A lovely day

Since DH needed a lot of time today to work on a shop project, I took Barley with me to visit the garden shop a friend recommended: Almaden Valley Nursery

Really NICE place--well organized, and wide paths between the viewings. Barley didn't even bring his DS in with him, he just ran up and down the paths, exploring all the sights. He discovered the goldfish pond, which reminded him of our visit to T&J in Florida last year. It got us both wondering if there was room anywhere in our little backyard...food for thought.

He was more interested in bird bath shopping than I expected, and helped me find some once he understood the difference between a fountain (see the bubbling water?) and a bath. He really wanted to buy one today, but with all the price tags being over $100 and the economy being what it is, I told him Daddy would have to come and look before we spent that much money. He asked more than once if we could please have Daddy come today? We ended up buying a clay saucer to prop up on rocks instead of a big pedestal one. I am hoping this will work for our feathered friends, and $11 sounds a lot better to me than $110 right now.

We also tried out several stone benches. Being time-strapped, I like the idea of plopping a bench down instead of maintaining a shade garden in the strip of dirt on the side of the fence. I liked the ones warm from the sun, but Barley said he liked the cold ones in the shade better. On a hot day, you could sit on a cold bench and get cooled down.

We bought 2 blueberry bushes: Oneal and Chandler, acidified soil, mulch--which Barley picked out. Got some gardening gloves, and a fake lizard (Barley had been very, very good while I was browsing all the plants).

When I was digging out the hole in the front yard, Teddy came and helped. He cut roots, broke up dirt, lugged over water--great having a second pair of hands. And he kept looking for worms or snails to gross me out--only found one. We got one bush planted before it was too dark out. Barley came to "help" just as we were finishing up, not really in time to do anything meaningful. But he was a bit put out that I had not bought 2 pairs of kids gloves (where was my head?). I will have to fix that quickly, as this was a serious barrier to any further interest! Barley did go out with a flashlight after dark to check out the new plant, though--so I guess there is some interest after all.