Our back yard

I love our backyard, especially when our fruit trees are bearing the most delicious fruit! The only thing I wish was different is having a covered patio so we could eat outside more and not be sitting in the sun. I LOVE our swing (just off the patio) and adore laying out on it reading a good book.

This is our johnny/gold apple tree which is LOADED with apples every other year. We learned that if we weed the apples out early in the season, they'll bear every year and the apples will be bigger. Mike tried that this year, and did weed out about 300 apples, but still, there are probably a thousand apples on the tree! No kidding. One year I got ambitious and with Mom and David and my friend Janae's help, made about 70 quarts of applesauce. I still haven't recovered from that hellish day, and think that canned applesauce from the store tastes just as good. . . So I let it be known to family and friends that we have lots of apples to give away!

Our pear tree is loaded with lots of yummy pears every year. Some years I bottle them, other years I make pear/raspberry jam, we always eat a lot, and I give away a lot. Everyone is always happy to receive a bag since most people don't have pear trees in our neighborhood.

This is our garden that Mike works hard (well, sort of) at planting, watering and harvesting. We've already harvested all the beans and onions, that's why it doesn't look that big right now. We are still getting tomatoes and zuchinni. We give lots of those away too. Some years I bottle tomatoes or do salsa, but this year I'm not feeling it.

This is our apricot tree which has already produced tons of delicious apricots- the main portion of which we gave away! I did freeze some for smoothies as I wrote about in an earlier post.

We spend a lot of time together in our back yard jumping on the trampoline, playing beach volleyball, badminton, cooking out, playing catch, croquet, and other activities. It's awesome that none of our neighbors have barking dogs to disturb our fun (and sleep!)