Gardening

After a long, cold, and very rainy winter the weather has finally turned springlike. The past few weeks have been a joy to get outside and play with the munchkin. We've been enjoying swinging in the hammock and letting Ava play in the yard.

Below Ava is helping me not float away.

While visiting Nana for the memorial tree planting, Gail did a bunch of work in the flower beds trimming dead branches, weeding, etc. Ava and I came outside to help pull up weeds and sample the flavor of the dirt. Mom wasn't impressed with my parenting skills...


After sampling the dirt, we noticed Gail was using the most wonderful contraption for carting compost (and babies!) to the back. Good times ensued.

I don't know what's happening, but I love it!

She looks so studious! :-)

Whatcha know good?

For all y'all Yankees, that means: "What have you been up to?" in Southern speak.
Well, Ava has been all over the place. We've been to Douglas, Atlanta, and South Georgia all in the past month. We've been traveling fools. We stayed with Jeremy's folks for a spell around when the Olympics started. It was so much fun hanging out with Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Nathan. We tried catfish and potato salad for the first time.

Nom, nom, nom. Delicious! Definitely a southern girl!

Here's Ava standing up and playing with some sort of gizmo.

Playing in the yard is fun!

Tree Planting Memorial

Folks my Dad worked with in the Forest Service all pitched in and donated enough money to purchase 25 trees for a Trees Atlanta project. They're 10 gallon trees and I didn't realize that they're over a $100 each. (Wow! The Forest Service is awesome! Thanks guys. I know you loved my Dad - and he loved you too.) What an amazing memorial! I couldn't help but get choked up several times because it meant so much and was such an appropriate memorial for my Dad.
So on March 13, our family and as many Forest Service folks that could make it, along with the Trees Atlanta volunteers, as well as some students from the local school all converged on Centennial Elementary School in downtown Atlanta to plant them an amazing grove of trees. There are white oaks, overcupped oaks, persimmons, maples, hickories... more that I can remember! Luckily all these folks were here and we were able to get them all planted in three hours on an early spring morning.

I'm glad so many kids were there. My Dad loved to teach kids about trees. You can bet my tree projects rocked back in school.

Ava and Jeremy listen to instructions.

I place one of many bags of my Dad's compost at the foot of each tree. Now each one's got a little Daddy love in it.

(Jeremy is hijacking the text henceforth.)
Gail had to do most of the heavy lifting and digging for her crew.

Gaby and Nana discussing what to do next.

Bo and Randi went around and sprinkled some of Don's compost on each tree.

Good job Bo Bo!