My First Scary Bulb Sale

Yesterday morning, the nearby public garden had its first ever Bag'O'Bulbs sale, where, if you showed up at a certain gate with grocery bags, you could get freshly dug tulip bulbs for $10 a bag.

The whole shebang began at 8 AM, which means I was there promptly at 8, eagerly clutching a bag and a Hamilton (maybe in a few years it will be a Hamilton/Mott/Truth/Anthony/Stanton/Paul, because apparently it's just too much to actually put a woman on the front of the bill, so instead they'll try to appease us with five women on the back, where they belong, amIright, fellas?) and wearing multiple layers of clothing, because it's May, so of course it's 30 degrees outside!

Gracious, that was a mess of a paragraph, wasn't it?  Ah, well.  I meant every word.  I really was there at 8.

I was joined by a host of fellow gardeners, and I, along with one other family from my church, probably brought the average age down by four decades.  This made me think, not for the first time, that I was made to be an old person; I mean, I love to garden and talk about birds, I am always cold, and I can pinch a penny until it screams for mercy.

Now that my stereotyping is done for the day, I can tell you about the actual event, which was a little bit of a fiasco.  I felt bad for the director of the whole thing, as he seemed to realize that it was not going that well and even went so far as to say multiple times, "Keep in mind this is our first year, and the first year of any event is always a learning experience, so this will only get better and better each year."

Their method in this inaugural year was to have us pay our money, shuffle into a small area just inside the gate, and wait for twenty minutes.  Then, an employee would drive up in a gator with a trailer attached, which was piled high with freshly-dug tulips.  At that point, The Frenzy would ensue.

You know those photos and videos you've seen of Black Friday hordes swarming through stores, hunting for marked down electronics they probably won't even use in a year?  It was kind of like that.  Or maybe sharks circling prey.  I like that analogy better, as it tickles me to think of these gardeners as predators.

I watched two big, full trailers come, be mobbed by grasping tulip junkies, and five minutes later go, depleted.  The third trailer just happened to pull up and stop right in front of me, so I filled my bag as quickly as I could lest someone cut me with their AARP card, and left.

In addition to his pseudo-apology, the director had some other interesting information, such as his suggestion to perhaps come later in the morning next year:  "I've been to these bulb sales at other gardens, and everyone lines up as soon as it opens, thinking that if they come later, they won't get any.  Well, folks, we have 47,000 tulips bulbs we're digging up today, so I promise, there will be bulbs for you to buy, even if you walk in at 10 AM."

I asked him what they've done with the bulbs in years past, since this was the sale's first year, and he told me they've always been composted, to which I audibly gasped and clutched my heart.  He also said that they can't simply give the bulbs away, but have to charge money because they're a public institution.  He was also very careful to instruct everyone there to plant their bulbs that weekend, NOT to store them over the summer until fall planting, and explained why.  Feel free to google this, because I'm sure not explaining it to you.


It really didn't feel like I'd gotten that many bulbs, but when I opened up the bag that afternoon, I counted out 65 BULBS.  For $10!

Atticus got to help me plant all 65 late yesterday because of some choices he made earlier in the week.  There's just nothing like manual labor for behavioral adjustment, is there?

I have no idea what colors these will be next spring, only that they'll be a mix, like what we saw when we were at the garden two weeks ago.  I'm sure by then I'll have completely forgotten any of this ever happened, so what a pleasant surprise it will all be!  I do have plans on being at next year's bulb sale, except next year I'll arrive later, and wear more armor.  I can't wait!

Tulips and I Need Some Help

It's been a colorful spring for our yard.  The tulips have been productive, although I've definitely noted slowing in the cultivars I planted several years ago.  Shayla's Favorites (I have no idea what these are actually called; in my mind, they are always and forever Shayla's Favorites) are still producing the same number of blooms, but they're beginning to show their age with multiple blemishes on the petals.  Just not quite as hale and hearty as they used to be.  If I can find more of the exact same type- or more accurately, if I can remember to look for them in the first place- I'd like to fill in this bed with new bulbs of the same shade this fall.

I did the thing last fall where I plant a bunch of new tulips, don't write it down anywhere (except maybe here), forget over the winter, and surprise myself with fresh flowers in the spring.  I am so dang thoughtful.

These were unusual in that both Derek and two of the kids commented on how pretty they are. Every so often I drag various members of my family around the yard, forcing them to admire all the beauty I'm filling it with, but they don't generally make comments on the contents of my flower beds.  I was a little shocked to hear these compliments, and may or may not have made each person repeat themselves several times just to make sure we were talking about the same thing.  "Hang on- what?  Which flowers?  Those?  The tulips?  You think those tulips are pretty?  You like those?  Did Daddy tell you to say that?  He didn't?  Well, say it again.  Please."

They're possibly even better when viewed from above.  Excuse my favorite running shoes, photobombing a perfectly good tulip photo.

I always wonder why I planted the tulips below when their buds first form, as they're a somewhat unflattering yellow hue with just a hint of purple on the edges- "Shirley" tulips, because it turns out I do keep a label or two.  This photo is a few days after they first opened.

Over a period of weeks, however, they only become more beautiful as time wears on, and I remember how much I love them.  They bloomed for around three weeks, so they're some of the hardest working tulips we have.

Caedmon's getting better the older he gets, too.  Actually, all our kids are.  It's fantastic.

These surprised me.  I'd forgotten Derek's mom gave me some Gryffindor tulips last fall ("Gryffindor"- another tulip name I made up to suit my own whims and fancies).

I took that picture early in the morning as my family waited in the car, all packed and ready for a trip.  I was afraid the tulips wouldn't still be blooming when we returned, and just had to snap a picture before we left.

I think it's safe to say I was not everyone's favorite person when we returned home to these.

I was happy, anyway.

We have all kinds of other  delightful blooms dotting our yard right now, but what I'm excited about is this:

I need someone to make me a tiny sign like you see outside commercial construction sites:  "Future Home of Gladioluseseses, Zinnias, and Delphinium."

And now, for the help I so severely need (save the wisecracks, jokesters).

See this patch of yard, all around our dogwood tree?  Nothing will grow here.  Do you hear me?  Nothing.

"But Kristy," I hear you say.  "I see a number of green somethings growing in this picture."  Let me amend my statement to nothing you would want to grow in your yard is here.  That front-and-center space in our yard is 80% creeping Charlie, 20% grass.  Those little white things are the dogwood petals that have recently been blown and rained down upon the ground.

I have tried daffodils.  I have tried phlox.  I have even gone against my flower-loving heart and tried grass seed, all to no avail.  This is the Dead Zone, take heed all who venture and attempt to root here.

So tell me, friends, what do I plant here?  It's boxed in by sidewalks and our driveway, so I'm okay with trying something with a spreading habit.  It gets little sunlight, and the roots of that tree are very close to the surface.  We do walk through this a lot, but for the most part it's on stepping stones to get from the driveway to our front steps. 

Suggestions?  Anyone?  Please?

Gardens, But Not My Own

A week ago, even though it was chilly and wet out, we went to our local public garden one day after school.  This turned out to be a marvelous idea for a number of reasons, such as having the garden to ourselves, letting the children run off their post-school jitters/wiggles/mania,

and, of course, tulips.

Oh, the tulips.  Lavish in their beauty, and every time we rounded another corner we found another bed stuffed with tulips.

And just in case tulips aren't your thing (is this possible?  Is there a Tulip Haters Anonymous out there?), there were also certain other items of interest.

Those cardinals, the birdbath, water, everything, are made out of Lego bricks.  

Those deer are made of Lego bricks.

That spider suspended above our children is made out of Lego bricks.  

Are you sensing a theme here?  If not, well, honestly, I don't know what's wrong with you.  I have made this as obvious as possible.  Also, for the sake of your Monday, please embiggen this photo and take a closer look at those children.  I feel like I should probably admonish them to please let me get a nice photo every once in a while, but truth be told, these kinds of pictures are my very favorite.  Polished, we are not.  I am comfortable with this knowledge.

There were many other astonishing feats of Lego art we admired, but I'm tired of talking about Legos.  Let's get back to tulips.

If I can remember come fall, I'd like to try and get my hands on some of these Budlight tulips.  There has to be a reason they have that name, right?  Was the person who developed this particular type of tulip a big beer drinker?  Does anyone else besides me care?  

Tomorrow, let's look at my tulips (you just can't wait, right?!) and maybe someone will be able to tell me what to do with the Dead Zone, aka that patch of our yard where good plants go to die.  I swear I can almost hear them screaming for mercy when I plant them there, like a cartoon shoe facing The Dip.  I need help.  With gardening, not psychiatric or otherwise.  I realize parts of this paragraph may have convinced you otherwise, though.

The Fire of a Thousand Suns

It's that time of year again.  The time when I rage and vent my spleen and call down (metaphorical) hellfire on those creatures of darkness.

"First he ate some lettuces and some French beans; and then he ate some radishes, and then he did not pass Go and he did not collect $200 but went straight to Purgatory for breaking the eighth commandment with such dark glee."  -The Edited Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter and K.C.

Listen, I know rabbits have to eat.  I do.  And I have a whole yard full of clover for them to munch on to their hearts' content, because try as I might, I just cannot make myself care about grass.  Sure, I like to mow, but I'm just as happy cutting clover as I am cutting Kentucky Bluegrass or whatever the greener stuff is they grow on the other side.  What I do care about are my flower beds.  Guess who's been spending time in my flower beds?

Change his fur to grayish brown and that skull to the remains of my tulips, and you have my flower beds as of about a week ago.  As any knight knows, swords and chain mail are useless against such beasts, so I turn to the only weapon in my arsenal.

Three years ago Cassi told me about this stuff.  I'm still crazy grateful.

I sprayed this around the bitten-down stubs of my tulip foliage last week, hurrying because Derek and I were about to scurry out for a date.  When we got in the car, I wondered, "What is that smell?"  I was unable to locate the source of the stench until I scratched my nose and realized that Oh.  The smell is me.  I'd gotten some Liquid Fence on my gloves and therefore smelled like death.  We had to run back home anyway, so I switched out my gloves, as I didn't think the scent of blood and rotten eggs would mix well with barbecue.  

I also received this hate mail last week, because rabbits won't stop until they've achieved world domination.  I half expected to see cut out letters pasted on there under the photo, but they're much too canny for that.  "Easter bunny."  Sure.  He probably also has some candy in the back of his van.  Just 'hop' on in to pick some out, little girl.

When I haven't been waving my spade and shouting amorphous threats at the furry inhabitants of our yard (oh, and we have new neighbors who I'm pretty sure witnessed some of this.  Remind me to tell you the story of how they probably think I'm a monster because I wouldn't help Adelaide out of the tree she was stuck in.), I've been enjoying the warm weather by cleaning out and weeding the flower beds.  I've got around half of them done, and it's not even the middle of March!  Thanks, sixty-degree days!  I've even got a big chunk of the toughest bed done, and I've only found two nails so far.  

Right side:  Creeping Charlie, grass, iris rhizomes, and nails.  Left side:  Iris rhizomes only!

A few more years, and it's possible I'll have cleaned all the metal out of the dirt in our yard.  No telling how long it'll take me to dig out all the bricks inexplicably buried under the grass, though.  

If You're Happy And You Know It

The past several days have been very exciting, although keep in mind, "very exciting" for me includes scoring 2 gallons of vinegar for $3.48 (Sam's Club.  Get you some.) and gathering 90% of the ingredients for a new recipe for homemade laundry soap I'm making next week.  Also, this:

Anderson Erickson half-gallon of chocolate milk is on sale for 99 CENTS at Fareway this week, local friends!

But really?  The most exciting part of the past week?

That is dirt from my flower beds under my fingernails, and I couldn't be happier about it.  Last weekend our highs were in the fifties, and I was so happy yanking hunks of Creeping Charlie out of my warm beds that I didn't even think to look for those things I make you look at every spring until yesterday- but after clearing away several inches of winter debris, there they were:

Tulip shoots!  In February!  Yes, these are actually tiny, as I had to almost bury my phone in wet and frozen leaves to take this picture, and yes, there are only a few dozen so far because the rest are still resting under solid blocks of ice (as my poor fingernails discovered yesterday after getting a little over-excited trying to uncover all the tulip shoots), but still!  I squealed and did a little dance and said a prayer over them to ward off demon rabbits- you know, normal pre-spring rites.  Please also note I've decided to think of this time of year as pre-spring instead of late winter as it's exactly 78% less depressing.

Other fun things include the illness wending its way through our community, including our family.  Why "fun"?  Because this is strep throat/coughing/low-grade fever-type illness, which includes zero, I repeat, ZERO puking.  Remember the insane amounts of vomit I had to clean up only a month ago?  Yeah, I'm still not over that.  So when all our kids need to limp through this sickness is some extra rest and sugar-free hard candy to suck on to soothe their throats?  I'll take it.  Adelaide is old enough where all I had to do was make her a couple cups of tea and remain within touching distance for much of yesterday.

The above is a pretty normal sight when Daughter is under the weather, as she slowly inches her way around the room, body prone except for a single questing foot looking for some physical contact.  Sure, I could have helped her out and met her halfway, but I couldn't.  I was laughing too hard.

Instead I stayed right where I was and made her come all the way to me, although once she made it, I made sure to rub her head because I'm not completely heartless, plus she almost never lets me play with her hair anymore when she's well.  It reminded me rather strongly of the penultimate scene in To Kill a Mockingbird when Scout tells Boo, "You can pet him, Mr. Arthur, he's asleep.  You couldn't if he was awake, though, he wouldn't let you," in which case Adelaide is Jem and I am Boo.  Which brings me to something I found that I can't stop laughing at:

Derek laughed, too, when I showed it to him, albeit in a resigned way with which I am very familiar, because he is not on the winning side of this piece of relationship advice.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

I had plans today for this blog, plans for posts about nieces and family visits and running and humidity.

But then I stepped outside.  I crossed the street to our mailbox, opened it up, and hit the motherlode.

Oh, you thought "motherlode" referred to silver or gold or some other precious metal?  Nay, friends, this is a motherlode:



ONE

A gift card to the grocery store that opened right about a week ago right here in Brave New World, Iowa.  Now, our town is sufficiently small enough that we did not previously have a grocery store, but when it was announced around a year ago that Fareway was coming to town, well, the community just about lost its collective mind.  You have no idea.  People could not have been more excited if the President himself had decided to build a vacation home in our town- you know, to take advantage of the many amenities we have to offer, like, um... mile upon mile of corn fields, and... plenty of hog farms.  It's a glamorous life we live around here, now with A GROCERY STORE!  (You know those overly excited people I mentioned?  I was undoubtedly one of them.)  And now they're sending out gift cards?!  Come on down, Mr. President:  The corn is ripe and the bacon is plentiful.  Amen.



TWO

A Breck's Wholesale Catalog, because do you know how many tulip bulbs I plant each fall?  Neither do I, but the number is generally in the hundreds, because I can be the tiniest bit obsessive about some things, and tulips are most definitely one of those things.  I've always been satisfied with the bulbs I get from Breck's- good-sized and healthy- and I haven't been able to find better prices yet anywhere else.  This year I've got my eye on the Salmon Impression Tulip and World Impression Tulip.  Their Anemone blanda mixture is also enticing, although I have a tough time spending my spring flower budget on anything other than tulips.  Only three months until bulb planting, squeeee!





THIRD AND FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY

The sight of this package executed the twisted feat of filling me with tempered excitement and riddling me with anxiety, because apparently when my hopes begin to lift and float up where they don't belong, I get nervous.

Okay, so you know how Atticus has night terrors?  Horrifying, screaming, out-of-control, unconscious episodes that have perforated around 80%-90% of the last four years' of our family's nights?  Remember how we've tried everything?  Remember the mountains of advice we've received from people (people:  doctors, nurses, teachers, friends, family, strangers, google), how we've tried and tried and tried different things, but thus far our family has proven the depressing info you find in just about all of the medical literature:  That there's nothing you can really do except stay calm (you know, FOR YEARS) until they grow out of it?

Well, this box contains the newest thing we're trying, "thing" being the Lully.  My mom- who, bless her, has trolled the internet and special subscription-only medical databases and gone to sleep disorder seminars at her school nurse conferences, all trying to help us- she heard about the Lully via npr (who else hears or reads those three little letters and thinks, "Me!  I'll try it!  My hand is up, up, up!"), where their tech section did an article on this brand-spanking-new product, this pod-thing that you put under the afflicted child's mattress, sync up the associated app, and over a period of four weeks the Lully vibrates during a specific part of El Screamo's sleep cycle, not enough to wake them fully, just enough to disrupt and ward off the oncoming sleep disturbance.

The scary part is that this product did crazy-good during its testing and beta trials.  Hope is a fragile thing, and at this point it's near-exhausting to feel it stir its brittle limbs, ready to once again haul itself up and try, try again.  You'd think that at this point nothing would be capable of raising it, but my hope is evidently like a dust bowl farm, hard-scrabble and dry but still there, waiting for the (most likely nonexistent) rain.  I haven't even been able to summon the courage to open the box, but once we get this thing out and ready, you can most likely expect Lully News to dominate the posts around here for some time to come.

Unless it doesn't work at all for Atticus.  Which it probably won't.  (Unless it does!)

State of Our Yard Address

Yesterday after school, the kids and I arrived home to find our front porch was the scene of a terrible crime.

At first glance, it appeared that the Command hook I'd attached to the siding for the purposes of hanging a Christmas decoration had finally given up the ghost.  I was really pretty impressed; that thing had endured major temperature fluctuations, including winter temps well below zero, along with wind, snow, and rain, when I really hadn't known if it would stick at all, as the pictures on the product package showed a pampered indoor life of holding up umbrellas and cleaning supplies.

All this to say, I was not surprised to find that six months later, the thing had finally given out.

Upon closer inspection, however, all was not well here.

I actually gasped when I saw this.  Let's just say my life is not abounding in drama and variety.

But look!

We have four survivors!

We'd all noticed increased avian activity on our front porch this spring, especially in the vicinity of the wreath hung by the front door, but I had assumed the birds were using the faux yellow berries to liven up their nests.  I'd never thought to look on top for a nest!  (Nor would I have been tall enough to see it up there- but I could have asked Derek to check.)

So here's my question:  Do we leave the nest where it is, perched atop the fallen wreath?  Do we try to position it in the tree a mere twenty feet away, in front of the porch?

These branches are the usual home of nests.

Or is it too late, all folly, folly, folly at this point- that mother bird is gone forever and her eggs are doomed?  (I am only passing on the language of our daughter, here; she became instantly invested in the fates of those probably dead baby birds.)

In other outdoor news, the last of my tulips are still going strong.

These are new this year, and when they first bloomed I couldn't figure out why the heck I'd planted them; they were a creamy yellowish color at first with the tiniest bit of purple, and not all that pretty, but the longer they bloom the more lovely their colors become.  I took these pics at least a week ago; now they're more purple with white streaks, and they're one of the longest lasting tulips I've had this year, right after my Royal Jubilee tulips:

Yes, I've shown you photos of these already this year, but they're still going strong weeks after first blooming, with the more orangey tulips becoming more pink every day.  

All the tulips were more successful than my crocus bulbs I planted last fall:

Do you see what I see?  Because what I see is ZERO BLOOMS.  The nice variegated leaves came up, but no flowers.  I'm wondering if this is related to my daffodil problem; I have right around a dozen narcissus plantings around our yard, and got one single sad daffodil this year.  I think our soil is too high in nitrogen, and need to figure out what to do about that, but I'm also going to move these crocuses to a sunnier location, because the level of angst I felt at ZERO CROCUS BLOOMS was just the tiniest bit outrageous.  

Thankfully my variegated Solomon's Seal didn't let me down this year:

I planted it two years ago as a Mother's Day gift to myself, and it began as a single, arching branch, and stayed that way all last year, too.  This year it's finally begun to naturalize and spread, even displaying these little white bell blooms.

Along with the columbine, it's providing some welcome height and variation to the bed of snow-on-the-mountain that surrounds our giant pine.  

And finally, lest I give you the idea that all is green and flourishing in an Iowa spring, here are the rain lily and Boston fern I carted out of the basement yesterday:

They're looking a little worse for wear, because Iowa winters are harsh, indoors or out.  I'm hoping the spring air will perform some kind of magical rejuvenating powers on them.  A 10-day forecast featuring rain every bloody day probably won't hurt, either.

A Spring(ish) List

• You know it's spring when I force you to look at my teeny baby tulip sprouts:

Oliver Twist tulip shoots

I do this to you every year.  I'm so sorry.  (But not sorry enough to stop, muahahaha!)

Another thing I do year after year is tell you all about these mystery tulip shoots that I just don't remember planting.  I mean, I know I planted a load of bulbs last fall, but I can never remember quite where.  This year I also have vague memories of planting crocus bulbs, but darned if I can remember which bed they're in.  Probably one of those still half-buried in snow.  I may have also planted hyacinths?  Or not?  

I'm starting a Gardening Journal this year, complete with a map of our yard.  And this time I mean it!  (Did I or did I not type that exact sentence one year ago?  And possibly the year before that?)

Anyway, as you can no doubt see in that second photo up there, many of the tulip shoots are looking a little yellow and sickly, having been buried in leaves and snow, but three days of sunshine later they're looking much healthier.  I also bought a gallon of Liquid Fence this morning, in the hopes of staving off any Demon Rabbit rants that also mark spring on this blog.

• I'm still a little obsessed with taking pictures of our kids while asleep.  I took this one of Caedmon ten minutes ago.

I took this one of Caedmon four years ago.

Gaaaaah THE FEELS!

• In addition to Liquid Fence, I bought a whole bunch of seeds this morning, which made me feel absolutely suffused with happiness.  That is the Glory of Seeds.  There's even a Peter Cetera song about it.  Trust me on this one; he's really singing about gardening, because Seeds = Love.  In addition to all these new seeds, I still have a bunch of packets of old ones, because it's against my religion to throw out old seeds (I need Common Household Mom to write me a few verses on this topic from a suspiciously authentic-sounding book of the Bible, because she is brilliant at this.)  Fear not, though, friends!  This post on How to Test [Old] Vegetable and Annual Seeds was delivered straight to my inbox (FROM JESUS... by way of Mr. Jacobs) today, so those seeds will no longer languish in my seed drawer in the laundry room.  

The end.

Flowers Stand Still. Children Do Not.

A couple weekends ago we drove an hour south and visited the charming town of Pella, Iowa, to patronise their annual tulip festival, Tulip Time.

Let me tell you what, Pella is a town that takes their tulips seriously.  The festival is always the first weekend in May, and you hear stories about the citizens dumping beer all over their tulips to speed their growth and wrapping them in fleece to slow their growth and spraying diluted Jack Daniel's to prolong their blooming time all in order to try and get the tulips' blooms to coincide with this one weekend.  I feel like I would fit right in with these people- I didn't see a single rabbit while we were there.  If they're feeding expensive alcohol to their flowers, I wonder what measures are taken against tulip predators?  Something positively delightful, I'm sure.

When we first entered the town, Adelaide exclaimed over all the tulips we were driving by and began saying things like, "We should live here, Mom!" and "This looks like the town for us!"  And that was just over the tulips in people's yards and in front of the Pella Windows plant.  It is exceedingly lovely, and not just the tulips- everything, even the restaurants and gas stations, feature quaint architecture, not a tacky strip mall in sight.  Derek's worked in city government long enough for all this to make him observe that Pella might be a beautiful town to visit, but all the city codes that are surely in place to create this unified look might make owning property within the city limits fraught with red tape.

How about some flowers?

Even with God-only-knows-what-all measures that were undertaken by the city of Pella, there were a ton of tulips that had yet to bloom; our spring has been a couple weeks behind schedule, so I was actually surprised at how many had opened.  There were a ton of people there for the festival, but evidently the city has a steady stream of visitors throughout May just for the flowers.

I think the rivers of tulips snaking their way through the town's parks may have been my favorite part.

Tulip Time also serves as a celebration of the town's Dutch heritage, which means there were all kinds of women walking around town dressed in traditional Dutch garb, pushing their adorable babies in tulip-laden prams:

I love the juxtaposition of the old-timey-wimey garb and her thoroughly modern haircut and sunglasses.

We also saw Abe and Mary Todd Lincoln milling around before the big parade:

I'm not entirely sure what role they were supposed to play in a Dutch festival in Iowa- I know he was raised in Illinois, and Mary was from Missouri, so... sheer proximity?  They were known tulip-lovers in their day?  Perhaps one of you could enlighten me.  I noticed she was all in black and I wondered which of their children she was mourning.  She looked way less depressed than the rumor-mongers would have you believe, but then depressed people are often good at faking it.  I bet Derek was thinking these exact same things standing right next to me.  I just bet.

Marching bands are always one of my favorite parts of any parade, but the Pella Middle School marching band was especially fun to watch clomping along in their red clogs.

I also finally got to try a Dutch letter:

Derek kindly holding a Dutch letter for me, all the while knowing it was going straight on this blog.  He's a keeper.  (Not a quidditch Keeper, I mean one to be kept.  Just so we're clear.)

Since moving to Iowa, I don't know how many times incredulous natives have asked me, "You've never been to Tulip Time?!" and "You've never had Dutch letters?!"  Or, if they're locals of our little Norwegian immigrant-settled town, "YOU'VE NEVER HAD KRINGLA?!"  Well, now I can claim knowledge of the first two.  For the record, the Dutch letter was delicious: thin layers of light pastry interspersed with almond paste.  I do wonder what the "S" stands for, though.

We also tried yet again to get a few family photos.  Our children are much less compliant than tulips when faced with a camera.

Click to embiggen and see that Cade would rather poke his own eye out than smile for a family photo.

The one time that day they were still.

The weather, the flowers, the town, our family: everything was delightful, and I can't wait to go back.