"Echoes of Eden" Dayle King Searle

A daffodil is blooming in my garden. In March. Anyone who is not from eastern Idaho will not appreciate the amazingness of that statement. People in other places think there are four seasons--summer, autumn, winter, and spring. In eastern Idaho we have six seasons--summer, autumn, winter, fake spring, second winter, and "ugly but real" spring. Summer, autumn, and winter here are like in other places, but then in March fake spring comes. It is usually a week or two of nice weather, during which the snow melts and newcomers to the area rejoice that winter is over. Those of us who have lived in eastern Idaho a long time feel a little smug about our knowledge of how nature works here. We say things like, "Don't let it fool you. Winter isn't over yet." A few years ago in March I heard a college student, who was from here, say her roommate, who was from California, was convinced that spring had arrived, but she warned her, "No it isn't. It will snow fiv...

     When William Shakespeare penned the phrase, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet," I'm sure he wasn't referring to plant nomenclature. However, roses, like all plants, have multiple names, and sorting things out can sometimes be a bit confusing. Here is a simple explanation of plant names, and why this knowledge is important for home gardeners.

           I have always wanted a beautiful Christmas tree. When I enter homes where there are designer trees--coordinating colors and ornaments skillfully arranged on a perfectly shaped tree--I am hit with a feeling of envy that is quite out of tune with the whole Christmas spirit thing. I can visualize how my beautiful tree would look. The color scheme would be red and gold, the style ornate and bordering on Baroque. When it comes to Christmas, I am a traditionalist.

     We got the pictures taken by our wedding photographer, Alicia Richmond. Check out her work at Alicia Richmond Photography on Facebook.     Several of her pictures showed off the yard and details well, so I'm doing another wedding post using them.

     It finally arrived--the wedding day!      Bear in mind that as the mother of the bride, I was too busy to take pictures. So I'm dependent on other people's photography to get pictures of how the yard looked for the wedding. I've had a couple of people send me photos, and I'll post some of them here. If I get more later that show the yard well, I'll do a "The Wedding--Part 2" post.           I'll start off with a picture of my whole clan. It was a wonderful day of celebration, and all of my children and grandchildren were there. Between that and the gorgeous weather we had--not the norm for the past few weeks--I felt very blessed!  

    We have a concrete slab in our backyard that we call "the basketball court." It is where our children learned to ride bikes and where countless games of Horse have been played. For the wedding, it will serve as the dance floor.           When I looked at this utilitarian, but ugly, concrete and imagined the chiffon lined tent complete with chandeliers that will cover it for the wedding, the designer in me said, "No, no, no, this will not do at all!" The floor under the tent needed to be something more attractive.  But concrete is what we had, and we weren't getting rid of it. So what was I to do?

     My husband built this swing set over fifteen years ago. It is still sturdy and, as you can see from this picture taken at our annual Easter Egg Hunt, it gets a lot of use.      But despite still being functional, it wasn't looking very good. Since the swing set is right by the main area for the reception, we decided it needed a little sprucing up.