Stay at Home

The kids are rounding out their 10 day quarantine tomorrow. We're all 100% healthy, thankfully. I worked hard to make the kids' stay at home time fun. Apparently I succeeded, as Adrian asked if we could do another 10 days of quarantine. 

What did I do?  Well, we set up a fire pit with a free standing chimney stove thingy from a friend (thank you Crystal!). I set it up between two maples that I have been fertilizing and caring for, hoping they'd grow enough for shade in our all sun backyard. One is a source of shade, finally (hallelujah) and the other is on its way. We ate outside for just about every meal these last 10 days.  Plus I bought stuff for ice cream sundaes and stuff for s'mores. Lilacs are in full bloom and our secret garden (which was garden for decades and is so overgrown) is gradually having the layers peeled back (will I ever get it back to a non overgrown state?!).  The kids pretty much spent a heck of a lot of time outside the last 10 days. I dare say we have an amazing place to quarantine. 

Can you see the maple on the left of the picture below?  That was a random seedling when we moved and I said, "Please grow and provide shade for us, have heaps of manure to help." Look at the picture above on the right.  That's the next tree I'm giving growing pep talks to.