In Just a Few Days

In just a few days time everything can change. There has been heaps of new good news from all sides. We have been so busy around here cleaning up and preparing for the things that our summer is going to bring that I haven't had much time to take pictures lately, or sew. I have a bunch of things cut out waiting to get sewn together. I did accomplish a couple of flat sheets for my kids beds. Their papa made them a custom size twin bed to fit special in their old house bedroom that all three of them share. Since its custom its a bit tricky to find sheets for it. I have a couple of fitted sheets cut also, waiting and ready to go, but I am going to have to find the time. 

We did find some time last weekend to go to a Family Fair in our local city. It turned out to be pretty good. There were some free bouncy houses, princesses and a ton of games with great prizes. 

I have bought some garden starts and listed my chicken coop up for sale. I also have tried to start some new roses from my most beloved ones we planted here. I watched a bunch of videos online and for now just have them rooting in water. Roses are supposed to be super easy to root. Mostly I have been just admiring my garden. It has turned out so nice in the 5 years we have been here. I do love it so.  

Tooth Time

We  had a first around here the other day. The oldest kid lost his first tooth. We have been waiting for that thing to come out for such a long time. Its actually the second loose tooth, the first loose tooth is still in there waiting to come out. I think he was a little nervous about it. New experiences for these kids are a little overwhelming at times. Even new foods can not be tolerated. I sometimes like to change things up and we have started eating grits. Hubby can't eat gluten or wheat (we aren't really sure which as he won't got get a legitimate test but we do know that he gets very, very sick when eating wheat). Its been a hard change but hardest on the kids. When I made the grits I choose to try to get the kids to eat them by putting chocolate chips in it. They hated it and complained that they didn't want them, that it tasted like a desert and that was bad. I tell you I might just pull my hair out over this cooking thing, it used to be so fun. Besides my broken heart at all the things I can't cook that I love like cinnamon rolls, and homemade bread, I have to deal with three very picky pallets that don't like the same things. Its impossible.

I am still sewing up a storm. I made a couple of new nightgowns for summer. They are super cute and I wish I could look that cute in one, but I fear that I would just look frumpy.  We have eggs coming out our ears but I am a little grossed out because our birds got mites, or lice or something from the wild birds that come in to eat their feed. I guess we did pretty good though, first time for an infestation in over 4 years. I just have to figure out how to be a chicken vet in some of my spare time.

August Gardens

Things out in the garden grew and grew. Then they started to look tired from all the smoke. Somehow I managed to grow about sixteen pumpkins. The sun was hot and bright when I took these photos.

I put all my herbs in the garden by the fence but I just can't get enough water to it. I have a new plan for next summer.

You can see those tall yellow flowers. I can't believe how lush it all is. It is a habitat. We started to have a mouse problem. They came because of the chicken feed and stayed because of all those German tomatoes. I would find half eaten ones down in the dirt. They were hard to get too so I know it wasn't my youngest.

Every year about this time I start to plan for next year. What is going to get moved, what makes me happy, what worked and what didn't. One of these years I am going to start an awesome garden journal. 

You can see some of the massive pumpkins. They were everywhere. I loved it and hated it at the same time. I loved knowing I would have enough for my porches to decorate with all fall, and enough for baking and making pies. I didn't like how the pumpkin plants grew and grew and grew taking over everything else in the garden. They were also the first plants to get the powdery mildew that the cooler weather of fall brings. They had vines everywhere that looked scraggly and yellowed. I could't pull them out as they pumpkins needed to finish off. I told myself that I am going to plant them next spring out front in the bare section of our lawn but I think my freezer will be too full of pumpkin to even bother. You have to have a reason to go to the pumpkin patch once and a while right?

In the picture with the pumpkins you can see some leaves hanging down in the top corner from our peach tree. It bloomed and my kids picked off all the baby peaches. At first I was mad. Then I learned how to prune the tree and accepted the opportunity to make the tree stronger and better next year. Peaches bloom on new growth. So that means the growth from the previous summer. Since they picked all the peaches off I was able to prune it to the right shape (which I had neglected to do the first year we had it). Now it is growing big and strong with lots of new growth. All that new growth will be great next spring providing many many more peaches. I have to do the same to my Quince.

We have this bean tee pee. It grows out of control. It is fun and functional.

I always like to plant a pumpkin behind the bean tee pee and let it grow across the patio. It gets going before the beans and then the main plant gets a little swallowed but the vines get lots of hot sun on the concrete. I like the look but my kids are a little hard on it with their wagons and bikes.

We started to gravel the pathways. I listened to logic put down a weed barrier. Yeah, that failed. The kids and the dog dug it up and shredded it. So I had to go out and pull it all out. I love the gravel look but think we might have used the wrong kind. Everyone said to use the pea gravel as it is soft for kids and dog paws. It is getting all over and it is hard to walk in. Its a little like walking on the beach in the dry sand. In my next garden I think I will use the chip gravel. I think it looks more natural and compacts down allowing for easier movement over the top.

I love flowers. These beds need some late summer pop. I am not good a buying things for my garden. Every year I tell myself that I will buy this or that to balance it out as it seems to bloom most in the spring. Then the year passes me buy and I never do it. I am good at getting what I can get easy and cheap. Beggars can't be choosers I guess.

Photo bombed by a crazy pup.

She loves it out there. We all do. 

My Produce Garden...

My garden is a work in progress. I knew that I liked this house when we looked at it but I had no Idea just how much work the property needed to have healthy, fertile soil that could grow all of the things I had been dreaming of for so many years. We ( or should I say "I" because Hubby is not that interested in the yard) pretty much started with a dull blank slate that had a lot of old unattractive plants that needed to go. And go they did. We pretty much spent the whole summer last year pulling out large ornamental hedges that were dying, and pulling up black plastic that was used under crummy bark mulch as a weed barrier. Keep in mind that I was pregnant with baby R at the time and had no energy. 

 Here is a picture of part of our back yard where I grew my veggies last summer. I knew I wanted to grow more than this but I needed to watch the yard for a year to decide where I wanted to build our garden. This bed was here along the fence and there is actually a very large pine tree growing back there in the left corner. I was concerned about sun and shade because of the tree but as you can see most stuff grew very well. So in the fall I had Hubby build me these garden boxes.

As always we had to build our garden on a very tight budget. I had a hard time figuring out what to build them out of. I knew I didn't want treated lumber because of the chemicals that leech into your soil but I also didn't want them to rot. At the suggestion of my dad I looked into cedar fence boards. They were 5 foot boards and they were around a dollar each. The nice thing is that cedar rots very slowly. Some sources say that it takes 20 years or more, and I believe it because that fence back there is cedar and I know it has been there for more that that. We used stakes to screw the boards too and support it from the inside, which you can see. We built them 4x5 feet and two boards high (making them almost 12 inches tall). We did spend the big bucks on good quality outdoor screws.

Lets talk dirt. We built the beds in the fall and I thought about dirt all winter. I thought we were going to have to buy dirt which I didn't want to do. I did some reading and learned about sheet composting or lasagna gardening. I decided I could do this to basically build my dirt from scratch. Lucky for me I had collected and kept all of our fall leaves along with a neighbors and after I was healed from having baby R, I went to Starbucks and collected coffee grounds at least once a week. Then when I could I layered cardboard or newspaper, coffee grounds and leaves just like you would in a lasagna. From what I had read it said you could plant right in it but it would be composted dirt within six months. I also had some compost that I had made from the previous summer that I added to the mix.

In the end we did buy two yards of organic compost from my favorite garden nursery. I topped the beds with six inches of the black gold and also topped off the long bed by the fence ( it went in some of my flower beds too). The compost went a long way and it was super worth it to buy it. I would spend money on compost any day, it is so good for your soil and your plants. So all in all we spent about 60 dollars on the wood and 120 dollars which included the delivery of the compost. It was a pretty good deal if you ask me.

This is what the garden looked like when I got back from my parents house in July. it was out-a-control. I love the tall triangular trellises that I got at the garden expo. They add a lot of character, functionality and visual interest to our garden. You can see the chicken coop in the background.

I planted a lot but as always wish I could plant more. I have plans to add about three more planting areas/garden boxes back there. Over by the chicken coop there is a lot of unused space that needs a little love and TLC.

I think after two seasons I have a better idea of what we eat and what works for our family. I planted 9 tomatoes and have learned not to get seduced by all of the fancy heirloom varieties. I love regular red tomatoes so the plan next year is to get pretty much that. We eat them and I can preserve them. Also I think I am giving up on carrots because even the organic ones at the store are really cheap, I just waste the precious space growing them cause they don't grow well for me in our beds. The list goes on and on.
I am planning on showing more of our yard and gardens as well as how they look next year when some of them should be nearly complete.

This Past Spring

Now that it is Summer I thought I would get some of my favorite pictures from spring up to share with you. As always summer brings busy times for me with all of the projects, gardening and two kids that are around here.

 This little sweetie just loves her daddy. She always has a smile for him and is currently practicing saying Da Da Da. He makes her laugh and I can tell they are going to have a special relationship.

 We got Chicks back in March and they were really fun to have and watch grow up. Big brother just thought they were so much fun and was always trying to grab them and get them all excited.

I thought the chicks were pretty neat too. I have wanted to get some for a really long time and we kind of bought them on a whim. It wasn't really in the plan for the year but it was a fun impulse buy. Later this summer I plan on posting about our garden and I am planning on including pictures of the chicken coop that hubby built for our little ladies.

 Grandma came for Easter and it was really exciting to have her around. Let me tell you she was really good at just reaching into our roosting box and grabbing chicks for the little mister to hold.

And of course it wouldn't have been springtime with out some rainboots and some puddle stomping. Of course he just prefered to create is own puddles with the garden sprinkler. That was fine with me because I didn't really want to take him out in the actual rain anyway.

We are getting ready to go on a big trip so I wont be posting for a little while but when I get back I am hoping to share some fun stories and some big news! Have a Happy 4th of July!