A Cabinet Full of Dishes

These are pictures for you Casey. This is the cabinet that Dad brought back from Illinois that is over 100 years old. It is for Greg if he wants it, but after he saw how many pieces in came in he may have second thoughts. The dishes inside are for you to do with as you please. I have shown a picture of one piece so that you can see the pattern. They are beautiful dishes and for dishes that are over 60 years old, they are in remarkable shape. I only found about 3 pieces that had chips or other slight damage. The gold leafing is wearing off, but they still retain quite a bit of it.

On top of the bookcase are the 2 history books from 1890. They are quite fragile but quite remarkable to look at. (I just used remarkable for the second time and I haven't used that word in a long time.) Dad also brought back 2 first edition Dr. Doolittle books and 2 first edition Mother West Wind books. They were added to the collection in the dining room.

These Two Are At It Again!!

The other day I posted the picture of Lucky in Greg's laundry basket. He was so cute and perfectly content to be there. So last night I was turning out lights and accounting for all of the cats being off of the porch when I came across Chocolate. He was sleeping in the laundry basket this time. Lucky was also on the table on top of a beach towel on the other end.

I think these 2 sweeties are more alike than we think. First I catch them on different days eating out of the big cat food container and then I catch them, again on different days, sleeping in the laundry basket. How cute are they? Chocolate has been venturing upstairs more lately and has taken to sleeping on my head some nights. I can tell when he slept there even if I don't see him, because I usually have a stiff neck in the morning. Chocolate seems take up a lot of space on the pillow!

Pretty Pictures

Okay, so this is what we spent last weekend doing. I finally finished my front bed project of taking out the lambs ear and spiky purple things and replacing with azaleas. The balance is much better and I know that I will still have some lamb's ear popping up because the underground root system was quite extensive.

The peas and lettuce sprouted last week and the garden should be full by mid-June. Yum!!!!

Finally, the big project this past weekend was putting up another section of fence in the courtyard. It is amazing how much bigger the courtyard is now. This weekend we will be planting tomatoes, peppers, green beans (up the pole left standing from the previous fence structure), and anything else that we fancy. If we can keep the rabbits and groundhogs out, it should be a nice garden this year.

Another Quickie

What do these 2 pictures have in common you ask? They represent two cute but stinker cats who seem to enjoy eating out of the large cat food container right after I have filled it up. I don't know what is wrong with the bowl of food on the floor or what makes this container so special, but within 2 weeks, I have caught each of them in the container of food as I was filling it.

They are both so darn cute and so concentrated on eating their prize that they didn't mind having their pictures taken.

UPDATE Time!

A few Lucky pictures today. This was his choice of sleeping locations the other day. The basket contained clean laundry and now contains furry laundry!!

On Sunday we extended the fence in our courtyard and while we were doing some weeding, we decided to let Lucky out there. Greg took the picture of Lucky and a bunch of Kitty as well. Lucky was very good and didn't try to go over the fence at all. I think he was happy with his bigger yard area. This week I am going to get the courtyard ready for planting the vegetable garden. Maybe Greg and I can get it done before Larry comes home from Illinois.
Casey, these pictures of one of your favorite trees are for you. The tree was in perfect bloom on Saturday so I took a bunch of photos for you. We woke up Sunday morning to a very windy and quite cool day and a lot of the flowers fell to the ground. The entire yard is coming into bloom. The azaleas will be blooming by the weekend, the apple tree is in bloom, the trees are all green, and the poison ivy is coming out (yech!). The peas, lettuce and spinach have all sprouted and we hope to have a bumper crop of peas when Casey comes home.
Can you tell I love spring? I love fall even more, but it is nice to see life budding everywhere after a cold winter. I even got my winter clothes out of my closet last weekend. Of course, the day after I did that it only reached 50 degrees. Not today though - high of 75.

A Trip Up North

Parent's weekend this past weekend and we got to visit with Casey!!! Yea!!! We got up there around 10:30 pm on Friday and made plans to pick up Casey early Saturday. Saturday we decided to drive through Vermont and stop at a few places along the way. We had a ball, stopping at a store and buying Casey and Larry hats, stopping to feed on Cabot cheese at the Cabot Cheese store, looking at items in a Scottish store, and walking along the Quechee Gorge (how pretty). It was fun and relaxing for all of us.

Sunday morning we picked up Casey after our stop at the King Arthur Baking Store and picking up some goodies and took her to lunch at Applebees. We did the grocery run and a few other things before heading back to campus. Casey gave us a nice tour of Phi Tau and the engineering building. It is hard to believe that her freshman year is almost done. Likewise for Greg, only 30 days of school left. Wow!! Where did the year go?