My Garden

I'm so excited for spring! I have taken up a stronger interest in gardening. I've always loved the outcome of gardening, but not all the hard work. I feel like now more than ever, it's time to learn gardening. The economy is horrible, people are losing their jobs, and most of all our Prophet has asked us to! Besides all that, food just tastes so much better when grown in your own backyard. I had already planted five fruit trees two years ago when we put in the pool. Now I just bought five more. In a couple years, we'll have fruit coming out our ears! They're all pretty much semi-dwarf. So they won't be producing massive amounts. With all the winds and the summer heat, I'm surprised they produced anything. Last year we got about 20 lemons, 20 plums, and 10 peaches. I'm still waiting to get some oranges. They don't ever survive!


I planted beefsteak and cherry tomatoes, banana pepper, habanero pepper, sugar snap peas, zucchini, and eventually pumpkins next month.


We just paid a landscaper to come redo our sprinklers in the flower beds. Then he put in a cement border all around the flower beds. I tore out all the yellow flower ground cover that was taking over the planters. That was an enormous job! The roots were everywhere. It looks so much better now. I planted five fruit trees in the front to take advantage of our huge front yard. I also bought a lot of perennials. I'm hoping they survive and I won't have to keep buying annuals every year. I planted four hibiscus, three geranium, three lavender, petunias, begonias, pelosia, and marigolds. I've been wanting to plant begonias for a long time ever since Dad has been planting them in his yard. They're so pretty!


My marigolds pretty much died already. I assigned Payton the daily job of watering them. It looks like he wasn't too diligent. I also bought a package of mixed sunflower seeds and planted them all around the perimeter of the backyard. I'm hoping they survive. There's already 30 or more seedlings ready to grow!


This is our peach tree that blooms so pretty in the spring. Now we have two Eve's pride peach, two satsuma plum, Bing cherry, Bartlett pear, Washington navel orange, Valencia orange, Golden delicious apple, and eureka lemon. I guess I'll be needing one more cherry variety to pollinate with the Bing cherry. Some of these don't produce well in warmer climates. But I just couldn't resist the cherry. It's so yummy.

Chino Planes of Fame Museum

We went with the cubscouts to visit the chino air museum. We've lived in the area for 10 years and never gone there. They had a lot of historic planes from different wars. Most of them are in working condition. The boys really liked it.

Painted Canyon, Palm Dessert

Uncle Gene planned a family hike in March. It was at Painted Canyon. We had so much fun. The trail was very narrow and tall. Sometimes we had to climb ladders to get in and out of crevices. Uncle Scott, Gene, Brett, and kids went. We had a great time until the three monkeys kept wandering ahead. They wanted to keep a faster pace than a three year old. Some of us made it all the way to the top. There was a beautiful view. Afterwards, Uncle Gene took us to a cafe that made famous date shakes. Most everyone liked the chocolate. Sorry Uncle Gene! We still had fun!

This was the beginning of the trail. It started out nice and easy.

Sawyer, Brett, and Melinda. Sawyer didn't want to walk for too much of the hike.

Brandon forging ahead inbetween the narrow canyons.

Lacey, Carter, Payton, Austin, Brandon. They all made it to the top of the mountain. Uncle Scott kept up with them. They were too fast for the little ones.

Lakers Basketball team

This is Brandon's second year in Norco Basketball. He improved so much this year. Towards the middle of the season, he started playing point guard. He did pretty good. Unfortunately, their team only won 2 out of 10 games. It's all about having fun, right? The games were fun to watch. They went really quick and always a lot of action. His friend Nathan Cline was on the team too.