Fixing Up the Yard :: Part 1

Holy nice Saturday!  Finally a break from winter that landed on the weekend.  Saturday we had a 65 degree day with no wind.  Un.Freaking.Heard.Of. (the wind that is)  No wind.  It was amazing and it almost made me love Kansas.  That's right, I said Kansas and love in the same sentence.  I wore a tank top knowing I'd get a little bit of a sunburn on my shoulders, and I did, and it was awesome.  However, today (Sunday), the Kansas love has totally disappeared and I have been reminded just how much I can't stand Kansas and it's wind.  Today is 75 and windy and by windy I mean 25-30mph sustained winds.  Winds so hard and loud you have to yell at the person standing 5 feet away.  With wind like this there is no point in even having hair because all it does is whip you in the face.  It makes me feel crazy, really crazy, and I'm pretty sure that is not a good thing....

Anyway, let's go back to Saturday.  We had a Saturday that was awesome weather and we had nothing on the agenda.  So we decided to stimulate the economy with some of our tax refund and pretty up our yard a bit.  First up, we raised the swings up and Willow spent the rest of the day swinging without dragging her feet on the ground.  Then we began to start fencing off the garden box to keep Sam, who has recently buried 1.5 apples and a rawhide chew in them, out. He is not pleased and was slightly freaking out when we closed it off.  I'm sure he's already salivating over the tomatoes he's going to be missing out on this year.
We first removed the temporary fencing that really didn't work at all.  Sam either jumped over it, or squeezed in between.

And put up some garden fencing.

It was so nice out that Willow demanded we have a picnic and she drug all this food outside, and for once it wasn't windy so it didn't blow off the table.  That was nice.  Real nice.

Then we started putting landscaping bricks around our trees and flower beds.  Jayden was really interested in the part where we had to bust a brick apart to make it fit.  Safety first!

I think it looks nice!  Now we just need some more dirt and some flowers!

Royal's weedeater died a few years ago and we've been limping by on a battery powered one that can't make it though the whole yard without needing a recharge.  So, we stopped by the Stihl shop and bought Royal a piece of equipment we're pretty sure we can pass onto Jayden.  (We have my grandpa's Stihl chainsaw that totally still works.)  And because he was getting a fancy new toy, I got an attachment for it.  You know me, I like accessories.  This thing is going to make turning over the garden boxes so much easier!

Jayden was all over wanting to use the power tools, he helped fix part of the fence because he got to used the drill,  and he really wanted to use Royal's new toy.  "Please dad?  Is it my turn yet?  Please?"

So he got a turn and the thing had so much power (he pulled the throttle all the way in)....

...he walked right out of his boots....

We have got much more to do.  Fencing off the rest of the garden area, finishing laying the bricks.  I need to clean out and pour vinegar and cinnamon in the sandbox (to sanitize and help keep critters away).  And soon we will be planting the garden and flower boxes and hanging baskets.  I can't wait!  I just really hope that we don't get any freak snow storms in April.  I am really over winter.

Pesto Party

We picked up a bunch of basil from the farmer's market this past weekend, because well I have zero, zip, zilch basil growing in my garden.  My, poor, poor garden.  But there is just nothing like homemade pesto, so this year I had to buy my basil!

Willow has become such a great helper in the kitchen.  She "tried" to shred the cheese, but in the end it was much to heavy and Royal finished it up for her.

She peeled all my garlic, and there was lots of garlic!

And she helped measure out the pine nuts, cheese, basil, garlic, and olive oil and whir it around in the the food processor, so now we have a few half pints+ to throw in the freezer for winter!

In the Garden

My garden is Pa.The.Tic!  Pathetic!!!!  I suppose that's what happen though when most of your plant starts get destroyed by tornado winds, we have a cold spring, so cold that the day after I transplanted my ginormous strawberry patch it snows and kills them all! And then what I do manage to plant, I desert for 2 months.  I'm not exactly sure what I expected.  Miraculous plant healing and growth?  That would of been awesome!  But so far, the only things we producing are some cucumbers, we got a couple zucchini yesterday, and I think one of Jayden's pumpkin vines has finally produced a pumpkin!  Now to keep Sam away from the thing so it can grow.....

We pretty much had our garden guards away for the summer - Sam was with us and Scooter pretty much was trapped indoors while we were away - not that she minds so much anymore, she's getting quite fat and lazy in her old age.  Or it might be that she doesn't love us quite as much and could care less about leaving us presents on the doorstep.  Because I'm pretty sure she left a dead animal on my neighbor's front steps the morning after my neighbor petted her for awhile.  It was totally Scooter's m.o.  The body of some helpless creature she caught with it's head eaten and the rest of the body in a bloody pool.  Can't say I'm totally jealous of that....  Anyway, with our garden guards on vacation all summer, it appears a bunny has made a nest in one of my garden pots.  We often times put my overflow tomato or basil plants in these pots, but with all my tomato and basil starts getting blown away this spring, the kids used some packets of wildflower seeds to fill up our empty dirt and create a butterfly garden, and that's where we found the little bunny burrow.
See the little bunny buns???  There's a whole grip-load of them in there! 

I'm so not letting Scooter out at night anymore, because I don't want to find those little baby bunnies headless on my porch in the morning!

Willow had one of our neighbor girls over to play and they asked if they could pick a couple flowers out of the butterfly garden.  I turn my back for one second and they've pulled the head off of every flower blooming.  Awesome.....

Oh well, I'm sure we'll get lots more!

And my elderberry plant I got at the end of last summer has grown huge! (I'm planning on making elderberry syrup to help keep the kids well during cold and flu season)  It has grown so huge, it totally took over Royal's withering blueberry plants and we had to rip them out of there.  And we have gotten our first berry crop ripening.  However, it looks like the birds are picking my berries off one by one.  Darn those wild animals!!!!  I may have to stick around next summer just to keep things covered up and help my garden do better!

But in the mean time, I guess we will just enjoy the wild animals that are enjoying our flowers and food.  :)

I Have Started the Garden!

I will fully admit it.  I am a total stalker of Mavis Butterfield.  Her couponing and on-line deals are great, but it's her garden I totally covet.  And the fact she lives in Washington.  I kinda covet that too.  And she has chickens.  I want some of those too.  So, it's pretty much out there now.  I am a sinner and totally want things that other people have.

Last week, she did a post on making newspaper pots for your seedlings, and she used this awesome pot maker.  And me, wanting to be like Mavis, could see no other option than getting my hands on one of those, so I could have newspaper pots, just. like. her!  I just couldn't take it anymore, after weeks and weeks of staring at all the seeds on my wish list, this morning after a run with my friends, I purposefully drove home in a way so that I drove by a particular store.  A particular store I knew sold Botanical Interests seeds.  Now, I know Mavis' garden is sponsored by Botanical Interests, but that's not why I wanted them.  I grew all of my garden last year from Botanical Interests seeds and I couldn't believe the difference in the plant.  The baby plants that the kids and I grew were so much bigger and healthier than when we grew them from Burpee seeds or whatever kind they sold at Home Depot.  So I knew this year, I was totally getting those seeds again!  And they have lots of organic and heirloom and non-GMO seeds.  So you see, I am slightly my own person, just slightly....  While at the garden store I asked if they had one of those wooden newspaper pot maker thingys, and turns out, they did not.  So, I left dejected with my bag of seeds, wondering how in the world I was ever going to live up to Mavis Butterfield standards.
But. Oh. My. Gosh!  Look what I did leave with.  All these seeds!  Such potential in tiny little packets!

I totally didn't mean to buy all of these, but once in front of the seed display, it was like I was possessed, I couldn't stop.  I was a junky and these seeds were my fix.  And now with all these seeds, I am totally going to need a garden expansion.  Well, I guess I could choose to not plant the whole packet of seeds, but that just feels wrong.  How do you chose which seed is the best?  You must plant them all in order to determine their worth, right???  And you know what I'm most excited to try this year?  Quinoa!  It's real pretty and should be delicious!  Let's just hope I can keep a certain animal from nibbling on it...  And let's hope my garden survives while I'm gone half the summer again.  I heard that it is, yet again, going to be an exceptionally hot summer here...

So, once home and my hopes of actually being Mavis Butterfield with my super awesome wooden newspaper pot maker thingy dashed, my brain finally kicked into gear and of course there had to be another way to make them!  So, I googled it and came across these instructions.  And I made some! 

I used a can of RoTel to wrap them around because it was a skinnier can.  And I'm thinking of trying to make a smaller version for some other seeds.  But I really wanted to just do a few and test it out and see how well the newspaper holds up over the next couple months.  Because the theory is that you just open the bottom of the pot and plant your baby plant and the newspaper pot directly in the garden and the newspaper then breaks down.  I've tried those compostable pots before and they just never worked out, they never quite break down once in the garden.  But newspaper seems far more wimpy, it will just be whether or not it keeps it's shape and doesn't completely collapse on me before it's time to transplant out to the garden!  Let's hope not, because I filled them up with dirt and then stuck some tomato seeds in there.

Grow little seeds, grow!

Can You See It?

Well, can you?  Can you see it????

We have been having some really oddly warm weather recently.  And as a result, it has me in full spring fever mode.  All I can think about is my garden and what I might plant and how I need to go turn over the soil, and rip out Jayden's Marigold's from last year, and I'm spending my free time shopping for seeds, and as a result of the the 50ish or so seed packets I have on my wish list, I am going to need more room!

So, I brought it up with Royal in a manner kind of like, "Well, we kind of suck at trying to grow nice grass in the backyard and Sam just runs around and kills it, we might as well put that space to use and build more garden boxes!"  (and then of course put a big fence of some sort around it to keep Sam from eating all my food!)  Royal's response was, "Well, I'd be willing to let you have (a.k.a he would be willing to buy the wood and build for me) maybe 2 more boxes."

I took that as more of a jumping off point and I may or may not have, gone out and plotted out my garden boxes today.  And I may or may not have marked out 4 more boxes.  Go big, or go home, right?  Isn't that Royal's motto????

So, back to my question, did you see them in the picture?  If not, I've drawn them out here!

2, 4.  Potato, Patato.  Same thing, right?

I also, may or may not have gone and test drove some big trucks at Davis-Moore this weekend in order to cash in on their deal of test driving a car and get a $50 gift card to Lowe's, in order to help pay for the wood I'm going to need.

Jayden didn't seem so excited about my enhancement of the back yard, even when I promised he and Willow could have a whole box for themselves to take care of!  He went around the yard, marking off where I was NOT allowed to move my garden too.

Bring on spring!  I am so ready to plant some things!!!  Guess I should go get some grow lights and I can start growing things in my basement, just to get ready of course.  :)

May Catch Up

I hate when I get behind on our family happenings on our blog.  I hate going backwards, I like to post things as they happen because I can obviously remember details so much better, but oh well, backwards a few days we shall go.  I have missed posting some pretty important things happening around here!

Royal's parents arrived on May 1st!  And Willow wasted no time in wrestling with grandpa.  She woke up from her nap, said hello, and then promptly told grandpa to sit "right there" on the floor because she was going to jump on him.  At least she's honest!

May 4th was Royal's 34th birthday!

One thing about the Lovingfosses is that they are hard workers!  And I'm pretty sure Royal had the best birthday ever because all we did all day was work!  We started out the morning at the strawberry patch and managed to pick around 45 pounds of strawberries!  (more pictures of that adventure coming)  Norma spent the majority of the rest of the 90 degree day inside the air conditioned house washing, hulling, freezing, and making pies out of the strawberries.  Royal and Wayne spent the rest of the day staining our fence.

I spent the day turning over the garden boxes, adding compost and peat moss, and then finally getting the rest of my plant starts in the ground and the rest of our seeds.  This year in our gardens we have basil, lavender, oregano, rosemary, tomatoes, peppers, garlic, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, carving pumpkins, fairy tale pumpkins, cantaloupe, zucchini, yellow squash, and cucumbers.  I think that's it....here's to hoping most of it grows!

More evidence that Royal's parents were here is that we were all pretty much spoiled rotten.  Food and groceries were bought for us.  I got to go shopping for my birthday present, Royal got more birthday presents, and each of the kids got to go shopping and pick out whatever they wanted - toys, clothes, whatever.  You have 5 bathing suits, but want another?  Grandma will buy it for you!!!!  It's pretty awesome and the kids, especially Jayden, are picking up on this and love when Grandma offers to take him shopping.
This is one of the outfits Willow picked out.

The purple shoes with the flower on the ankle are shoes Willow has been talking about for weeks.  Sometimes I think it's good to walk away from things the kids say they really want in order to see if they are still talking about them down the road.  Willow saw these shoes and she knew she had to have them.  A couple weeks later, she was still talking about them and  Grandma came to town and she got to go back to the store and get them!

The kids also got to pick out a new pool for the backyard.  This is pretty much an occurrence every time Grandpa and Grandma come to town. It always seems to be warm/hot and we've managed to pop the pool they bought us on the previous visit.  And since 75 degrees for Grandma is too hot, and 90 is just ridiculous, a new pool we got!

Grandma and Grandpa left yesterday, and now we are on a countdown to the end of school (11days!), a couple quick camping trips with dad, and then our big drive out west for the summer! 49 days to go!

Planting Seeds

Jayden and I spent a little time yesterday getting our seeds going.  We are a little behind schedule, but I figure better late than never! 

Jayden got a little excited about writing on our tags and wrote on his face.  With a permanent marker.  That won't come off.  Jayden said, "Well at least it's purple.  Go Huskies!" Good point!

We are soooo excited for our garden this year!

Willow also decided that she was ready to ride her bike on 2 wheels.  She doesn't spend a lot of time riding her bike, but she's been getting sick of riding in the stroller when we go for a run and my rule is you can't ride your bike while I'm running unless you have your training wheels off, you're just too gosh darn slow and you can't corner very well.  So, yesterday, with Jayden cheering her on the whole time, she tried it.

And after one attempt, she gave up.
This may look like she's happy and having a good time, but this is actually a panic face of "stop this bike and let me off.  i'm not doing this anymore." and then some screaming because Royal kept pushing her towards the house.

Next time......next time.....:)

A Bigger Garden

We have lucked out I tell ya!  We have some friend's whose parents live just a few miles north of us who decided this year they weren't going to really do anything with their garden, and if we wanted, we could use it!  So, the 4 families in our small group have decided we are going to take it over and see what we can grow.

We met out there is morning to clean up and till the garden.  Jayden was really excited to get to do some garden work and was even more excited when we showed up and they had a little fire going, burning up the remnants of last year's garden.

The kids were real interested in the tiller.  So much cooler than turning your garden over by hand, like we do with our garden boxes.  :)

Then it was onto digging out the walkway trenches in between the raised beds.  Jayden and Willow both liked this the best.  :)

Now to get the garden boxes in the backyard turned over and those spring veggies put in the ground!

Sam the Stealer

Our garden, this year, has done pretty well, I think, for how hot it has been, and the lack of watering on my part.  You see, when I plant my garden, I give my plants a talking too, and I tell them that I am busy and won't have tons of time to devote to them.  They will get watered in the morning with the sprinkler system and then I will try my best to come out once during the hot, hot day and pull some weeds, train them up trellises, and water them, but that I have 2 busy kids to look after and they might not get as much love as they should.  So despite their neglect, we have had a pretty good year.  However, we have had a few things go missing this year.  Our tomato plants grew really well with lots of fruit and for a couple weeks we were getting quite a few tomatoes off of them everyday, then all the sudden the ones that I saw orange the day before weren't there when I went out to pick them.  I blamed Royal.  He denied it.  I was still quite skeptical.  Then one day when we came home from church, there was a vine up on the porch, a cantaloupe vine.  We had like 5 cantaloupes growing and ripening out in the garden.  When I went out to check on them, they were all missing, and then when I went out in the yard to pick up all the dog poo,  every pile looked like a homemade pinecone bird feeder, full of cantaloupe seeds.  Sam had been sneaking into our garden and eating all our cantaloupes, and also eating only our red tomatoes.  You see last year, Royal and I tried out a couple topsy turvy's, so the tomatoes were much more in Sam's reach, and he ate all the green ones as soon as they were big enough to pluck off.  We thought we got smarter this year and planted our tomatoes in our garden with a fence all around it.  Sam, I've decided is like Houdini, and can get into and out of whatever he wants.  I swear he can fit through a 2 inch opening, because I guess Sam got smarter this year too and waits until the fruit is just barely ripe enough and then somehow gets into the garden and eats the fruit right before we would pick it.   I found our last ripening cantaloupe, and Jayden's one and only growing pumpkin, and set them up on the top rung of the trellis and hid them behind leaves.  Sadly, a few days ago, Sam managed to get into the garden and would of had to jump, but obviously he was desperate, and pulled them both down and devoured them.  All we found were scattered pieces of orange pumpkin all over the yard.  Jayden was furious and demanded we take Sam back to the Humane Society.  :)  I've decided next year to build a taller and stronger fence, and for now, I've given into Sam's love of fruit and feed him the end pieces of our watermelons.

And before you go thinking how healthy of an eater Sam is, in my adventures around the yard picking up Sam's piles of poo, I've also found evidence that Sam is eating Royal's ear plugs.  Bright, neon, green ear plugs.  Yummy.

Blueberries

I found some blueberries in our garden today!  I wasn't really expecting any since we just got our blueberry bushes this year, so this was a treat!

I picked them and put them in a little bowl.  Willow got really excited that she was going to get a snack!

Then she ate one and said, "I no like this"  And got down out of her chair and demanded a REAL snack.

Well, maybe next year...

Strawberry Pickin'

This year we managed to get down to Sargeant's Farm and pick strawberries.  We have always seemed to be too busy before and the strawberry season is so short down here that if you blink you miss it!

 

I wasn't sure how well the kiddos were going to do or how long they'd let us pick.  But once Jayden discovered we were pretty much the only ones in the strawberry patch this morning, he was running all around our section finding the best spots to pick them.  He even agreed to come back on Monday (if they stay open) as long as we listened to him as to where the best strawberries are. 

Willow did pretty well too.  She had trouble trying to get over the rows of strawberries without stepping on them to try and chase Jayden down.  But she did really well eating the strawberries, and she always picked the biggest ones out of our boxes!  Thanks to eating all the strawberries, we were able to stave off lunch for awhile longer and get a 3rd box picked.  :)

Here's what we walked away with.  Not nearly enough strawberries to get us through the winter! But we'll take what we can get!  I'll probably freeze most of these, but we have to at least save enough to make some strawberry rhubarb crumbles for dessert.  We actually managed to get our rhubarb to grow in our garden this year!  Although it was nothing we did - I swear we've ripped it out every year because of poor performance or an animal ate it, but somehow it has managed to come back each year.