More on Gardening

Ryan just bear with me, I promise I don't try to bore you to death. My poor brother likes to complain about my blogging if I drag on too much about boring domestic things, like gardens. Well I just wanted to finish talking about my garden because I kind of got cut off from my last post. I also wanted to clarify that the photos of the beautiful green luscious gardens are from last year. AND when I said the beds were 4 feet deep, I meant deep as in that's how wide across they are, not how deep the dirt is. Does that make sense? Matthew finished my second box today, so now I have two that are 6x20, one that is 2x20 and a massive one out at the farm that's about 7x30. It's the most garden I've ever had, I hardly know what to do with it. Other than go to the Farmers Market this weekend and buy more tomato and pepper plants because I didn't have my act together in April to actually plant those things ahead of time. Ok, so now that I've totally bored Ryan to death, here's some pictures for you.

This is what my one garden bed looks like right now, there is one exactly the same right next to it. Not very much happening here, but yet still so exciting. Some dill, garlic, and some random flower or something are coming up from last year, eekk!

 

Last weekend my neighbour and I decided to ditch the kids and jet into town for some trees. We came back with some great stuff. I'll start with our yard, which is this picture. The front big tree is a Shuburt something berry, can't quite remember. I also got Lilacs, Hydrangeas, a dwarf cranberry bush, and another bush with white stuff on it. I'm going to fill in the spaces with colourful flowers. My husband got rocks to intersperse into the beds, he was quite proud. Next door (which our neighbours rent from us) we got a Hawthorne, a Muckleberry plum (with pretty pink blossoms) and some cool bushy shrubberies. A Shrubbery. Thanks Montey Python. Anyways. It's been fun to get some stuff put in and get things looking nicer. Matthew and I have lots of plans for the yard and house. We want to make the pillar on our deck look chunkier and more Craftsman style, and of course we'll one day put rock instead of that ugly paper stuff with the spray painted house number.

 

This is my rough sketch of our yard 'n stuff. Don't know if you can see it very well. We want to eventually build a patio around the fire pit. The area out side our fence isn't ours technically, but man we get a lot of use out of it. We call it "the back 40" even though it's only 10 feet squarish.

 

Here's part of our backyard. You can see into "the back 40", it will have a gate going out there soon. Gates! Can't wait. That's an apple tree. Real apples, not crab apples, I'm excited to see what we actually get. I'm so excited about all the things we can grow up here now. Apparently we can even grow grapes up here! They work on different varieties of plants and make them hardy for our climate, love it!

 

Beer can chicken on our new (free) BBQ. This is a super delicious and easy meal to make when we're out in the yard all day. Our neighbours put this bbq on the curb for town clean up day, intending to send it to the dump. That is, until my wonderful hubby spotted it. We replaced our older crappier, but also free bbq with this one instead. Oh but it gets better. The next weekend we sold our old crappy bbq for 5$ at the garage sale, ha ha. So sweet!

 

And here is the number one reason why the rest of the garden isn't put in yet. He's well worth it though, don't you think. He actually really loves it outside, but he just doesn't last out there as long as the "big" kids do. His favorite thing about outside is eating grass. At first I tried to stop him, since he doesn't even eat real food yet 'n all. But he doesn't choke on it and it's almost impossible to stop him from eating it, he just loves it. So I don't try very hard anymore to prevent it. What a funny kid, love him!

 

Well friends, I'll be back in blog town in a couple days. I have tons of new pics on the computer now so I have lots to blog about. I have to do it fast because the kids change so fast and there is more fun to be had. Oh and a brief explanation about the chicks is in order I guess. Fran (from "the farm") is wonderful and lets me raise chickens with her every year, even though it means she gets stuck with most of the work. Last year she got some wonderful heirloom birds which means we could save their eggs and let them hatch instead of getting them new from the hatchery. So I got the pleasure of having the incubator here so I could take on a bit more of the work load. Let me tell you though, they aren't a lot of work at this point. It was amazing to watch them hatch, I had never seen that before. The first day I was downstairs the whole time and had half the neighbourhood over to watch. It was incredible! Now they're getting stinky and loud so I'll kick them out to the garage at some point soon. I have another batch in the incubator now, so pretty soon I'll have about 60 chicks all together, yikes! We'll take them out to the farm when all their feathers are in and they're ready to be outside. Anyhoo, that's all for now, happy spring everyone!

Gardening

More and more I realize that I'm officially old. I like, no LOVE, gardening. Ok ok, I realize that alone does not qualify me as old. I also like fruit cake, puzzles, quilting, and I'm really clueless when it comes to high tech computer lingo stuff. I've even been known to play scrabble and sequence on occasion. I never thought I would do any of these things back in the days of bikes, bubble gum, and boys. Maybe it's because I'm turning 30 this year, or maybe it's because I have a bunch of kids that I'm responsible for, I don't know what the reason, but I've been feeling really old these days. But that's not the purpose of this post at all, I don't even know where all that whining came from! Let's move on to the subject at hand. Gardening!!!

 

This is Matthew last year building my amazing garden beds for me. They are 6 feet deep (a little too deep, four feet would be perfect) and 20 feet long. There is room for two there, but we only did one last year because I was all pregnant and awkward.

 

This is a picture of it once it's all planted. I marked off squares for every two feet and loosely followed the "Square Foot Gardening" technique. It's a great book, definitely worth a read. It made weeding and watering almost unnecessary.

 

We built a two foot deep bed along the side of the house where it's sunny all day. It was perfect for peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes because it's so hot there.

 

Here we are pruning tomato plants. Meatball got to just hang out in my tummy for the whole thing, lucky guy. This is the side bed again, in case you didn't notice that:-)

 

And here's my little dancer posing in front of the main bed some time in August.

I will have to add more to this post tomorrow because it's late and I can hear a chicken in my basement which means it probably got out again. Chicken in my basement, what?!?!?!? Yes, you heard me folks, we have sweet chickys that like to escape their nice warm enclosure, so I must run. Ciao!

Using Time for What Really Matters

I'm the kind of person who, when making a to do list, feels the need to fill the entire page. At the end of a day, no matter how productive, I feel like I didn't get enough done. I feel like there is always stuff to do and I could never accomplish everything I want to do. This has been a major learning curve in the last few years. Learning to let go of expectations and be realistic in my goals. The other day I stumbled upon this blog post "Learning to Enjoy Your Children" that really made me tear up, but not for the reason you may think. It was not with regret that I read it, but with joy. If you don't follow the link I'll sum it up here. She challenges parents to be intentional with our children and spend quality time with them everyday. She lists some examples, many of which we do with our kids often. I read it with thankfulness that Matthew and I do take the time to really enjoy our kids. It is because I play pirates with them, bake with them, read to them, listen to their jokes and many other fun things that my "to do" list is usually a "should have done" list by the end of the day. It's also why I can go to bed at night with a huge smile and warmth in my heart and just throw that list out of my mind because it really doesn't matter. Cheering for my kids as they learn and grow, praying for them and with them, that is what matters. So even if I fail in cleaning, baking, laundry, or sewing, I will strive to love on my kids in whichever way they need that day. Even as I write this post I've been interrupted countless times to kiss an owie, read a book, cuddle a baby, and sit a stubborn kid on the potty. It's all worth it. Oh my word, is it ever!




This picture was taken months ago, but sums up the silliness and sweetness of our little squirts.
So lately I've really been trying to just be more proactive in my tasks around the house instead of adding too many things to my list. I've been reading the Fly Lady's blog again for inspiration. Her stuff is mostly just common sense, like clean as you go, which my mom drilled into me while growing up (thanks mom:-) I really like her ideas for de-cluttering. Its very simple, fast, and doable. Yes, that's a word. Doable. You just start with one room, 15 min a day is all your allowed. First you bring a garbage bag into the room and throw 28 things into it, then you take it out to the garbage and forget about it. Then you bring a box and put 28 giveaway things into it, bring it out to your car to drop off at a thrift store, and forget about it. Once it's in the bag or box, just let it go, don't you dare take it out again! And then you're done de-cluttering for the day. So easy! The other thing I've been doing from her site is setting the timer for an hour and working, then setting the timer for 15 minutes and sitting down for a break. My break time is spent drinking water, and playing with the kids, in a chill relaxing sort of way. This way I'm connecting with them and they will play together really nicely for the next hour again. It's been working really well today, we'll see if I actually keep up with it or not. It's noon and I've made bread, and granola (with the kids help of course;-), vacuumed downstairs, majorly tidied the kitchen, read a couple stories, played Petshop, and nursed Micah twice. So I think I'll take the rest of the day off and plant some seeds in the garden with the kids and play. Yipee!

New Plan

Ok so I realized that most of the reason I never update my poor blog is because my photos are never put onto the computer. So my new plan is to.... well.... uhhh.... I guess I'll start by putting my pictures onto the computer so I can then post some here for your viewing pleasure. But I haven't done that yet. So I guess this post is kinda pointless. But I have every intention of making this blog a little less lonely in the next few weeks, so stay posted! Coming up I'll tell you about Owen's pirate adventures, and my sewing adventures. And can I just mention that Micah is seriously adorable and I could just nibble him up? There. I did it. But now he's trying to rip apart a pretty basket, apparently planning to eat it piece by piece. I guess he's hungry??? Ok, see you later, with photos, promise!

Updated to make this post less pointless:

Ok, I have a recipe that I've been meaning to post for a reader for awhile now, so I'll do that now and this post will now have a purpose, weeehoo! This is soup I make in the fall, I usually double or even quadruple the recipe so we have a years worth of yummy tomato soup for lunches or fast suppers. Oh, and last time I made it I misread the "cloves" part and added four cloves of garlic instead. Usually mistakes don't work out so well, but this time I think it may have even improved the recipe:-)

Condensed Tomato Soup:
7.5 lbs tomatoes
3 medium onions
6 ribs celery
4 cloves
2 bay leaves
handful of parsley
1/2 c. butter
6 Tbsp flour
1/8 tsp cayenne
2 Tbsp salt

-Simmer the tomatoes, onions, celery, cloves, bay leaves, and parsley for about two hours in a heavy bottomed stock pot, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.
-remove the bay leaves and cloves and then blend with either an immersible blender, or in batches in a blender (once it's cooled a bit, to prevent burns from inevitable splashing), if using the blender method, return to pot once done blending
- in a small pot melt butter then whisk in the flour, cayenne, and salt
-add some of the pureed tomato mixture (about 1 or 2 cups) into your small butter pot, whisking to mix well
- now pour all of this back into your big tomato pot. Stir to combine well and let this come to a boil until it has thickened.
- pour into sterilized jars and process in a water bath canner for 20 min, following general canning guide lines for lids and all that.
To serve heat condensed tomato soup in a pot. In a separate pot heat milk (the same volume as the condensed tomato soup). Add a pinch of baking soda to the heated soup and whisk in the milk. This method prevents the milk from curdling.