tulips

One of the nice things about living in a cold winter climate like Utah is that I can grow flower bulbs that just won't grow in a warm climate like Queensland. I planted a bunch of tulips in the front and back gardens in November 07. This year they have multiplied and put on quite a wonderful display.

Unfortunately, deer like tulips, and although they left them alone last year, this year they have discovered the ones in the backyard, and have come back on successive occasions to eat over 50 of the pretty flowers, leaving us with just the green leaves on display! It seems (for now) that the rock wall in the front yard is deterrent enough to keep them away. We are experimenting with "ivory soap on a stick" to try and save the remaining plants in the backyard. It makes for an interesting addition to the garden!

vegie garden

Spring, and some warmer weather is finally here! We decided that we would add a vegetable garden as our "yard project" this year. We bought 3 pieces of 8x4x2 lumber and Mark built a "box" to house the vegie plants. We then filled the box with lots of "goodies" like organic compost, peat moss and manure (based on a recipe from our local Lowes hardware store).

Heather stained the box with some polyeurethane that we had left over from doing our patio furniture, and Mark added some decorative caps to the corners. (He had lots of fun playing with his miter saw once he discovered it could do angles other than 90 degrees!)

We're not too sure what will grow well here so we've planted quite a mixture of things we like to eat including broccoli, zucchini, lettuce, spinach, snap peas, mint, basil, parsley, dill and the "fixin's" for a good salsa - tomatoes, tomatillos, bell peppers (capsicum to those of you in Aus), onions and cilantro. Here's hoping that the deer that occasionally pass through our yard aren't feeling hungry for some tasty seedlings!

so this is spring?

This is what we woke up to this morning. We had about a foot of snow at the house overnight (over 2 ft at the mountain resorts). You can see how deep it is piled up on the patio table. It's been a strange Spring so far. We've had days with temps in the 70's (20's C) melting all the snow at the house, (and encouraging us to get the patio furniture out and strike up the BBQ), and then a storm system blows through dropping temps into the 30's (around zero C) and we get more snow. The poor daffodils and tulips don't know whether to open up or hide!

painting

After nearly 2 years in our house here in Utah we decided it was time add a bit of color to the "neutral" color scheme we inherited. Since we were (finally) about to buy a bed for the master bedroom we decided this was a good place to start. After a trip to Lowes to buy the prerequisite painters tape, rollers, brushes, drop cloth, paint etc we eagerly started on our feature wall. Here's Mark "cutting-in" around the edges...

...and Heather doing some "rolling".

And here's the finished product. After 2 years of sleeping on a mattress on the floor we now have a real king-size bed and some color to wake up to!

winter view

Our lives have been pretty quiet since our return from Australia, so there hasn't been a lot to "blog" about. We have been skiing once or twice a week every week through January & February - but there's only so many times that's of interest in a blog! Just thought I'd share this wonderful winter view that we have from our kitchen window, looking out across the snow-covered back yard and neighborhood to the picturesque Wasatch Mountains. How lucky we are! It always lifts my spirits when I look at the view. The snow hasn't been as heavy this year as last, but still enough to keep the ground permanently covered since December.

getting to work

How did you spend Australia Day? At the beach? Wilting in the heat? Well here in Utah we enjoyed another snow storm. This is Mark clearing the driveway of snow at 6am so he could go to work!

tv cats

Since we bought our larger TV last year, the cats have taken an interest in some of the programming. We're not sure if its the movement or sounds that catch their attention, but we frequently find them watching the screen (rather closely) like a couple of kids. They particularly like a show called "Sunrise Earth" which shows nature scenes from all different locations on the planet filmed at sunrise. In this shot the cats are fascinated by the birds in a marsh in South America.

happy new year

We had a quiet New Years Eve this year - getting up at 5am because it was a work day for Mark, so we were in no shape for a late night. We invited our neighbors Matt & Kathy over for dinner and had a nice evening chatting, eating and drinking even though we didn't stay up late. The following morning we were up early again in time to see this lovely sunrise over the valley. A pretty start to a new year.

welcome home

Our return from Australia didn't go as smoothly as we'd hoped. Our Qantas 747 developed a water leak, and half way over the Pacific had run out of all water for drinking and toilets, so we had to stop in Honolulu, to fix the leak and take on more water. Now a brief stopover in Honolulu might sound like a nice idea, except we arrived at 2am local time, and had to sit on the plane on the tarmac while the problem was resolved. Where's the fun in that? This little detour made us 3 hours late getting into LA and so we missed our connection to Salt Lake. Unfortunately, bad weather across the US had put the regular airline services into chaos, and due to the backlog of other already delayed passengers, we weren't able to get another flight until the following day. So as well as an unscheduled stop in Hawaii, we got to spend a night in LA at an airport hotel. When we finally arrived home, we were greeted by falling snow. It was quite a shock after the Summer heat of Australia. Thanks go to our dear neighbors, Shaina & Edwin, for clearing our driveway of snow so we could get in!

first snow

We got our first snow of the season at the house last week. It started snowing overnight & I'd say we ended up with about 2 to 3" on the ground. This is the view out of our back sliding door. The patio table has a pretty good cover of snow. You can't see the mountains because of all the low cloud. The snow didn't stick around for long though. Temperatures this week have been back up in the 70's (20's celsius). Bit confusing for the plants that haven't lost their leaves yet. The marigolds and zinneas have been brought to a premature end although the cold doesn't seem to bother the pansies - even after being buried in snow!

our house

Thought I'd start the blog off with a couple of recent pics of our house in Utah. After the long, cold, snowy winter it's nice to be able to spend time in the garden and enjoy dinners on our deck again. We're pretty pleased with how our landscaping turned out. We built the deck, installed the sprinkler system, designed the garden beds, laid the sod (turf) and planted all the plants ourselves. Now all we need is a couple of years growth so that it feels like a garden!