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Tags: Gardening + Nature
Tags: Gardening + Nature
Sunday afternoon, the Denver Botanic Gardens, every living thing humming along happily at its peak. We breakfasted at my Grandpa’s (Hello!). I made smoked salmon (from Alaska!) benedict on super soft challah, roasted asparagus, and a fruit cup of last hurrah strawberries, plums, and Palisade peaches. I was smart enough to think ahead, concocting the richer than rich hollandaise (the hubster’s FAVORITE breakfast topping) the evening before, no stir, stir, stirring while mad with hunger after our hour-long drive north. To use Grandpa’s word, it was “delish.” He liked my apple jelly, too.
We met our friend Rob (fun shot!!) at the Gardens, our first meeting since arriving back, ambling and snapping photo after photo, falling into our usual and quite wonderful routine. Mostly of details, nature front and center, some man made delights, too, we hold no prejudices.
Tags: Colorado, Friendship, Gardening + Nature
All the best angles of our new yard! Our lot is huge, almost double the size of our Portland house and more than double that of our Pittsburgh place, though most of it was taken up by our ginormous house.
It is a shambles at the moment. After years and years of neglect, the back is mostly dandelions, a falling down fence, and the remains of dead trees and shrubs. That big dumpster I told you about? I filled about half of it with branches and the skeletons of six foot tall monster weeds. Fear not! There are a few gems – the snowball bush just above the bird bath, a spindly volunteer of a flowering cherry, a lilac, choke cherry, and three onion plants, smack dab in the middle of the yard. We’ve been using the greens in salads, and will, one fine day, move the plants to a proper garden bed. There, they will be joined by rhubarb and tomato (Sun gold! Cherokee purple!), cucumber, and maybe some ground cherries and boysenberries, if we are lucky enough that they can grow here.
In a wildly wonderful windfall from my friend Jennifer (holla!), we got two massive piles of beautiful stone that we plan to break our backs moving into some pretty configuration involving runoff from the roof, then add masses of flowers, currants, wild roses, and native grasses. Oh, and a patch for herbs and peonies (I already have an order in with Adelman Peony Gardens!), because, well, it wouldn’t be a Colleen Sohn garden without them. No, it would not.
That’s all dreaming, though, at least for now. The inside of the house still isn’t 100 percent hospitable. There’s no shower, but a dilapidated bathtub, no toilet on the main floor, but one in the basement, next to a sink that doesn’t work. BUT, the kitchen counter comes this week, and the guest room is looking pretty snazzy, with a fresh coat of paint, new bedside table, bed frame, box spring, and linens. Just in time, too! Our Pittsburgh friend Megan is joining us today for a visit. We are so excited to see her!
Oh, and the first picture, we’re enjoying a mighty pretty and delicious bulgogi and bibimbap at our new favorite Korean restaurant Shin Sa Dong. Yum…
Tags: Gardening + Nature
We had two snow storms in three days, the first ugly and brutal, with howling horizontal winds raging for more than eight hours, rattling brains and nerves, the hubster shoveling what was mostly ice in the dark once all had finally calmed down. But the second one left the whole of Colorado Springs blanketed in a fairytale hush and our block looking so pretty. It’s almost all gone now, sun melting it down to puddles and crusts of ice and love.
Tags: Gardening + Nature
