Rain

Finally we are getting some rain today, and yesterday and the day before... before that we had not had any substantial rain in quite a while.  When I turned over the onion bed last weekend, the whole raised bed was totally dry, not the nice moist soil that you would expect to find there in the spring.

This weekend we are expecting several days of rain, I will still be planting some flowers and hopefully get some seeds in the ground to start on their own.  I'm experimenting with starting my own Sweet Anne, but will need to find some good bare spots to get it started in.   I have a good number of flax and climbing black-eyed-Susan seeds to start as well.  I'm a bit late in starting them but they are good for a long time once they get going.

While Mark was recovering from foot surgery our raspberry, blue berry and rose plants came, we put them in with in a few days of arrival.  They came with some cool stuff to mix with water that clings to the roots, it looked like all of the roots little balls of water sacks attached to them.  They all survived planting and are doing quite well regardless of the very dry spring so far.

Currently our wildflower bed is just starting to blossom, some of the white daisies are starting to bloom, they are usually the earliest followed by the Sweet William.  In another garden, the purple lupines are starting to bloom and our three lilac bushes are in full blossom.

Spring in NH and all we need is a bit of rain to keep it going.  No floods please, just enough and then some more sunshine in between.

Big dogs - and perspective

Today I had a chance to sit and talk with my elderly aunt for a while, unfortunately it was at a funeral for her grandson.
But we got to talking about some of the good times we had together and we reminisced about the camp that she and my uncle once owned and how my parents used to bring us to in the summer for family gatherings.  I began thinking about the HUGE dogs that she once had, she told us when we were kids that this breed was a Newfoundland.
What I remember is these two gigantic black dogs that were bigger than any dog I had ever seen and close to being horses.  My aunt had them for many years and when ever we visited I would always ask my dad if she still had the Big Black Dogs.  Both dogs crossed over the rainbow bridge long before I was a teenager and my aunt ended up with two smaller pekingese dogs.
Years later I met someone who had several Newfoundland dogs and remarked "aren't those dogs huge?" and she said yes.  Eventually, I had a chance to visit her house and meet the dogs, and my first thought when I saw them was "are they breeding these dogs smaller now?"
The next time that I visited, my friend's young neice was over and it finally dawned on me that, no, they are not breeding Newfoundlands smaller, I am actually taller and have a different view of this Big Dog.  But still my mind says that these dogs should be almost as big if not bigger than me.
Now that I bring my greyhound into my new school and walk past the kindergarten and first grade rooms to get to the stairs up to the fourth floor, we often meet several of the students as we pass by and their reaction is always "thats a really big dog Mrs Collins"!!  At that point I always look back and remember, yes, when you can look the dog directly in the eye and it is as tall as you are, it is one big dog.
Will these kids go one to think that greyhounds are HUGE dogs forever?  I wonder... it is all in size and perspective.

Spring update

Last weekend we finally got started planting seeds for this year's garden.  I planted statice, black-eyed-susan vines and some heirloom nasturtiums with quite a bit of help from Louie the cat.  I am looking forward to seeing something growing in the garden this year that not only looks good but can be used in arrangements and wreaths.

I have to set something up so that the dogs don't spend all their time ripping things up or taking care of business on the seedlings and flowers.

"And the stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there..."

Merry Christmas everyone, here are a few scenes from around my house today, Christmas Eve.

Above is our living room fireplace and below is a close up of the manger with Baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph and all the folks and animals that came to see him.

And on that night all of the animals were blessed with the ability to talk,
they too came to share the blessing of the new born king.

It is beginning to look alot like Christmas around our house, the tree is up, the lights are in the windows and around the backyard fence. We still have some wrapping to do and some cooking for the big day, but mostly just relaxing and enjoying the holiday season.
I visited Mom today and dropped off her gifts, along with some of the large amount of chocolate that I received from students this week. I am humbled by the outpouring of support by The Villa families as a new teacher in the Middle School, and also by the support of the faculty as well.
The vacation week will be filled with visits to and from relatives as well as some catch up on correcting papers and planning for Math and Science over the month of January.
This week was pretty funny at school, progress reports went out on Monday, some with attachments of missing or late work. On Tuesday I experienced "The Miracle of Missing Work" as homework and assignments magically appeared out of lockers and notebooks to accumulate onto my desk.
Since it was the week before Christmas, I was able to read some of my Christmas related books to students in my classes, two of the books were written by my friend Ellen Obed and the kids were amazed that I knew such a good author.  The books by Ellen are Who would like a Christmas tree? Which tells the story of a Christmas tree plantation and all of the wildlife that would like a Christmas tree during each month of the year.  The funnies part was when I read it to the sixth graders and we got to November and the book says that turkeys want the Christmas tree in November, and "there are 18 turkeys in our flock" and I said "just like the 18 sixth graders" to a chorus of "HEY!!" and giggles.
The other story was Borrowed Black the story of a being who "borrows, but doesn't give back" and how he borrows the Moon and then some brave characters take it back. It is a good story about how the Moon got its cracks and as one student said "how not to be greedy." We are studying the Moon right now so it is a good opener to the Moon related mythology that they will be reading about after vacation.
On Thursday we had a great Christmas Mass at school with all grades attending.  Father Gerry from St. Lawrence Church in town always does a great children's sermon that ties in what the kids are learning in religion to the everyday events around them. It was nice to see several families attend the Mass along with their kids.
I'm looking forward to a restful vacation and refueling my batteries for the Snowshoe club which I'll be helping to coach in January.

Getting ready for Christmas, we put our lights outside last weekend on the deck, porch and along the dog fence.  We're still having one line short out on us in the rain, will have to fix that up a bit.
This week has been strange in weather, warm earlier in the week then very cold and windy followed by three days of rain.  The dogs are bored but we've been taking them out for their regular walks, with coats on when raining hard, this keeps me in shape too.

Today I put the Christmas candles in the windows and will check out the Christmas tree tomorrow to see if we can get one more year out of it, or if we are going with a real tree this year.  A real tree may be a challenge with Blue the dog, he likes to pee on balsams and better not if we do get a real one!!

I am looking forward to the Christmas vacation and hope that we have some good snow before then.  I volunteered to help out with snow shoeing at my school one day a week starting after the vacation until the snow goes.  This should be interesting and fun with the kiddos, and good winter exercise too.  And potential good photo opportunities!!

We had a great Thanksgiving with Mom this week.  I picked her up on Wednesday afternoon and she stayed over for two nights. She really enjoyed the company, including the dogs and cats at our house. I was happy to see her eat so much food, and we sent her home with three loaf pan sized turkey pies to put in her freezer for later.  I drove her back home to Dover this afternoon and her kitty was happy to see her.

It is nice to have a good time with family, Danny and Beth came to Thanksgiving dinner at our house with Mom and Mark cooked most of the dinner.  I am so lucky to have him, he is not only a great cook, but also my best friend.