information about the plants with the students.  

We have the best group of students this year!!  

 

Flowers picked from our yards to share with the students.

Then, after the lesson, we have an activity.  Last month, we planted a tree on the front lawn of the school.  Today we helped the students  plant rye grass seeds in a shallow clay saucer.

 

The saucers are labeled with the type of seeds....just in case the students forget! 

The students will water the seeds and watch them sprout.  We will bring eggs to our next meeting that the students will dye and then place in the grass-filled saucer.  The kids are going to love it!

 

 

Can't wait to see the results!

OH! I AM SOOOOO SORRY!!!!

     Several weeks ago, I did a good bit of work on the porch and in the yard.  My husband took a few days off and he did some things in the yard, too.  It was during this time, that I noticed a pair of wrens were in the yard as well, working hard to build a nest in a wall planter on the porch.  They flew back and forth and didn't seem to mind that we were close by and that there was a lot of activity in the yard and on the porch as well (wrens like to build near people, it seems).  I continued to work in the yard and porch over the next few days, but didn't see the wrens again.

Our back porch

The wall planter

      Since then, three weeks passed and I didn't see the wrens. I decided that they found a better place to start their family. 

If you look closely in the above picture, you can see the hole to their little nest. 

Now, wrens have built in this same spot before and sometimes we would never even know they were there until we were WATERING the plants and a little wren would fly out! It was always a SURPRISE to both of us!

     Well, I continued to plant pots, clean up and check out my spring blooms. I was outside a lot.  I worked on the porch all of those days and saw no wrens.  So, two days ago, I decided I would remove the nest and plant the flowers that I had purchased for that spot.  I was careful to remove the nest, not wanting to damage it, even though I felt certain that it had been abandoned these last three weeks.  I took a look inside and to my surprise, there were four tiny eggs inside!  Each was about the size of my thumb nail.  I wondered if the nest had been abandoned or if the wrens had been coming and going without my noticing??

I took this picture and then I returned the nest to the planter and said a silent prayer that the momma wren would return. 

To my delight, she DID return....within just a few minutes.  I got this picture of her on the nest.  I think she looks a little upset, but I'm not sure.  I completely understand if she is, because she sure has every reason to be upset!!!

This picture was made today and she seems to have accepted that her nest was moved.  She looks pretty content, I think.  I'm thankful that she has accepted the situation and hope she understands my apology.

 I'm sooooo sorry!

An Early April Fool's Joke

Earlier this week, the local mid-day news program had their regular feature on a local veterinarian who usually brings in a cat or dog to discuss during the segment.  This week, the vet brought with him a lady who works with baby animals that are rescued when their home is accidentally destroyed or the mom is hurt or killed.  The lady had this cute little squirrel with her!  I decided to take a picture of the squirrel with my iphone.  Then, I'm not quite sure why.....but I decided to text it to my husband.....

But instead of a comment like, "Look at this cute squirrel on t.v."  Or, "Isn't he cute?!"  I decided to text,

"I caught a baby squirrel!!  Can we keep him?  Pepper and Pumpkin like him and he doesn't seem to want to climb on the furniture."    

I'm sweet, so I didn't let him think I had a squirrel in the house for very long. ;o)  I called and wished him an early April Fool's Day.  He said everyone at lunch got a good laugh-thinking that I had caught a baby squirrel and wanted to keep it in the house.

I think I picked a pretty good joke...something that really could be happening at our house.  After all, my daughter and I accidently let this cute little chipmunk loose in the laundry room last fall. ;o)

                                                                                              I hope you have a great Friday! 

Bees and a Book

Sunday afternoon, I decided I was going to start reading a book by my favorite author, Mary Kay Andrews . It was such a beautiful spring afternoon, that I decided I would read outside.  Before I started reading, I decided to take a quick tour of my spring flowers.

 I just had to go get my camera, because there were several large bees in my azaleas.

They didn't seem to mind that I was there with my camera. 

 They kept right on visiting all the blooms that they could find.

My goal was to try to capture a bee in mid-flight.

I got a couple shots of the bees as they visited the blossoms.

I love this picture!   

Making a visit to a Coral Bells azalea.

Bees on a Red Ruffles azalea.

Oh, and yes, I did get my book started.



 I didn't know on Sunday that it would be

gray and overcast on Monday and Tuesday. 

 Nor, did I realized that we would have a lot of rain today (Wednesday).

  If it is cold or rainy where you are today, I hope this post brings you a little breath of spring!

Trying Something New

Do you ever try a food and just love it and wish you could make it at home so you have it all the time??  Well, I've decided that I really like  KIND BARS.  They have a lot of different bars and all the ones that I have tried have been delicious!  The other day, I decided that I would try to make some KIND BARS.  I walked around the grocery store and carefully thought of the items that I thought should go into my Kind Bars.  I went down several isles more than once!  Here are items I thought should go into my Kind Bars.

As you see, I thought a lot about a variety of items. 

I used most of the items pictured for my bars.

  Some of my ingredients were what I had at home

 and some I bought for the recipe attempt.

  Some ingredients were organic and some were not.

I used some very tasty roasted almonds- without any salt. 

I roughly chopped the almonds. 

I had to do them in about four little "batches" because

they moved around on the cutting board when I chopped them. 

I chopped up some dried apricots, too.

They didn't hop around on my cutting board ;0) 

I  mixed the apricots in with a little water and some fruit pectin and then

heated it up in the microwave for about a minute.

Then, I started adding  the other dried fruit (cranberries, blueberries and cherries), granola, sesame seeds, honey, flax seed and pepitas.

I mixed it all up. 

Doesn't it look yummy?

Then I gently folded in the unsweeted coconut shreds.

I then spread it into a lightly greased 8 x 8 pan.

After I spread the mixture into the pan, I covered it with waxed paper.

Then, I placed another 8 x 8 pan on top of the pan and the waxed paper.

I then pressed the pan.

 I made sure I pressed all the edges, corners and in the center.

 I pressed it kinda hard.

Doesn't it look great? 

 Doesn't it look nice and smooth? 

Doesn't it look delicious?

I brushed the top with a little bit of apricot fruit spread and a little bit of pectin and a tiny bit of water.  I heated this up for about a minute and then covered the surface.  Then, I decided to lightly bake my bars.

  I baked them for ten minutes in a 325 oven and then I let them cool for a while. 

 My Kind Bars taste great. 

The almonds have stayed crisp- even three days later! 

 I thought they might get soggy, but they haven't. 

They are a little bit crumbly on the bottom...but not too bad.

 I cut my bars a little bigger than the real KIND BARS. 

My bars were also a little bit thicker than the real thing.

I think the whole experiment was a success!