This past weekend we did so much! When we came home from work, the very dead pine tree in our front yard had been removed and we cleaned up the wood chips.
I made pumpkin bread/cake. I've been meaning to for a very long time. It turned out very nice and I am going to take out the chocolate chips next time and add cinnamon chips. Chocolate chips go better in zucchini bread.
Saturday, we went to our local nursery to pick out some trees for the front yard, just in time for Earth Day. We picked out a cool weeping Birch tree and two apple trees. It looks so bare with the dead tree gone, but there was no chance of it coming back to life, so it had to go.
The weekend was slated for sailing - so by 4PM, we left the dock and headed out to Blake Island State Park. The tide and wind was perfect and we didn't have to tack (made a turn) until we were almost there. The trip took a few hours, sometimes it can take 4 hours. A friendly sailboat let us raft up to the last spot next to the dock and we started the quest we had come for.
Jesper got it in his head that we were going to find a Madrona tree sapling and bring it home. We set out examining the ground and trees and I helped Jesper notice differences between leaves and named what I knew. We decided to walk around the island. About 10 minutes in, it started to rain pretty hard. By the time we circles the island, we had been drenched and had traversed many mud puddles. We saw a lot of deer wandering in the dark.
We've heard that Madrona don't transplant well, and so that challenge made Jesper want to get one badly. He thought he'd found one at the beginning of the hike and after dinner he snuck out into the dark and spent some time with a knife, spoon and a raccoon digging at the wrong species, it wouldn't come up anyway. Somehow we had started out grabbing the wrong example leaf. Sunday we got the right leaf and still found no saplings. It was fun to look anyway.
There was only enough wind to take us half way home, so we motored back and had time when we got home to mow the lawn, make dinner and relax.
Notice Jesper is wearing his new Fuzzy Feet.