A Walk with Gio

Sometimes you just need to take time to stop to smell the roses.

The garage at Gio's school looks so pretty. After noticing how beautiful all the flowers looked on this particular day, Gio and I decided to take a walk around the neighborhood. Many of the homes in this area have lovely gardens.

The sandbox

At Gio's school there are four chickens. Sometimes the children take one out and carry it around.

We spotted two of these gates on our walk. Under each little bird was a little bell.

Gio led me right here and even smiled when I took his pic.

Pink Poppies

Iris

Lupines
White Peony
Peach Rose

A beautiful and aromatic peony

Celulators At The Lilac Festival

This is me and my teamates. We are in a contest to loose weight at the gym. We went to the Lilac Festival to get a workout in and some fun for the kids too. UPDATE: We finished in 5th place. I am happy to have finished in the top 10.

Planting Time

There were three sizes of yellow bins. One size was empty, one had the little pellets, and one had the seed.

Checkin' out the tractor.

unknown soil additive, They were like little pellets.

GMO also known as Roundup Ready corn seed.
Walking through the field.

Just checking out the scenery.

Broccolini

I just set this package of broccolini down and Breetz asks me if he can have some ....sure. The nest thing I knew he had eaten the tops of several of them.

Sheep Farm

... on a rainy day.

There was lots...
...and lots of mud. At one point most of the kinds were slushing around in an ankle deep pool of rain water and feces in the middle of the fenced in area. That's just fun on a farm for little ones. My aunt once told me her and my father used to throw cow flops (poop) at each other all the time.

I don't think this little girl was aware that she had the attention of all the horses as she bent over to pull up some grass.

carrying a lamb

Gio pets a sheep.

The farmer

Overcast

Gio's class dyed wool with marigolds in the sun. They left these jars outside for several days and then one day when I dropped Gio off at school there was a big tub of warm water on the picnic table and all the jars were line up next to it. As each child arrived they poured out the liquid and petals, then rinsed the wool in the warm water, rung it out and hung it on a nearby bush to dry. The color ended up being a pale yellow.

The next day the big tub was filled with a dark liquid. His teacher told me it was indigo. As each child arrived they donned rubber gloves and dipped their wool into the liquid. Then they rung it out and placed it on a lined cookie sheet to dry. At first it looked black but as it dried it started to turn a grayish green. I can't wait for next week to find out what the color ended up being. I'm thinking green.

After I took the above photo I noticed the sky was overcast. I have heard this is the best time to take photographs outside and now I believe it. Most of these photos only needed a wee bit of cropping.
Magnolias

Forsythia

I am so happy with this pic :).

Not sure what these are called. I don't recall ever seeing any like this in the spring before.

Grape hyacinths

Lilacs about to bloom

Spring Walk

Gio wanted to be in a picture with this tractor.

Picking clover

Baby tent caterpillers If you look closely you can see them crawling along the top branches in the pic.