and the answer is: Mulberry Trees!

We have identification of the mystery trees thanks to the guys on the Forestry forum...they are mulberry trees! Will have to see if we want to keep all of them as they can be invasive and the female trees which have the berries are kinda messy..BUT the fruit IS tasty! I remember a friend having a mulberry tree when I was growing up and we would come home with purple fingers and lips and drips all over our playclothes when the fruit was ripe.

I wonder if I should raise a couple of silkworms!

Volunteer 'Trees' Are Blooming

There are little flowering buds on several of the volunteer 'trees'...I still do not know what these are...I was able to pull up one of the little ones without much effort... I am thinking I will have to take a branch to a nursery and see if they can tell me...Even if it is a weed, it's a nice looking weed..and unless it's poisonous, I think we might just let them grow...

First Picnic of the Season

DH and I ate our dinner out in the back yard today..kind of a picnic of sorts! We had little hot dogs with mustard, diet soda and steamed broccoli... The back yard is very green and trees are starting to leaf out.. the lemon tree is full of blossoms (and lemons!):

We are trying to figure out what this tree/plant is..its a 'volunteer' along with about 20 more of them in the back yard..they lost their leaves during the winter and are the first of the trees(?) to leaf out..right now they are about 15 feet high...so I don't think they are weeds (I hope not anyway)! Our best guess is some sort of oak..but if anyone knows for sure, please let me know...

They are directly under where the birds sit in the trees...

Neighbor's horse is enjoying the fresh air and has munched all of the grass he can reach from his stall...

The moonrise over the trees:

Cooking... Er...Make That Drying With Gas!

A brief pause for some home maintenance:

We replaced the belt on the dryer - Whoohoo! It only took about 45 minutes and a goodly chunk of that was trying to find enough chunks of wood to hold the dryer drum up so we could remove the front panel...The trickiest part was figuring out how the tensioner connected back to the bottom of the dryer - it fell off when the belt broke and the picture from the internet was not dreadfully detailed - thankfully it was not broken off! When I saw it was just laying there in the bottom, my heart kinda sank, thinking we would probably have to call the repairman after all... But...we have liftoff! Good thing too..the wind is whipping around today - way too windy to put clothes out to line dry - they would likely be found flying around in the next county if I tried!

Back to the o' grindstone...

Laundry Update

I am pretty sure it's just the belt on the dryer...I popped the top open per the instructions I found by Googling and sure enough, the belt is just hanging...Sears wants 18 bucks for the replacement...found one on eBay for 3! So..just have to wait for it to be delivered...and find a time when both of us will be home to try the repair. If it doesn't work, then I guess we get a new set...but boy, howdy..we looked at the prices and our eyes about popped right out of our heads!

Meanwhile, til the repair is effected, I hauled out my old wooden drying rack (In my panic last weekend, I did not remember I had it!) and we purchased a clothesline that we can string between the two bench swing sets on the patio for sunny days (which it hasn't been for the last few days - we actually got some rain!!!)...and a couple packages of clothes pins...I remembered my Granny used clothes pins and she had a cute little pin bag...so I made me one out of a fat quarter that I would never ever use in a quilt - I won it and its just NOT my style for quilting - old fashioned looking turquoise, red and pink umbrellas...but it made a cute pin bag (and I shall not care if it self destructs...though with my luck the thing will be around for the next 20 years).

Sideways, Just A Little Bit...

Well..I WAS doing laundry yesterday, as advertised - but when I went out to the garage to take the dry stuff out and put the last load into the dryer before heading to bed, I opened up the dryer door and ACKKKK...the contents were still SOAKING WET!!!...apparently the belt snapped (we have yet to actually look inside the machine, but we have pictures from the Internet on HOW to look) and the symptoms match a broken belt...

So...what do one DO with two large tubs of soaking wet laundry? DH bundled the stuff into the car and set out to see if there were any open laundromats...nothing doing...every one that we knew about, and a few from the phone book, were dark and locked up...so we thought about stringing up some rope in the kitchen...that didn't work either...so at 1 am, we gave up trying to figure it out and stuffed the laundry tubs back out in the cold garage and DH said he would take the clothes to the laundromat at 6 am...This did not leave much time for sleeping!

We haven't figured out if we want to try to fix the poor thing (a new belt is pretty cheap) or just get a new laundry pair...it's not like this pair are spring chickens - we bought them about a week after moving into this house 27 years ago and they have most definitely earned their keep...only one other time did we have to have a repair when the dryer thermostat broke. It would be nice to have a new set, but we are not sure we want to spend alot. We have to go shopping to see what the options are out there...any suggestions?

Ye Olde Oaken Cabinets

One of those chores that owners of oak cabinets face, especially if said cabinets are in the bathroom or the kitchen (I have them in both- what was the builder thinking!) is periodically refinishing the surface of the cabinets since moisture can make them a bit grayish and streaky...I hadn't done mine in a while and they were in sore need! I use a restorer called Howard Restor-a-Finish..you apply it with a pad of fine steel wool, wipe dry then top with orange oil wax...it took me two days, but I finished both bathrooms and the kitchen...owww! my hands are sore! But ye olde oaken cabinets look purty dang good...and I managed to not get any of the stuff in my fingernails. Most of the neighbors have replaced their cabinets (or at least the doors) but I have managed to keep mine looking good enough that I don't see the need to spend all that money to replace them...especially since the Howard stuff is relatively inexpensive and only takes a couple of days for me to do...