Crabbin'

The story Travis likes to tell is that crabbing is what got me to Louisiana. While it wasn't the only reason, I'd be lying if I said I didn't like filling up an ice chest of crabs, boiling them for our friends, and still having some left over for the freezer.
And we did just that for Cinco de Mayo. Even better though, this time we got to bring a first timer! Our friend Holly joined us bright and early then stayed late for crab cracking (and coronas), and lived to tell about it. You can find her fabulous article about our adventure here!
We had a good haul, but it was still early in the season. A few more trips out to our spot are a must.

First Harvest

We got our first harvest of the season yesterday!
The bell peppers had toppled the plant there were so many of them, and the zucchini amazed me at how quickly it grew. Chopped up and thrown on the bbq for dinner- it doesn't get much fresher than that.

May Flowers

Our garden is getting fuller and fuller every day.
The bell peppers are almost bigger than the plant they are on.
Tomatoes are becoming tarantulas again.
Basil sprouted from seed and has now taken over the front corner.
A squash plant that made it through frost has taken over, though all of the squash get to about the size of a golf ball then turn yellow and wilt. Any squash experts out there?
So far the most exciting though, is this Zinnia. I had planted from seed a slew of white ones for the wedding last year. They all came back up from the seeds on their own this year, some still white, some bright fuchsia, and this one a perfect mix... The Spanish Town Zinnia.

Front Door Makeover

Our front door was in need of a good coat of paint. The white didn't quite make sense on a black door, and it was rusting through on half of it. We headed to the paint store for a can of black, where the paint guy warned us to get oil-based, "cuz if ya geht bah-ba-qu on it den it will come off".
A few long days of drying and the front door had a quick makeover.
So far so good on the BBQ...

Walkway Update

Bricks were the next step after pouring the concrete pads for the walkway. Sounds pretty simple in theory right? Pick a pretty pattern, lay them out, then add some mortar. No quite. For some reason we had a large number of bricks buried under the grass in the back yard (probably why the grass doesn't grow well, yeah?) so in the process of digging out for the pads we unearthed them all.
Free bricks, awesome!
Dirty bricks, not so awesome...
Travis and I spent Easter Sunday scrubbing the bricks to get the years of dirt, moss, algae and everything else off. It was a workout. Another weekend of scrubbing and hopefully we'll begin the "simple" part.

dirty bricks.

clean bricks.