Under the pine trees and yipes! stripes!

Nothing good has ever grown under the three big pine trees in the front yard. More and more pine needles every fall smother the grass and there is not a lot of light. So when Joe brought 9 dozen impatiens on Mother's day I made the decision to put 3 dozen under each tree. Time will tell, but they look like they are doing well.

Here is the tree to the west of the driveway, looking south:

Here is the tree closest to the house on the east, looking east:

And here is the tree closest to the road on the east, looking north:

Earlier this Spring, I purchased some "weed and feed" stuff to apply to our lawn with the hope of knocking down a certain weed that every year takes over and crowds out the grass. It is a tough weed with wiry stems and leaves that look somewhat clover-like. Because of various weather-related issues it was Mutti who applied the granular fertilizer/herbicide. She was a bit disappointed in the application which she could tell was uneven--some spots getting much more than recommended. The result was a distinct striping effect in some spots:

However, upon closer examination, Mutti's uneven application provided and excellent controlled experiment that was repeated over and over in various sections of our yard. In every case the darker green stripes (which we assume had gotten the overdose), had much less of the pesky weed. Here is the interface between light and dark green in the picture, above:

And here is the product, which we will definitely use again:

The last few weeks in pictures

Deer walking through our back yard is a constant occurrence.

We found a veritable archaeological dig in the trunk of Barbara's car.

We enjoyed breakfast at Joe's house to celebrate Star & Dandelion's birthdays (Mutti wants me to clarify that there was more than doughnuts, by the way).

After the breakfast we all walked over to the Missouri Botanical Gardens for the Chinese Festival. Here we are waiting for the parade.

Here is part of what we saw.

We went to Maryland for the Stadtman Symposium. Here is the lab photo taken when I was there.

Does anyone remember this house?

There were amazing flowering trees and bushes in Uncle Mike & Aunt Connie's neighborhood.

We came home from Maryland in time to get ready for the GR's to arrive for Rebecca's birthday celebration. The Magic House on Friday and Vlasis Park and the Butterfly House on Saturday were all a part of this trip. Here is a picture of the GR's at the Butterfly House. The next weekend was Mother's Day, and we had a great Sunday morning brunch.

Joe and Suzanne brought plants (including 3 tomatoes) and he & Suzanne put them in the ground.

Since then we have put more of the plants Joe brought at the base of our large pine trees. They look very nice.

Thank you all for most enjoyable times!