A Walk in the Woods {PHFR}

{pretty/happy}

We had a few days of spring-like weather and it was glorious. Nature walks, playground play dates, LOTS of outside time.

There are a lot of leaves decomposing on the top of the pond - Cecilia was convinced it was algae, except she was also convinced that algae is called "allergy." That was pretty confusing before we figured out what she actually meant...

We found a bone for some sort of animal... But we're rather lacking in knowledge. Got any guesses? That's John Paul's 6-year-old hand for scale.

Every time we get near the top of one of the hills on our nature walks, the twins want to play in several sets of "twin trees" - this game seemed to involve Mary Claire lying in her "bed" while Elizabeth... Poked her with sticks?

It got old having the twins scream for me to hold their hands the whole walk - with Peter on my back, I can't *also* deal with them dragging on my hands, so I bribed everybody to go back to the house with my mom while Cecilia and I walked farther.

There's a clearing filled with thorny vines and what looks like it might be wild raspberries? Or wild roses? What do you think?

Given the fact that we saw bear tracks on a separate walk, I'm wondering if this becomes a feasting ground come summer...

{funny}

We found Mary like this when we got home from our walk. Usually the kids give her flowers, but I guess chalk is good too?

{real}

This is what the garden looks like right now:

We decided against plowing it all up, because we knew the soil was all clay and would need to be amended somehow anyway... We're going the no-till route (you lay down cardboard and cover it with compost/mulch/soil/whatever you have), but even with all the compost we had, we only got a 20x50 area covered. Which *seems* like a lot until you see just how many tomatoes we're planning on growing! So there's a truckload of soil coming this week, which will hopefully make things a little more fertile.

And the asparagus trench is dug. My sweet little brother did it but after the fact, we noticed he had a little trouble keeping it straight. So maybe this weekend we'll straighten it out? I wouldn't be bothered by it, but considering it'll be there for 20-30 years, I think it kind of needs to be straight... Per Auntie Leila's recommendation, the strawberry plants are going on either side of the trench in hills, because they're natural companion plants - the strawberries help keep weeds away from the asparagus, and since they root at different soil levels they're not competing for nutrients.

Linking up with Like Mother, Like Daughter for {pretty, happy, funny, real} - can you believe it's Thursday already?