A Veggie Maternity Ward

There is very little that brings me as much joy as planting seeds. I cleared out the lettuce graveyard and turned it into a maternity ward for onions, herbs, and peppers. I can't wait to see sprouts!

 

Drip Drip

On this gorgeous sunny Saturday, nothing could keep us away from the maple forest after we finished mucking the barns. Indeed, the sap has started flowing! We found some hefty ice chunks in our buckets. Alistair is big enough this year to really engaged and helpful with mapling - even if he can't quite see into the buckets yet.

Insanity

The last month has been insane. I have worked every single daytime, evening and most weekends for the past three weeks. Except, of course, for the two days I had the stomach flu and thought I was going to die.

I submitted the third of three grants worth 1 million dollar combined today. Finally. I am beyond exhausted. I feel a bit like my poor banana plant who was a victim of my neglect over the past month - not dead but not great. And it didn't even fare the worst. The kids and dogs all need haircuts badly, the barns need to be mucked immediately, and my lettuce all died. Like completely, totally dead. In all honestly, I feel pretty fried right now too. It has been a month of pure insanity.

On the one positive note, I was awarded $220K in grant funds as the lead researcher in the past two weeks (three separate successful grants). If only being awarded funding didn't come with more work!

Working

While I continue into the third week of 14-hour workdays during grant season, Ian travelled for work this week. For some reason his work looks very different than mine.

Maple Season Starts

It is the sweetest time of year. We put in our maple taps today. This is the perfect picture that I took right before Seamus swung around holding the drill and hit Alistair in the nose with the drill bit. Sigh. If only real life were more like the pretty pictures.

Seamus is Eight

Another March brings another birthday for our Seamus. This year he turned eight! He is growing in leaps and bounds. I can't wait to see what this year has in store for him.

Double Sigh

There is nothing like the reaction of this kid to make me feel like the extra effort of making healthy, homemade stir-fry for dinner on a weeknight was worth it. Sigh. Note, he is only eating it because there was dessert available to those who finished their dinner. I don't know how parents who don't bribe their kids with dessert do it. Double sigh.