Smells Good in Our Neighborhood

Well, we have upgraded to 80 degree days now. This means the honeysuckle on the hurricane fence next to the carport perfumes that side of the yard, while the jasmine that's on the opposite side of the house perfumes the back yard. It's right next to my bedroom window which I keep cracked open a few inches to let it perfume the house too.

My tree roses are blooming - the white Iceberg and the pink The Fairy. I pruned them very late so wasn't sure what would happen. I pruned them so strongly that it might take this year for them to regain their shape.

The grass is growing fast - especially in the back yard where we installed fertilizer tree spikes around the fruit trees. There are very tall green tufts where each spike is.

The fig tree is encroaching on one of the satsumas; for several years, it was just a twig but now... it's growing into a giant. I got a full batch of figs for preserving from it last year, we'll see how this year goes.

We have several volunteer squash plants setting fruit like crazy, and Ray spent last weekend working his beds for the okra, beans, and tomatoes.

I spent the whole weekend in front of the computer working on my GIS project.

The citrus that bloomed has set lots of fruit- if we don't have a spring hailstorm we should have a good harvest this year. The calamondin and kumquat have yet to bloom.

The blackberry bramble in the front azalea hedge has set fruit, and some might be getting ripe. Need to send Stephanie out there to see. She might get between 1/2 cup and a cup of ripe blackberries at a time.

Back Home Again

I spent the better part of last week in Baton Rouge at the Remote Sensing and GIS Workshop. It was a lot of fun. Reminded me partly of an anthropology conference, and partly of a computer geek conference. With some natural resources and assorted government people too. I stayed with Greg and Terri in Baton Rouge - they live in a house built in the 1930's of poured concrete. It was right across the lake from the conference - couldn't be more convenient. They went with me to the crawfish boil - Greg knows lots of the people from his work in coastal zone management so it was fun. Greg was Ray's roommate in graduate school at LSU.

Now I have to re-learn how to shop, cook, clean up, go to a job, etc.

Happy Easter!

The Easter bunny came early to our house - Mackenzie, Steph's 8 year old cousin was up at 7 am. There was lots of excitement, Easter presents, candy, sweet rolls, then everybody who was up at 7 am is back down for a morning nap.

Busy Weekends Ahead

We have a busy weekend ahead - get the house ready for Easter company, cook for and attend an annual pig roast/potluck in Livonia, cook for and attend our monthly discussion group meeting.

We are looking forward to seeing the family that always comes to our house for Easter. The husband is planning a big barbeque.

I'm planning to attend a regional GIS conference during most of the week after Easter. The pre-conference workshop looks like it will be a direct help in my class project for this semester.

Looks like the husband's Quebec summer school of three weeks is going to happen in July. Need to make plans to join him for a week if possible.

The daughter's high school bowling team won their local playoffs, will participate in bi-regional tournament next week in Bossier City. We'll see if they go to state. The state tournament will be in Baton Rouge, I think, much more convenient.