Chris has been reading about plants to accompany the fruit trees in our apple guild. Meanwhile, I have been brainstorming ways to make it look a bit more presentable. I have been wanting to edge the guild with large rocks, but figured it would be an expensive project. A couple weeks ago, someone informed us that landscaping with rocks is actually quite affordable – if you’re willing to put in the muscle power to lay the rocks yourself.

Acting on impulse (as I most often do), I decided this was a must-do project.

I made a couple of phone calls, and found some boulders not too far away - Hassan Sand & Gravel in Rogers, Minnesota is about a 20 minute drive.  Their delivery rates are also very reasonable – but they told me that boulder sizes vary quite a bit, and if we wanted consistency it would be best if we hand-picked the rocks and transported them ourselves.

So, of course, we did. It only took 4 trips with my little Honda Fit (which can haul 500 pounds – or about 25 rocks!) and my brother’s pickup truck. We could have probably done it in 3 trips, but since I was borrowing a truck I didn’t want to push it. We finished the whole thing in a day. Project total: just over 2 tons of rocks (4,000 pounds). Cost: $100 + a tank of gas + about 4 hours labor by 2 people.

I have my brother’s truck for the week now, so I think we’re going to pick up another load to outline our raspberry patch, and we’ll probably head up to Gordon’s Greenhouse to pick up a truck full of wood chips to fill in the shade garden under our deck this week too.

Before & After:

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My niece and nephew spent the afternoon at our house yesterday.  One of their favorite things to do here is root around in the garden.  I showed them the spinach, and which leaves they could pick to try.

“Mmmmmm….we love spinach!” I’m sure we’ll have to remind them of this experience when they get a few years older.

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Just a few pictures:

The Bird Food Theif

Sugar Snap Peas

Puck watching his garden grow

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It’s been a chilly week so far – not much time spent outside.  Since the blog is has quite a few sunflower and daisy pictures already, I figured I could use this cold snap to even things out with a few more pictures of daffodils.

Also, we have two mallard pairs and a pair of wood ducks hanging around the pond this spring.  They aren’t afraid of Puck, it seems – but I couldn’t get close enough to get a good picture before they flew off on me.  So here’s a mediocre photo of a male mallard.

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There are a lot of things coming up in our yard already!

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March showers bring…daffodils and a flowering plum tree!

Our Nichols Plum Tree exploded this morning with beautiful flowers. I was looking back on previous posts, and when we planted the tree in 2010, it flowered in June.  Last year, we had plum tree flowers on May 19th…and this year April 3rd! At this rate, we’ll be eating plums in February next year.

Here’s the full tree, 2 years after planting:

It has been unusually warm, and all of the daffodils Chris planted last fall are opening, too.

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We’ve had an exceptionally warm late winter/early spring – but it looks like we’re finally heading into a new season here. The magnolia trees are in bloom all over the Twin Cities.  I’ve seen a few pictures of Minnesota Daffodils already – ours are just about to open.

These were planted as bulbs last fall, so I didn’t expect them to have such an early start this year.  It looks like we’ll have a lot of them.  Next in line after sunflowers and daisies, daffodils are my favorite flower.  They are planted in our “Mini Apple Guild” here:

In front, is a Nichols plum tree.  Behind are Goldrush and Williams Pride apple trees. We planted these in the summer of 2010, so they are just coming out of their second winter now.  We had one small plum fruit last year; no apples yet.

We have three more fruit trees coming this year: an Enterprize Apple, a Mount Royal Plum, and a Montmorency Tart Cherry.  The apple and plum trees will be planted here with the others; Chris wants to put the cherry tree in the back of his garden (behind the picture above, in front of the pine trees by the shed).  They are scheduled to ship out April 1st.

Welcome, Spring!

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It has been really warm this spring (3+ days at 80ºF in Minnesota…) – and the grass is green.  The wood ticks are out, and I like to imagine this is what they see when they peer through the grass in our yard.

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We’ve been stalking this guy since last fall through our living room window. I’ve been trying so hard to get a picture of him, but he’s pretty scared of people. I spent about 30 minutes standing out back by the pond with my camera yesterday. Suddenly I heard a squeaking and he appeared!  I got a short video – it isn’t too exciting, but I wanted to share:

When we moved in 3 years ago, the previous owner told us that the pond in our back yard (a wetland area) used to have a muskrat who kept the cattails in check. He had disappeared a couple years earlier, and they were sad to see him go. Last fall, I saw something swimming in the pond. We’d see it from time to time – and this spring a huge nest had been built out of cattails. There are two of them now – presumably a male and female, and maybe this spring we’ll have muskrat babies.

I know muskrats have a bad reputation, but they are very beneficial to the wildlife.  Their dens become hiding spaces and nests to many animals – including snakes and these Canada Geese:

The clearing in the cattails provides shelter for other animals ; we have a couple of ducks who live in our pond too.  I don’t know why they disappeared before (there are a lot of large dogs who live on the pond, and we have foxes here too), but I hope they survive and are able to live here for a while.  They are quite fun to watch.

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Puck is sporting his green collar today!

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