And How Does Your Garden Grow?

My name isn’t Mary, but my garden has been quite contrary. It really hasn’t appreciated all the rain we’ve received. The children and I worked this morning (before the day heated up!) and hoed down the weeds we’d let get out of hand. With rains coming every couple days, it’s been tough to work the garden. I know that it is very possible we won’t receive enough rain now for the rest of the summer – we’ll just wait to see what’s in store.

Though too much water has maybe held some of the plants back, we are still hopeful. We are seeing many small green tomatoes, the green beans are putting on lots and lots of blossoms, and there are teeny tiny cucumbers coming on.

And this year we have dill plants that are nearly as tall as I am! YaHoo! Brushing up against them brought on whiffs of dill – mmmmm made my mouth water just thinking about those dill pickles we’ll be putting up soon! The amazing thing is that they are volunteer plants. We have 5 or 6 dill plants that just popped up among the peas. I guess they reseeded themselves last summer. But they are doing so much better than any I’ve bought in town, don’t think I’ll be wasting my money anymore.

Once we had the weeds under control, we went over to play with the chickens. My little guys especially love finding bugs and things to throw to ‘the ladies’. If we keep them happy, maybe they’ll produce more eggs? Hope so! The should start laying this next month (or else!) We also confirmed our suspicions – one of the she-chickens is definitely a he-rooster. We’ll keep him around, I think, unless he starts causing trouble.

A wonderful discovery -- we found that the raspberry plants I thought had been weed-eated and chicken-scratched have survived! We ate a few berries off the bushes, that have spread out toward the pasture. L is going to help me set up a permanent bed so we can keep track of them better.

It’s been a good morning, catching up on household duties this afternoon, in the cool of the a/c.

Shopping with my 5 year old

Yesterday was my “Big Shopping” Day. I pick up groceries and sundries needed for the upcoming month. G was my designated “Helper Of The Day”. We had a great time! He is such a great conversationalist. He has questions about everything and points out the tiniest details his mother might be missing. He did an excellent job of organizing my groceries – fragile, crushable items in the back cart. Solid, heavy items in the front cart. He found several places they had rearranged the store shelves (now WHY did they do that!?) and we had a long discussion about why some people drop unwanted items where they don’t belong.

We stopped at a local produce market that sells bedding plants. I told him I think maybe the plant I wanted might be in the greenhouse since we didn’t see it on the outdoor racks. He looked and looked, turning circles around me as we walked. “Where Mom? I don’t see it!” I told him it was right over there. We headed straight toward the open door. “Mom, Where? There’s no green house here.” Ahhhhhh, this literal, concrete thinker expected the ‘greenhouse’ to be a ‘green house’! It was hard not to laugh right out loud.

Now, my usual tradition is to treat my Helper to lunch at the restaurant of their choice. But this time I asked if he’d mind eating at one of my favorite places. He graciously consented and so I treated him to lunch at the Chinese place. He loved it! That’s my boy! Since his dad doesn’t care for it, G can treat his Mama to Chinese from time to time. While we enjoyed our meal, we discussed how the placemats were made, why the spoons were a funny shape, how many lightswitches were on the walls, the couple of lightbulbs that had burned out, hydrolics (there was a neat waterfall sculpture near our table), how they get the papers in the fortune cookies, and many other highly important topics.

Yes, it was a fun day. God used G to give me a little reminder of the important things in life. It is so hard for this old Mom to keep her perspective in the right place these days.

No Longer A Baby. . .

. . .sniff, sniff

My baby is now 2 years old. It would be a surprise to me if the Lord had any more coming our way, so I am working hard to savor each stage as my littlest ones grow up. We put away the high chair, put away the crib. I suppose we all have 'childish' things we need to 'put away'.

Potty Training? I think we'll put that off until after our big Fall vacation. A long road trip, camping, and a newly trained toddler are just not a good combination, in my opinion.

She enjoyed her birthday celebration. Family, balloons, wrapping paper and cake. Who could ask for anything more! C and Mommy worked together and turned out a very cute lamb cake. Baby B's favorite animal (baa-baa-lamb).

Spectacular Display

Thunderstorms rolled through our area last night, just before our younger ones were to head to bed. Someone peeked out the door and hollered “A Rainbow!” What? At 8:00 at night?

Well, that was just the opening act. C and her dad set up their cameras/tripods and starting snapping away, while the rest of us enjoyed the early fireworks display. We sang and discussed electricity and pondered “How does God really do that?” Awesome is an overused word (in my opinion), but it definitely describes what we witnessed last night.

Why Apron Strings?

My apron is my uniform. I had to come up with a name for this spot on the web, and as I was mulling things over, a recent conversation with N popped into my head. As we were bustling around one day, picking up after breakfast, N went and opened the broom closet and pulled one of my aprons off the nail. He drug it across the floor and held it up to me saying “You forgot your apron, Mom!” I’m a messy cook, I’m always picking things up off the floor and sticking them in my pockets, I often gather up an armful of something to transport from one spot to another, I need to wipe off my hands many times in a day -- these are a few of the reasons I wear an apron. As far as the Strings go, I’m very happy to have little ones tugging on them. It is exciting to watch my children look to the time when they won’t need to hold on so tightly. I’m still adjusting to the fact the two are no longer needing that connection to Mom. So, there it is, and here I am.

Getting Started

Blog. I really do think it is an ugly word. CyberJournal? Sounds a bit cold and robot-like. Really the purpose of this project is to document the happenings of our home for family and friends. So, this online journal is an experiment, to see if Mom can enter the high-tech world.