Playing Outside This Morning

I was not in the mood to be awake this morning.  I am very much one of those people who needs a lot of sleep.  But sometimes I try to wake up a little before the kids usually wake up in the morning so that I can have a little time to myself.  And almost every time they decide to wake up early too.  This was one of those mornings.

Noah left to go grocery shopping as the kids and I were eating breakfast, so I was on my own with the kids and my sleepy mind to try to kill some time before Oliver would be taking his first nap.

We zipped up our jackets and headed outside.

The hollyhocks in the front landscaping were covered in dew drops and just too pretty to not take a picture.

Oliver started dropping rocks into my mud boots at one point while I sipped coffee from my thermos.  

After hanging around the house for a bit, we trekked out to the back of the pasture behind the barn to see if the "immortal fig tree" was still alive.

Last year we bought a couple of fig trees to add to our fruit tree collection.  We never got around to planting them in the ground but we had read that they did well in pots too so we tried to over winter them for planting this year.  Come spring time and warmer temperatures we pulled out the fig trees so they could "wake up" and get ready for planting.  But nothing happened.  For quite a long time.  Maybe a month or so went by and the trees were still showing no signs of life.  We figured we had ended up killing them somehow so Noah took them down to the garage intending to empty the pots and use them for something else.  A few weeks later as we were leaving the house I noticed, "Hey, something is growing in here!"

Somehow, in the darkness of the garage, without being watered, one of the fig trees started to grow back.  I eventually planted it in the pasture and every few days I stomp out to it with a full watering can to see if it is still alive.  So far it has been doing well and continuing to grow.  Maybe one of these years we'll actually have some figs!

The kids ran around in the grass for a while, looking at all sorts of plants and bugs.  Adeline loves to pick flowers.

Even though we have lived here for three years, I don't think I had realized until this summer just how many different plants are growing wild in the back pasture.  There is so much variety out there and quite a few plants that I don't recognize.

Every summer we have lived here so far I've either been pregnant or taking care of a newborn baby.  This summer neither of those things are happening and it has been really lovely having more time and energy to enjoy the outdoors.  Especially since the kids love being outside so much.

I am very thankful for where we live and that our kids have so much room to run around and explore.