Two years ago, we had the wiry juniper bushes between our house and the neighbor's house pulled up, leaving a bare sloped area along the length of the driveway with nothing but a row of really lovely cinder blocks in the ground to reinforce it. I will not show you pictures because it's embarrassing. Apologies to our next door neighbors, who have been trying to sell their house... I'm sure our lack of landscaping hasn't helped!
Meanwhile, we've really wanted to plant a garden. Unfortunately, we have some big walnut trees, making our backyard garden-unfriendly. We built some raised beds last year and had some success, but we wanted a real garden. A plot of land we can dig in and pluck salads from. Karl had a great idea to plant a little garden in the empty sloped space where the juniper bushes had been. When he suggested a terrace garden, I was basically in heaven. A
terrace garden. Sounds romantic, doesn't it? And vaguely Italian? Ya, well, we put the terrace garden in over the weekend and it's not romantic or Italian. It's kind of an eyesore, to be honest. Imagine chicken wire and stakes, and there you have it. I will also not show you any pictures of our terrace garden. I have high hopes that we will harvest at least one edible item from this disaster (Karl encouraged me to plant watermelon after pointing out how much money we'd save if we succeeded... we go through a lot of watermelon in the summer). I will, however, show you a genius idea that needs to happen at our house next year. It's from
here.
Why didn't we think of this? There would be a lot less chicken wire in our yard if we had.
Karl and I ventured out over the weekend to Kettle Moraine State Park. We had a beautiful campsite up on a hill. Check out the view! Through the trees, you can see Mauthe Lake.
We grilled a pizza for dinner. Why does food always taste so good on camping trips?
The next day, we made a pineapple upside-down cake in Karl's new cast iron dutch oven.
It was amazing. We were too nervous to try flipping it over (maybe next time!).
Can you believe that perfect piece of cake was baked on a campfire? Please don't be grossed out by the dirty plate. It was round two for cake before I remembered to take a picture. 
Every night, I set up our mini Crock Pot with oatmeal for the next morning. Last night (as part of my "Quick! Use up all frozen and canned items immediately so I can freeze and can some more this summer!" effort), a handful of frozen cranberries made their way into the Crock Pot. I added a little cinnamon and nutmeg this morning, and it was basically the best breakfast ever. Especially because it was rainy and cold and I took the bus to work. I was secretly happy about it, because it meant wearing my new green rain boots for the first time. I scored them at a thrift shop a couple of months ago. Aren't they darling? They're nice and tall so I can tuck my pants into them. No wet cuffs!
