Garden today

We have had nothing but rain and storms for days so as you can see, their is debri in the garden. Some of the green beans were washed up and we had to cover several of them back up. At the very end you can just barely see the potato mounds.

This is our baby corn! This is the first time we have seen it poking out of the ground. Ain't it cute!

This is one of our strawberry plants. I think we may have a few this year. Ignore the weeds please. They grow thanks to the rain too.

This is our baby squash. We have about 4 rows of squash. Love 'em!

Here are our potatoes. Wow have they grown! I ran out of dirt to cover them today! Looks like we may have a few potatoes this year.

baby beets! Hubby loves them.

I also took some pictures of the iris' and the cherry tree today too! BEAUTIFUL!

Farmers

The kids just love taking these pictures! ok not so much...this first one took a couple of takes because he looked more like he was gritting his teeth than smiling. These 3 love being in the garden with me. It was dusk when we quit working this day! No I didn't work them like slaves all day.

She helps with anything in the yard. She wanted to use the chainsaw one day when helping her dad! NOT HAPPENING!!

There were about 8 seeds in that hole! The picture below shows what he was planting. A little hard to see but it's corn. He was a bit tired of the camera too! lol

It has rained very consistently the last few days so we have been able to plant and not water because the sky was opening up and drenching everything. I have had to cover the potato plants twice in the last 3 or 4 days. I can't wait to have yummy potatoes to eat!

You won't find any pictures of Destini in the garden with us. She isn't the gardening type. She will be more of a city dweller when she is grown and leaves home.

Be blessed

The Garden

Lots of outdoor work going on around here. My husband cut down some trees yesterday that I have wanted gone for 2 years! YIPPIE! Me and the children have been working on the gardens getting them ready to plant and putting in seeds and plants. We also planted some bushes recently. So lots of changes to the yard! I love spring!

This is the garden before the tiller got to it. What you see in the dirt is coffee grounds and egg shells. It helps kind of fertilize the soil a bit. We have mostly red clay here so the soil needs lots of help. We also bought a trailer full of mushroom compost this year to add to the clay. We doubled the garden size this year too. I'm trying to gradually get up to having enough vegetables to put up (freeze and can) so we can eat that more from our garden then from the store for the year. We aren't there yet. There are six of us and we tend to give a fair amount away. It's really hard to know what a tenth is when the plants keep proucing vegetables to be able to use that to be a blessing. I just give where I see a need.

Here is my little Taz helping by putting the coffee grounds in the dirt. This was supposed to be for flowers but my husband expanded it out from the house so it will also house some vegetables this year. Where Taz is standing has peppers and onions planted now. The area that is blocked off with the plastic pretend rocks has tomatoes in it now. The onions help keep rabbits out. We also planted marigolds and alissym to help with pest control. I have been looking up companion planting to make the garden better as far as producing and reducing pests. We are trying to be as organic as possible but its a learning process.

One of our little potatoe plants! Isn't it cute! The picture doesn't do it justice! We added some dirt to it so that only the leaves are poking out now.

We are going to make some markers for our garden this week. Actually the kids are going to make them. They just don't know it yet. I got the idea from Teaching Good Things. Here is the link http://teachinggoodthings.com/blog/plant-markers/ I like this idea better than the one I was going to use.

Be blessed!

new post

Something has been laid on my heart to write about here. It's a difficult thing to write and since next week is my last class I think it's a good time to write it. I'll have more time after next week to concentrate when the little guy is asleep.



For now, we are gardening, getting seeds in the ground and just doing the needed stuff! Spring is here! Love it!!

Spring at Our Home

Evidence that someone pulled my day lily up! They (meaning Taz) left it in the mums!
This cute little bush was almost dead last year! I trimmed it severly last year.

Strawberries Yum! We really need more of these. The kids eat them as soon as they are ready to eat so we never get to make anything with them.

Blooms from the cherry tree in the front yard. The tree is GORGEOUS when it's blooming! The entire tree is white!

Not real sure what it is. These are beside the tree line. There are a lot of things growing that we just don't know where they came from.

The wild rose bush on the side of the house. Can't kill this thing!

Don't know what this is either. Pretty though. It's like 3 different kinds of trees in one. The middle is 2 kinds of trees but all around the outside of them is this stuff.

This is kind of pittiful. I hope this one grows quickly this year. We planted him last year and I wasn't sure it would survive.

This is the cherry tree just before it bloomed.

The boys being forced to pose! lol

Just a little peek into spring here in hillbilly-ville.

Be blessed

New Eating/Cooking Habits

I have been SLOWLY trying to get the family to eat healthier, more natural foods. Trying to get back to fewer processed foods. Eating healthier foods will improve everyones health and hopefully get us closer to eating the way God intended.

Over the last several months I have been replacing the normal foods that we would eat with a healthier version. Replacing some of the flour in things with wheat germ or flax seed so that we aren't just eating junk calories. No one has really noticed that anything was going on until recently.

We haven't really used a lot of convenience foods anyway but things that I had not really thought about as being convenience foods like cultured foods such as buttermilk and yogurt, I always bought and didn't consider it to be a convenience food. Now, I have been making homemade buttermilk and yogurt and even started making kefir.

The buttermilk is to die for! You can find the recipe here http://myblessedhome.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-to-make-buttermilk.html#article
I don't drink the stuff. I just use it to make biscuits, pancakes and stuff. I did give some to my uncle who drinks it. He said I "should bottle the stuff". He really likes it.

I also used her yogurt recipe too-found here http://myblessedhome.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-to-make-yogurt.html#article Really good stuff! It smells awesome when it's "brewing" too.

Kefir: retched smelling stuff. Really doesn't taste any better to me. I had to add lots of fruit and some stevia. I hope I get used to it. It seems to be really good for you but I know if I don't start to like it, I will not keep drinking it! One of the kids loved it! ha ha ha

So far everyone is "going along with it". Only one real rebel in the group but she always is no matter what the situation.

Things I really want to do next:
Get a wheat grinder and start making our own flour.
I want to learn how to make Ezekiel bread.

Long time

I rarely have time to write here anymore. There are so many things I want to write but seem to not be able to get the time to do it.

Part of it is just poor time management. A lot of the problem is just this awful depression that has sent in and just trying to keep up with school, kids, hubby, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Next week is my birthday and the day after would have been my mom's birthday. She has been dead for 3 1/2 years now. I can't believe that I still have nightmares about her around time for her birthday. I hope this is the last year.

I should know soon if I will be taking classes in the fall for my preferred field. I'm really not too anxious about it. I want to know but I just don't feel worried about it. I know that if I get in then it's His unmerrited favor.

Easter was great except that Taz got too much sugar. His system doesn't process it very well and it causes all kinds of behavior problems. I got home from work and you could almost see him vibrating!! It was awful for him (and us).

I have some great pics but I have to get them off the camera first. Hopefully soon and I can get them onto here. Very cute pictures. Despite it all, Easter was great fun!