Welcome Fiona and Norman!

We've done a little more work on the house - our bathroom is painted and the sink is installed, and Jackie did some more great tiling. We did a bit more of the siding, but we're going to work with someone who's willing to get up on scaffolding (not me anymore!). The garden's more fun than real work. I'm chicken about thinning, obviously, so that's why the beds look so crowded. The potatoes seem happiest - must be because I'm Irish! We're plagued by flea beetles, which munch green leaves so that it looks like they've had buckshot go through them. Lots of rain has given everything a healthy start.
The exciting development this month was the arrival of Fiona and Norman, beautiful Nubian goats. Our neighbors Kevin and Laurel built them a great barn. These goats are very affectionate and chatty! We're looking forward to goat cheese - yum!
Jackie's gone to visit her mom in Arizona for a few days. Deco and I are missing her!

Dog Days of Spring

No, we didn't get puppies (Deco would never stand for that!) - our neighbor Caroline rescued these Louisiana Catahoula dogs. Maybelle and Roux are overwhelmingly cute and distracted us from getting much work done on the house. But we got our garden beds planted, and Jackie made this simply beautiful gate (to keep out troublemaking puppies and rabbits, we hope). We had a few days close to 90 degrees, but our house stayed comfortable (thanks to the cool concrete floors). I'm campaigning to keep air conditioning out of the house, but it is only May...

We are new to gardening, so we are listening to all the advice there is, which gets confusing. It seems to range from scientific ("when the third set of of true leaves appears, lower the night temperature to 55 degrees for four weeks ") to casual ("just plant the seeds and they'll grow") to superstitious ("plants like the attention when you mess with them"). Anyway, there are some seedlings coming up, so we're happy. We'll see if we eat this year... I sometimes think of the Transcendalists - big on ideas, short on farming skills. It'll be an interesting experiment!

We're heading to Florida this week to celebrate Luca's birthday and see some dear friends we miss!