New Backyard Fixture & Winter Garden Reflections

About a month ago, our next door neighbor closed down her preschool/daycare and was getting rid of the playthings in her backyard. She posted on Facebook about the swing set for 100 bucks and I jumped all over that!! So they lifted the thing over the fence and now it resides in our backyard! :) The kids are in love with it and are out there almost every day swinging to their hearts' content! ♥

A couple weeks ago, we had some killer rainstorms that lasted for days. Ahhhhh, I love the rain! I made homemade soup and bread bowls one evening that happened to be just the thing to end a stormy day.The past couple days, the weather has been gorgeous - in the mid 70s - and we've been enjoying the fresh air. Poor dude, doesn't quite know what to do on the grass. I love the foot lifting! haha

Perhaps he's roaring at me like the dinosaur on his shirt???There he goes!!~~

Once again, we've loved having a garden right out the back door!! We've had some dang good salads lately with fresh lettuce straight from the ground. I've eagerly been anticipating the full growth of our 6 broccoli plants. We go through a ton of broccoli in this house (mostly due to my love for it) and I couldn't wait to try our own. I swear it was like one day they were tiny and the next day they were THIS -- already flowering!! I had no idea broccoli did this! Boohoo. :(But apparently it's not bad news for everyone. If you look closely (enlarge the picture below for better effect) this particular one is SWARMING with BEES!!!!! There had to be at least 15 or more, sniffing away at those flowers!
Next year, you can be sure that *I* will be enjoying my broccoli, not the bees.

Our crop of carrots are fiiiiiiiiinally getting around to being edible. We planted a whole mess of them close together, so some of them look a bit gnarly. We picked the last of the citrus off the trees. The grapefruits were good enough for me, but not the best I've had. The oranges, not so hot. We're still learning the art of watering and fertilizing and hoping for a better, more abundant crop next winter!Looking forward to our summer garden again with tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, melons and I think we're going to try corn, too!!! :) Makes me feel good to be a teense bit more self-reliant.