Sunday, June 28, 2009

Garden Update

For my garden update I have some good and bad news. Okay, lets start with the bad news first...

See these empty squares?

That was where we had broccoli planted. It was growing fine... the main head had gotten to about the size of a grapefruit... then all of the sudden it decided it wanted to flower. As soon as I saw my broccoli blooming I ran inside and Googled "WHY IS MY BROCCOLI BLOOMING?" Well, come to find out that broccoli is a fall crop (can you tell me WHY they have seeds for sell in the spring/summer? sheesh!) and grows best in 65-75 degree weather. Once it starts blooming it is pretty much worthless. I did try cutting away the bloomed part and putting dried leaves around the base of the plant to try to keep the roots cool but as you can see it didn't work! Sooo out with the old and in with some new. I just bought some zucchini seeds that I will plant in the next day or so. (and yes, I did make sure this was the right time of year to plant them, thankyouverymuch!)

More Sunflower Woes
Man, not having great luck with sunflowers this time... again they were growing just fine until the birds decided this was they're new convenient store. (aka Sunny Mart) Now look at them... not so sunny anymore are they? :0(




Okay, enough already lets get to the good news which is...

Our tomatoes are turning red! Mike had one just yesterday on his sandwich for lunch and he said it was yummy (no... he didn't really say "yummy" that's my word... actually he said it was the "bomb"!)


Anyway, excuse all the blurry pictures I had to use Joshua's camera and it didn't like closeups. I guess I was using my camera too much because it decided it needed a break and has gone into hiding. So if you see a lonely camera wandering the streets would you let me know please?

We've got lettuce!!! I plan on eating some of it tomorrow...YUM!


Here I was trying to show off our first cucumber, but again Joshua's camera didn't want to cooperate.


Look at our cucumbers go! We built a trellis so they could grow up instead of all through our yard. It was easy to build... you just need 1x2in boards, (we had left overs from making the cover for our herb garden) some wide width chicken wire, staple gun and some screws or nails to attach the trellis to the box. Oh yeah, make sure you put the trellis on the north side of the box, which also means you will need to plant your plants on the same side. This is so there will not be a shadow on the rest of your box and shade your other plants.


And this is what it looks like when you're done...


Our herbs are still going strong... Some have grown a little...


and others have taken off!

I'm in the process of letting the cilantro/coriander dry out so I can harvest the seeds and use them to plant more and to save some seeds for next year.

The basil is still growing strong. I'm going to make some basil salad dressing soon; I'll let you know how it turns out.


And then there's this pot...

I planted these seeds a few weeks ago and didn't label it and yeah you guessed it... I forgot what it was I planted. Sooo, if anyone has a good guess let me know and who knows... if your right maybe I'll give you some of our veggies from our garden. :0)

And last but not least... MORDECAI! He's been a very good puppy lately. He likes to walk with my every morning to water the garden. He's a good friend!

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Book 5/12

I found this book when I went to a parenting conference about a year ago. I wanted to buy the book, (mainly because I L-O-V-E-D the title!! Weird, I know!) but I didn't really want to pay full price for it. A few months ago I was at Lifeway and they had it on their bargain bookshelf for $4.99!



Dr. John Trent has some great books on parenting, spiritual growth and strengthening marriages. The first book I read this year was co-authored by Dr. John Trent titled "The Blessing". Review here. He is also a great speaker. You can find more information about him and his ministry at Strongfamilies.com.

This is a good book about not letting things/people distract you from your goals in life. Many things can lure us from the path that God has for us, but the good thing is we can learn to detect a skinny rabbit before it takes us down the skinny rabbit trail. If you're spinning your wheels and most of the time feeling emotionally, physically, and spiritually exhausted then you are probably chasing a skinny rabbit! Or worse yet, you could be a skinny rabbit leading others down the skinny rabbit trail.

Monday, June 15, 2009

What We've been up to lately

End of year TESTING... Ending another school year... TESTING... Visiting friends... TESTING... swimming... TESTING... Gardening... Oh, did I mention TESTING!?! YES!, Last week the boys officially finished their school work for the year, AND we made it through testing! (barely!) It's usually not a big deal but this year for some reason it was. Let's just say I have never been happier to send that puppy off in the mail than I was this year. Even though it can be challenging at times I really do love homeschooling our boys and am so thankful God has blessed our family with the ability to do so... Just don't remind me that I have to do the "T" word again next year!

Okay... I'm over it. Now let's get on to the good stuff we've been doing...


We went to visit a good friend. We had a great wild-animal-filled day. Let's see... we saw chickens, huge dogs, (I can't remember what kind they were, but believe me, they were HUGE!) goats, cats, more dogs, hummingbirds, a horse and last but not least this.....


S-N-A-K-E !!!!



Thankfully one of my friends dogs (not one of the HUGE dogs) attacked and killed it for us. We put the snake on the table to get a closer look at it. While we were trying to determine if it was a baby Copperhead or not, "IT" decided to not be dead anymore and it opened its mouth and started moving. Now, I know that it probably was dead and that was probably just reflexes, but just to be sure we had the man of the house do this....



And this...



Just to be sure!