New Additions

Spring has well and truly arrived here in Northern Virginia.  Today it was a beautiful seventy degrees, and over the next few days the forecast predicts a climb to eighty degrees.  Tonight Nick is grilling our dinner outside, another marker of spring.  While he grills, plan to relax and enjoy a hard cider while sitting comfortably on our redone swing.

 

The swing had been left behind by the previous owners, and was sitting neglected in the front yard when I moved in.  I neglected to take a "before" photo, but picture an off-white frame covered with dirt and patches of rusty, and filthy beige seats with little clumps of moss growing on them.  I took the whole thing apart, cleaned it, spray-painted like a fiend (frame and seats), and enlisted Nick's help in putting the seats back in and rehanging it.  He also moved it to the backyard, which is a more pleasant place to sit and relax.  I kind of took over the project time this weekend with this thing (we were originally planning on sanding and staining the bed frame that Nick has finished building), but given how nice the weather is going to be this week, I think we'll be glad to have it.  It's pretty comfortable, too!

We have two other additions that are actually new.  The first is a beautiful personalized windchime, given to Nick as a groomsman gift from a wedding we recently attended.  It is quite pretty, and sounds even more lovely than it looks!

The last is more garden-related.  We ended up moving our bird feeders around to evade the squirrels, which resulted in the larger feeder and the smaller feeder on different poles.  This freed up a hook on the double-pole, so we bought a hanging basket and strawberry plants to try.  We've never had any luck growing them, so we didn't want to waste garden space on them, but a pretty little experiment in  a hanging basket ought to be fun.  If the squirrels don't get them first, that is.

A tiny baby berry!  Hooray!