A little bit of rain, and a lot of sunshine!

      I wrote this post and while I was typing in a caption under a photo, the whole thing including all the photos disappeared! Where did it go? Oh well, guess I'll start over! We've had family, especially little great-nieces, here a lot lately! They've moved only ten minutes away! I'll have to learn how to balance blogging and children, along with my other chores. Each new season has it's trials and difficulties but as the season progresses, everything gets balanced out, hopefully! Longer days, more work outside! Shorter days, more work inside! 

      The weather has been rainy lately, but today it's beautiful and sunny! The garden is growing nicely! There are beans coming up and green strawberries! I can hardly wait to harvest them! The squash and cucumbers haven't come up, but the nights have been a little cool. They will probably come up next week. Summer will show up just as quickly as Spring did! We'll have a nice day, then the next it will be eighty-something! I hope to get the mulch and landscape fabric down before it gets much hotter! Skylar has been helping, but today he is working! Guess I'll have to get out there and get it done! I love being outside! The flowers are blooming and the weather feels good! It just gets really hot around all that concrete!

      I've been in the kitchen as usual, cooking all kinds of things! I'm also experimenting with different techniques of cooking. I tried a cook box and found that it really works! I cooked soup on the stove for about ten minutes, then put it in the box. It stayed there for a couple hours, and walla, it's done! Good for saving on electricity or whatever you use to cook with! I'm still trying the solar shield cooking and the next sunny day, I'm going to cook potatoes! I think it will work! Tonight I'm using the pressure cooker, as that uses much less electricity, and gets the job done quickly! Have you tried different ways to cook in order to save on gas or electricity? Let me know in the comments. Ya'll have a nice week! Blessings from Bama!

Ran, my Dad, Winterlynn, Yasmine and Layla.

The blackberries are blooming! That's what all those white blooms are.

I'm having to cook on my induction burner. After only seven years of cooking on the stove, one of the eyes have gone out.

Ta-da! Our new Berkey! I've been wanting one of these for about three years, so we finally got one! The water tastes great; actually, it has no taste!

 This beautiful bird was on the bird feeder the other day! I don't know what kind it is!

                  Isn't it beautiful?

The cook-box. Wrap the pot in blankets then place in the box.

Skylar working on the mulch.

Aren't these irises gorgeous?

These look almost black!

The clematis is the same color.

A peony bud.

I love this shade of yellow!

The Lady Banks in full bloom.

Riley enjoyed watching me dig.

Such a dainty little rose!

She already loves to swing!

Win likes the see-saw!

Nanny pushing her. Riley looks like she's smiling!

Riley slept here for three hours! I didn't know she would sleep that long! She usually only sleeps for thirty minutes! I guess the swing wore her out!

The wisteria has really grown this year!

Aren't these red roses pretty?

The flower bed is coming along!

More dainty roses.

The refrigerator is not the theme of this photo! The fig tree is! The fridge is on its way out! The hubs was going to turn it into a solar oven but has decided it would be too much work.

The bees are busy about the hive!

The small hive is doing good too!

Green strawberries!

The rattlesnake beans are emerging!

The almost black irises and clematis.