Late Spring Garden

This sping has brought lots of rain and its fun to spend time in gardening. The veggie patch has received some new guests - cabbage is doing really well, Green Pepper is growing surprisingly well, Beans (pavta) is expanding a lot. Success from last year - tomatoes are doing well after some hick up and Parsley (kothimbir) quite successful. Strawberry have been disaster and Cucumber hanging on to just one small plant. Two tiny Grape vines are catching life. This year we have ditched the indoor greenhouse and have planted seeds directly in ground. In flowers front Jaswand is blooming nicely apart from profusely growing roses.

Apart from Veggie/flower patch, there are 3 more projects in Backyard. Main garden outside backdoor has received 10 perennial plants. Left back corner at fence has received 5 shade plants and there is plan to make small pond. Center shade garden at fence has received 6 plants. Only half of these 20 odd plants are showing life, hope others also catch life.

In front yard there are two projects. One is the annual flower bed on both sides of entrance. It has been extremely successful with many colorful flowers blooming constantly. Other project is lawn care. This year we have decided to cut and fertilize our lawn ourselves. We have bought tools like mower, trimmer, blower etc. and each Sun all family members take care of lawn. It also is going fine.

After demise of our old we now have Samsung Lumix which in compact enough to slip in pocket yet has wide angle and 10x zoom capability. Below link has photos of the late spring garden.

Late Spring Garden photos

Red Top Mountain picnic

The MMA committee team went to Red Top Mountain for a day picnic. We nearly cancelled it due to heavy rain forecast but the weather turned out to be very pleasant and no rain. We started off with lunch as it was past 12 for everyone to gather. The pot luck was delicious. After that we played games - rumal palavi and ubha khokho. It was real fun for adults and kids to play together.

After that we shifted to the small beach and played in water. Initially the water felt cold and after few min it was fun. We started back in evening and stopped at Starbuck for coffee break. It was a lot of fun. Below are the photos from picnic

Red Top Mountain Picnic photos

Spring Picnic - Bryson City

Last weekend we went on Spring Picnic with our Marietta friend circle - Punyarthy, Kulkarni, Dhaneshwar, Kher and Kamatkar. Prashant Deshpande was luckily visiting from Aurangabad and could join the fun. This was our 5th picnic together. This time we booked a large single cottage which had huge great room and 5 bedrooms with overall capacity for 30 persons. The location was at Bryson City - on southern side of Smokey Mountain national park. We started on Fri early afternoon since there was forecast for thunderstorms on the way. It was only 4 hrs drive on north. We took scenic route through mountain ranges hence it took longer. It rained heavily with thick fog on the way. Everybody reached by 7 pm. Bryson City is small sleepy tourist town. You can travel through almost every road in city within 15 min. Friday night was potluck day and Supriya had assigned different menu items to each family. We had lovely dinner followed by mainly chatting and discussions - most heated was 'how to preserve and promote Marathi culture/traditions'. There were 10 kids and they were busy playing among themselves. Sat morning breakfast of pohe+tea was to be cooked by gents. After lazy preparation we all set out at around 11 am. We drove to a creek nearby and parked our cars. I had planned small trek to 2 waterfalls. Weather was very pleasant (around 10deg) and cloudy. It reminded of our treks in Kulu Manali. First waterfall was just 20 min climb, from there we took a wrong route and went on a 1.5 mile detour into mountains. I had forgotten my route map in car so after a long walk we reached third waterfall unplanned. Exhausted we returned to parking and picnic area by 3 pm. Girls prepared bhel there while gents played on the green lawns. I actually had planned 'tubing rides' in the creek but the water was very cold. So in evening we just strolled in the downtown area near creek and enjoyed ice-cream. Sat night we ate all the extra food leftover and had nice singing program till 2 am past midnight. Sun morning was again lazy and we finished clean up by 11 am. After group photo session we departed. On way back we just took highways and returned quickly by 3 pm. It was lots of fun for all. Below is the link to picnic photos

Spring Picnic Photos - Bryson City

Earlier Sat we had 'trip planning meeting', below are photos from that meeting in Roswell Park.
Spring Picnic planning meeting

Gudhi Padwa function - MMA

The Gudhi Padwa function last Sat was a great success. We had 500+ total attendees though the evite confirmations were only 460. I was neck deep into driving the entertainment event. I was at the location at 11 am in morning to start setting up the hanging mikes for drama and music system for songs. Supriya and rest of the committee members arrived at 1 pm. Supriya was leading food team and quickly got to setting up stalls. At 3 pm people started arriving and they were given Upama and Panhe. Artists also arrived around that time and we started tuning the mikes with sample dialogues and songs. Exactly at 4 pm the song program started and went on till 5 pm. I and Supriya were also the stage anchors but we had brief introductions only planned. After 30 min tea break the second session was for Kathakathan and Natak by Chicago team. Dinner also started on time at 7.30pm. Youth committee had separate activities in Gym and kids were happy there. We finished at 10 pm and came home. The event was a real success with congratulatory emails still pouring. People are praising - sticking to time schedule, great food, kids activities, variety entertainment. Below is the link for the pictures from the function.
Gudhi Padwa function pictures

Spring is here

Spring is officially started and brought loads of rain over past 2 weeks. Temp is slightly up to 10-12 DegC. The Daffodils are in full bloom and they are looking pretty. Tulip plants have sprouted but only 3-4 inch tall as yet. I guess the variety that we have planted is late spring bloom. Azalea plants have started showing some flower buds as they are early spring blooming variety. Here are some pictures that I had taken late winter till Spring changes.
Spring Garden Pictures

With modest Spring temp and daylight saving, Chinar has started playing outside. He now has learnt to bike without training wheels (we had to run a lot for 3-4 days but he learnt quickly). His friend Kendall comes regularly for playing in back yard.
Kids Spring Play pictures

Last weekend there was a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese’s games arcade and that is a very favorite spot for Chinar. Manali initially enjoyed but later confessed that she has grown out of that now. Here are some pictures from the party.
Chuck E Cheese’s Party

Turtle in backyard

Yesterday we had a new visiter in our backyard...a small turtle. Kids have named it Ernie. We googled for tutle pictures and found that this is a 'box tutle'.
Chinar immediately called his friend Kendall who stays on opposite side. They were trying to pet and feed the turtle.

Manali made a small habitat pond for Earnie and dropped some leaves and sticks apart from a big stone to rest, But Earnie was happy to roam around in the backyard. We will be leaving for India in 2 days so this visiter will have to be let out in the wild again.

Backyard Superman Rescue