And she's back!

Well yes I know it has been just MONTHS since I posted but I have some very very good news. A lot has happened in the last few months, the most significant of which is that my husband has gotten a job which allows me to be a stay-home mom. It wasn't the job up by our property, we actually had to relocate to the Seattle area, but it is definitely a step in the right direction! We moved at the beginning of September and have been staying at my parents house until our new home is ready.

We managed to find, by the grace of God, a house that is perfect. It's about an hour's drive away, but Tommy avoids most of the rush-hour and it's right outside a town that has less than 700 people. We share some acreage with the owner of the rental who will be our neighbor. There's lots of fruit trees, cane fruits, and tons of wild foraging for mushrooms and berries. It's kind of in the "rain forest" of Washington and so I think I'll have to be on the lookout for sparkly vampires, lol ;) It's also big enough that we can have another baby next year and still have an office (and the master bedroom has one of those BIG bathtubs!).

But I am really excited to start this new endeavor. Even though we're still kind of treading water here in this house, not really unpacking our stuff (and my only cooking devices are an electric skillet and a convection microwave), I've been able to make some good headway with the girls and I am absolutely just loving the simple pleasures of being able to do laundry as it gets dirty, not as I have time and constantly being behind. My kitchen gets cleaned daily instead of twice a week. My kids are happier and the girls really are becoming a lot closer now that they spend more time together. They are learning better habits than what we had energy to enforce when I was working... and the list goes on. I'm more active and I am eating better.

And I haven't even had a chance to do much homesteady stuff! Although I did decently yesterday making a pizza crust without a recipe, bowl, or mixer. Kind of a "dump" it all on the counter and knead it together" deal. I just can't wait until I can start baking our bread again, cooking up pasta sauce and chili to can into quarts, and all the gardening potential of the new house can't be beat! Granted, I probably won't have much luck growing peppers there, but our new landlords pretty much give us carte blanche with the place as long as it makes it look nicer.

Anyway, the other half of why I hadn't been posting is just because my laptop had died and our ancient desktop is so slow it takes several minutes for webpages to load... it's mostly good for checking facebook and email and that's it. But now that I got my laptop back (thanks to the best big brother ever!) I should be able to post a lot more regularly than I ever have.

Garden & Kids 4/25

Well you know me, I like to post pics. No real news here, just some pictures from this afternoon.

















Here's a volunteer, some sort of mint. I didn't grow any mint and there was none growing here when we moved here 2 years ago. There are two plants... I wonder if seeds got dropped by some birds? I'm tempted to dig it up because I know how invasive the stuff can be.







Another volunteer... some chives going to seed. These have been here for many years, I dug them out of the strawberry planter and then was not intending to save them, so I threw them upside down into the walkway of the garden and ignored them. They must have hibernated last year and then they came up this year with shining colors :)





I think it's some sort of cabbage but it also volunteered this year. Maybe a lettuce? Anybody have any idea?










Eleora digging up dirt in the garden.












Sophia playing with the play house. If you happen to notice the dirt around her mouth it's because I was mixing up some soil blocker mix and she must have thought it looked tasty because as soon as I turned my head she grabbed a handful and stuck it in her mouth. A lil dirt never killed anyone, right? lol... you should have seen her face, it was priceless.





Pictures of all my 5 trees happily in the corner. OH YEAH I FORGOT TO MENTION... lol. Silly ol me decided to go back to Home Depot yesterday to get the Bearss Lime and the Blood Orange trees. I just couldn't resist. Many people have problems with impulse buying but I tend to do the opposite and NOT buy things when I really should. These trees are such great quality and an excellent buy for $15 so I decided I'd get all 5 types that had caught my eye. They did also have 2 other kinds but not ones I was interested in, so now I have one of each tree that I had liked - Satsuma Mandarin, Navel orange, blood orange, Meyer lemon, and Bearss Lime (plus the two key limes I'm sprouting and all the other stuff).








Some kids suck their thumbs... Sophia does this. I don't know where she got it from but she holds her blanket like that all the time, it's funny :)









And that's all I got for the day! Just had to share :)

Cheep Cheep!

Last weekend we had planned a trip up on Saturday to the property to go visit Grammie and Papa. As you remember, I had spent the afternoon the week before with my mom building a chicken tractor of sorts for her new chicks. She only got a few at the time and so suggested that I take the girls to the feed store that's right down the street and get some more chicks, since they were supposed to get some sexed laying pullets in.

Sophia was pretty sick the night before (I think she threw up more than 10 times in 24 hours!) and so I ended up staying home with her on Friday but then Tommy was there for part of the time too so I took Eleora to the feed store and we picked out some chicks! They were guaranteed 97% female so most likely we got no roosters in the bunch :) Eleora picked out a Barred Rock for hers (Her name is "My Black One") and I had wanted Auracanas and so I picked out one for me (Fluffy) and one for Sophia (Bolt). We also got two Buff Orpingtons (Buffy and Angel) and two Leghorns (Foghorn and Leghorn) and two Rhode Island Reds (Itchy & Scratchy). We got a heat lamp and put out a dish of water for them in a rubbermaid bin. The girl at the feed store was a doll and gave us some extra food since it was Friday and we wouldn't be getting them up to Grammie & Papas house until Saturday... so we got them a little dish of food and some shavings and they were quite comfortable.

Eleora had a blast, of course. Sophia also had lots of fun but she's such a flitterbug that she wasn't as focused... Eleora basically sat next to the chicks all afternoon and then the next morning.

On Saturday the chicks got to ride up between the two carseats in their little rubbermaid bin and so that was some nice extra entertainment for the girls. When we got there, we put them into the cage with the other chicks and they fit right in!

Sophia's investigating...












My girls and their chicks!

























Eleora loves "My Black One"












This is what she did... for hours. Talk about focus!












Ahh she was finally brave enough to hold My Black One on her lap!


















Look at me!













And just because it was so pitiful and cute, this is what I came home to on Thursday. Sophia had already thrown up about 5 times, so he finally just stripped her naked (since he kept changing her clothes) and laid her on him and she passed right out... I've never seen her do that. Poor thing! She woke up later and did the same thing with me for a few hours also up into about 5am Friday morning.













But by Friday night she was feeling like her saucy little self!

5-year plan update

I've got a couple blog posts to do here tonight or in the next few days so bear with me, but I'll try and keep it somewhat topical.

The biggest most exciting thing going on is not only is my husband almost finished with school (not even 2 months left!) but he has had several interviews for a company up in Colville that is looking for a Design Engineer. He's underqualified for the position but the fact is, it's RIGHT up his alley (they mfg wood stoves), it's 20 minutes away from where we want to build our home, and unlike many of their applicants he won't be looking for something else once the economy recovers.

They did put off the hiring for a bit so we won't hear back for another couple months but I am praying hard for this... those of my readers who also pray please pray for us! This job could mean big things, not only getting up there to the property quicker (we were thinking it could take 3-5 years after he's done with school) but the income, if we kept our standard of living the same, could allow us to build a home over a period of a few years with NO MORTGAGE. Of course, that's if things were at optimum conditions but I guess I'm trying to say that it would be AMAZING if we could get up there.

As of right now, my parents are up there and I am so jealous! They have gotten their Maremma sheepdogs, and the dogs are absolute gems. They also have a wire coop full of chicks! My mom and I spent an afternoon building the coop while the girls were napping on a day I happened to have off and she was here for the day. It was a wonderful day.

Which leads me to another topic... my emotional state right now is not very stable. I feel like me working has been unsustainable for so long emotionally and so I'm starting to run short. Kinda like an oil tank (anyone heat with oil?) when you run it and run it and it starts to get low, there's all kinds of stuff at the bottom of the tank that gunks it all up. That's kinda how I feel. I could sure use some prayers to lift my spirits also... it's becoming very difficult for me to drop my kids off with someone else and then go sit at a desk all day long.

Progress? maybe. Prayers? Yes.

Well here I am posting again because I have all this nervous energy.

You see, today my husband had a second interview as a design engineer for a company out by our property. This is overwhelmingly great for a few reasons:

1. we weren't expecting his first job out of school to be up there.
2. he would make quite a bit more money than anticipated for a cad drafter, nearly doubling my current income.
3. The money he would potentially make plus the decrease in cost of living in the area would mean we could realistically put significant amounts of money aside and build a home without a mortgage. Yes, WITHOUT A MORTGAGE.
4. I could stay home. Yes, I COULD STAY HOME :)

It's interesting, I've been working towards this goal of being able to stay home with my family for so many years and it's as if the reality is potentially going to finally happen! Part of me is waiting for a shoe to drop, and for someone to jump out and say "AHHHH You thought it would be this easy, but you are going to have to work for another three years to get to stay home!!!"

I guess it's almost being afraid of success. But I am also feeling very excited at the same time. Excited at the idea of not dealing with the junk I deal with at work. Excited at the thought of being able to homeschool my kids and make macaroni necklaces with them. Excited at the thought of being able to have another baby someday and NOT have to take them to daycare, to be able to breastfeed them without losing my supply from pumping, and to be able to use my stash of cloth diapers. Thrilled at the idea of being able to teach my daughters how to grow things and why worms are one of the most incredible creatures that God created. I am ecstatic at the potential to me able to have a pleasant and happy home with a hot meal waiting for my husband when he comes home from work, and actually to have time every once in a while to fold and put away laundry after it's been washed instead of just leaving it in a pile in the basement to pick through once a day for everyone's clothes.

This may seem like simple things to you, but for someone like me who thrives in the stay-home environment to have to go out and earn a living to support the family it is a tough thing. Some people are the type that would get bored being at home... I am the type who gets bored and burned out being at work because I wish I was at home doing things I consider productive. With that said, I am forever blessed to have a husband who has worked very hard in school (even made the dean's list!) and is now working hard on finishing school up and also looking for work. It is as important to him as it is to me that I am able to stay home, and in that small little thing I have a great asset - a partner in life that has the same goal as I do in many different ways. That's a lot more uncommon than you might think.

And really, the only fears I have are the fears that all this will somehow be taken away from me. That for some reason, somehow, I will be doomed to never be able to fulfill that basic need that is for me to raise my children as a stay home mom. it seems like a simple thing, but when you have spent so much time going past so many obstacles it almost seems like it would be natural for things to "not work out."

but really, if I had to just work forever, I would probably become clinically depressed. So I don't even want to think about it. Maybe I just need to refocus and remember that SOMEDAY it will happen and I need to just keep walking along because if you keep walking, you will get there, right?

A nice sunny weekend part 2

So as far as the rest of the weekend, this is mainly the part that I wish I had pics for. Both Saturday and Sunday were absolutely beautiful, no jacket needed sunny days. You know, it's funny, I think Eleora remembers gardening with me last year because she just jumped right in helping me.

The garden beds had shrunk quite a bit (of course) and I had put a bunch of leaves on them but needed to top them with compost in the spots I was going to plant garlic and onions. Planting garlic in the spring? Yes, I know, you are supposed to plant it in the fall, but I never got around to it and I have been SO burned out from work in the last 9 months or so that I had had zero energy after I get home or on the weekends to do ANYTHING besides try and stay caught up on dishes and laundry (and even that didn't get done).

So anyway, I was shoveling compost from the pile onto the garden spot where I was going to plant my garlic and of course Eleora immediately came over and got her little mint green trowel and started helping me... it was so cute! She loved watching the "warms" wiggle around in the compost and did a great job helping me plant the garlic cloves. I'd saved a couple of the biggest and fattest bulbs from last year so hopefully we'll do OK. Some of them were already starting to sprout in the bag. I do have a few volunteers from last year, must have been some that didn't quite make it up past the compacted leaf mulch. We'll see how those go!

The compost pile itself was pretty meager... I had stopped composting last year (sniff) because the neighbor's dog just loved to dig around in it (jumping the fence, same dog that left a dead SOMETHING - I think it was a mole - in my garden bed). Said neighbor has now moved out and so I am now free to compost again!

Sunday morning I dug out my box of seeds and the girls immediately zoned in on me. Sophia just had fun shaking the packets of peas to hear them rattle, but Eleora was a pretty intent student. Then we went out afterwards and I spread some potting soil for the onion bed (had run out of compost) and she helped me by carefully placing a seed into each hole. She is a very careful gardener... it's funny because last year she wasn't too much older than Sophia but Fia is just too busy running around and climbing on stuff outside to pay attention to what I am doing :) And that is OK, it's nice for them to be independent so that Tommy and I can do our work outside in the yard.

Last year I followed the instructions for onions which say to start them 6 weeks early indoors. Unfortunately, somehow I went wrong and those starts ended up so spindly. I did NOT do well with onions last year so this year I figured, we've been having amazing weather and a very mild winter overall (only an inch or two of snow!) and so I'll plant some seeds to see what happens. If all else fails, I can just get some sets to plant out in early May.

Then of course I completed my garden plan. This year's garden is more of an experiment than anything. I have a couple different kinds of pumpkin that I want to try out, some Litchi tomatoes, and lots of other fun things. I actually did not technically complete it because I don't know which varieties I'll be planting in all but I have it mostly done. I do have a schedule I made out (I even got a planner specifically for my garden this year) and so I can already tell you that next weekend is when I get to start my tomatoes & peppers! I got a soil blocker set this year so hopefully it won't be too hard for me to master it. I hated using the cups I did last year.

I already made my seed order a few months ago but some of those seeds were for "seed bank storage" and I lost the master inventory list that I made so now I get to go through them AGAIN and then I'll know which varieties I can grow. I think we'll have fun this year though! Probably in September I'll be done working so that will give us harvest time.

I'm also currently rooting some grape starts, Concord and Thompson Seedless. Those will be planted up on our family farm up north in a few months, along with a full complement of fruit trees this fall. I've also got some hardy kiwi seeds that I'll be starting so we'll see what will come of that! OH, and I'm also trying my hand at growing pineapples. One thing I would just LOVE is to have a big greenhouse full of tropicals.

When Tommy and I finalize the design for our home up at the property one of the "musts" is an attached greenhouse/sun room where I can grow small tropicals in pots. Did you know you can grow dwarf mango and avocado trees? I must admit working in the finance industry there are certain things that make me feel we have a not-so-firm footing. Specifically, the financial state of this country makes me concerned about the potential of bringing in food from other places. Sometimes that's good (eat local!) but sometimes that might not be fun, since I absolutely love bananas, mangos, avocados, and lots of other tropicals.

So my answer to that is to grow my own! We'll see :) Really, if I had a small greenhouse I could probably do it... we just need to find a good house plan to modify. And of course to pray that Tommy gets a job up north pretty quick when he's done with school.

And so I guess that's it for this post! Haha... Just wait. I sure can't!

garden update

Ok well I got yelled at this weekend because I haven't blogged in a long time. Truth be told, I've just been focusing on trying to go through and haven't had the time for my garden inspections and whatnot. Plus I'm working on writing a novel also and so that takes up a lot of my "write-y" time.

So the garden has gotten pretty messy. Mostly because I never got any mulch to lay between the beds. I've decided to pull up all the rotted cardboard and stuff in between the beds and just start having Tommy mow between them. At least it won't look as crazy with tall grasses and stuff.

It's almost time to pull the garlic. Yesterday I pulled a couple heads that had died back completely and I was very excited to see full-size heads :) I've pulled a couple here and there to use and they were pretty small so this was nice. This weekend I was at the property and pulled up the 3 heads of garlic that grew (from the 5 I'd planted) and they were pretty small. My mom said that our neighbors who also planted garlic ended up with fairly small heads too.

My cabbages and broccolis are growing like nuts but nothing forming on them yet. The pumpkins have blooms forming, and I think the one melon that didn't get eaten by the slugs has some on it too. I'm not sure if they need to cross-pollinate, but I hope I get at least one melon out of it :)

I've got some peppers and tomatoes forming, and a couple cute little tomatillos. Some of the onions are bulbing up nicely. My basil is slowly plugging along, not growing as fast as I'd hoped.

We've had a couple harvests of a couple strawberries. They are so delicious when homegrown! Incredibly sweeter and more flavor. Eleora likes to take them from the plant when they are barely ripening, though, so it's kind of a race to see who gets them first.

Peas are producing, which is fun. I've showed Eleora what they look like so she is having fun looking through the mess of vines for the pods. The beans are coming along nicely and will probably start blooming in the near future. I still need to plant more carrots, never did the succession planting that I'd planned and so I only have 2 squares of them right now. Gave up on radishes which is fine, we burned out on them anyway :)

OH and the nasturtiums I planted, one has a bloom. The most beautiful deep rich bright red I've ever seen in a flower. I think they are called "Empress." I'll have to take a picture of that one... absolutely gorgeous. Oh, and the cucumbers also have blooms and I have a few cute little ones forming :)

Mother's Day weekend

And what a weekend it was!

I did have to work a half day on Saturday so after I got off work we packed up the kids (OK after they woke up from naps) and went to the 2009 Garden Expo. I wanted to see if I could get my Mother's Day gift there and then maybe pick up a couple blueberry bushes.

They had TONS of cool stuff there. Totally not what I was looking for, though. I think next year I'll have to force my mom to come with me. There were lots of great booths with all kinds of outdoor decor, furniture made from thin saplings, antiques refinished (a FABULOUS potting shelf or two or hundred), tons of plants and veggie starts, etc. It was really fun! Except there was only one place to buy rose bushes and they were like $17 for one small stem (unique ones, though).

So afterwards we went to Big R and I picked out my rosebush :) And for those of you who think it's weird for me to get my own gift... well yeah. This is the first year we've implemented what will become our Dasko family tradition. Every year for mother's day, my dad used to get my mom a fuchsia hanging basket. I like that tradition, but wanted roses instead. T didn't have a chance to get one earlier this week and then when we decided to go to the Expo we just assumed they would be there. Apparently not. So I got a beautiful cream-colored rose with red edges. Similar to my old favorite Double Delight but a different type. I'll put it into a large container and then in a few years when we move to the property I'll plant my roses (at that point there will probably be several) in a permanent spot.

In the garden news, I planted more radishes yesterday with Eleora. She was a great help. I poked holes in the dirt, and gave her one seed at a time to drop in. We did 12 in a square around the outsides of a couple holes where I'll be putting in a tomato plant. I think we planted a total of 36. We'll be rolling in radishes soon! The 2 squares I planted a few weeks ago are coming up strong. Right next to them I have my first batch of spinach coming up. The lettuce is also coming up and the onions are really gaining strength. I do think, however, that I will be getting some starts from the nursery still. The strawberries have put on a ton of new growth.

On Friday, the girls brought home some marigolds potted in cups for Mother's Day. They went into the garden on Sunday. Eleora always talks about "Mama's special flowers" and finally she has some she can call her own! Still haven't seen any sprouts from the other herbs I've planted or my carrots.

The plant starts are still doing well. The Tomatillos are growing so fast, though, I think they are outgrowing their container. Next year I'll plant those a little later. One of them even has a bloom! I have all my starts potted in little 9 or 12oz cups (I can't remember which size). Next year I'll be doing soil blocks so I think it will be easier to keep them in the correct size.

I didn't turn my compost pile... I realized i'm gonna need another container to turn it INTO since I put the bolts on backwards (and therefore can't take the "bin" off the pile while it's standing like I should be able to). So I'm gonna see if I can get another one. It's still nice and warm and I've got lots of coffee grounds waiting to be mixed in.

The weekend's work

So we went up to the property for the day on Saturday. Actually, a partial day. Eleora threw up a couple times on the way there and I think it wasn't just carsickness, but I think she had what Sophia had earlier this week. She seemed a bit better but lethargic, practically begged to take a nap later on. We ended up just going home around 3 after she woke up. But in the meantime it was great to tromp around on the property! We went around with my dad and brothers looking at the property lines and discussing home sites. Someday soon we'll need to start actually planning instead of discussing!

My garlic is looking fabulous up there! If you remember, last fall I planted a couple cloves of garlic and mulched them with old leaves. They survived and came up quite nicely. A little shorter than my garlic here, but the winter lasts a bit longer up there than it does down here. I'd say the garlic was at least 6-8 inches tall already. You can see in the pictures that it's definitely doing well. I'm just glad deer don't eat garlic! I did plant 5 cloves and only 4 seem to have come up but that's not bad.
I also had a couple bags of really badly sprouted potatoes. Not really good for anything but planting or composting, so I took them up there and Mom will find a place and plant them. Who knows what will come from that!

So then we came home and had a nice quiet evening. Eleora was feeling better on the way home, as indicated by the near-constant "Old Petonald hadda farm, EIEIO" we heard ;) Fia slept the whole way home. Eleora was still not 100% but at least she was feeling better... though it was an early bedtime for both girls. Eleora didn't even want to read books - she asked to go to bed right away. Weird!

Sunday was a really nice day. I took Eleora to Lowe's in the morning and we got some more annuals for my brick planter, some more shop lights with bulbs, a small charcoal BBQ, a timer for the faucet outside, some grass seed to patch the spot under the spruce tree, etc. It was a nice trip for us and we had fun :) I don't usually go to the chain stores, I prefer going to the locally owned Ace or Big R but Lowe's had these bulbs for the shop lights that supposedly have the same spectrum as sunlight. Same price as regular bulbs, I think around $6.75 for 2 of them. So, we'll try those out and see how we do. I have TONS of potting up to do and STILL didn't get my seeding done.

HOWEVER, in spite of the fact I didn't get my direct seeding done, I did get something major done. I wish I could take pictures but the stupid camera... nuff said. Anyway, my biggest issue was that I didn't have dividers for the square feet on my beds. The thing is, my beds are not perfectly square footed, if that's even a term. They are 3.75'x7.5' and so a couple sections are not quite a foot wide. Because of that, I don't want to "eyeball" each section because I KNOW I'd be off. I was trying to think of the best way to get some dividers, and CHEAP.

What I decided to do was this: I measured out my increments on the beds themselves and marked them. I took my biggest drill bit (about 1/3 inch or so) and drilled holes into the beds about a half inch below the top. I then just threaded and wove my string (got a roll of polyester mason's twine at Lowe's for $1.65) through the holes. It looks neat and tidy, and the best thing - it makes it VERY inconvenient for the cat to use the beds as his LITTER BOX. I'll take a photo as soon as I can because it's VERY cool. Now I have all the beds sectioned off, and my half sections are nicely marked as well. My neighbor commented on how organized I am about this. Well... if anything in my life can be organized I guess it could be this!

Other than that, I still have tons of potting up to do but I'm really trying to be relaxed about it. The truth is we do have a pretty long season here so it isn't like NOW OR DIE. It's ok if it takes me longer. It's OK if I have to wait another week or so to plant carrots. My garden will be fine. This is my first one ever, for crying out loud! The point is to have fun with my girls and to grow good food.

I think all this beautiful weather is mellowing me out :) We also did get some more annuals - I got some white impatiens and some purple alyssum to plant in the brick planter, and then we also got some magenta and purple primroses for the side flowerbed. I think the brick planter is pretty full... it's going to be so gorgeous this summer when everything is grown up. Eleora had fun helping me water in the plants. Then we grilled brats for dinner. All in all, it was a really nice day.

Sick days

So yesterday I ended up taking the day off work to stay home with Sophia who was sick. She's feeling much better now but the really fun part of staying home with a sick kid (especially when they sleep a lot) is doing all the domestic stuff I don't normally get to do! It's weird how much more fulfilled I am when I can spend a day doing that, rather than working, even though I really do love my job. So all in all, I have to say I really do enjoy when I'm forced to take a sick day for the kids.

So yesterday we did a little grocery shopping, and the store had some annuals there so I was able to plant some shade loving annuals in my brick planter railing that surrounds the patio. I got some alyssum, lobelia and pansies. My sweet peas are coming up very nicely.

I also was able to get laundry done, clean up the house and make a home-cooked meal. Sure was nice! I'd been lamenting to Tommy about how lately I've lost my cooking inspiration. I don't know if it's just being out of practice but even on the weekends when I'm home to cook, I go for the quick things like grilled cheese, etc. It's like I can never think of anything to cook or even anything to buy groceries to cook. So we talked about it, he refreshed me on a couple things I used to make a lot that he misses. One was my potato corn chowder, so I made that yesterday. I made it with kielbasa sausage, potatoes, corn, celery and of course garlic & onion in homemade chicken stock. It was excellent (I also bought some french bread at the store, didn't have time to make my own bread for the meal) and I'm currently eating some leftovers for lunch.

We're going to the Property on Saturday for a day trip. I've got a bunch of sprouted potatoes in the basement that are beyond use but I'll take them there, plant them, and who knows! I'm not sure if the deer will eat the potatoes but it's either that or the compost pile, so we might as well experiment and see what happens. I also am dying to check on the garlic I planted last fall. The stuff I planted here is growing like crazy. The Inchelium Red variety that I had is actually native to that area. It was found on the Colville Indian reservation, and our property is about a 10 minute drive from the city of Colville.

The weekend

Well, I didn't get everything done on my list. The kids decided to conspire against us and make it a practically nap-less weekend. Even Sophia fought it. It was really weird.

So... what I did. I made some baby food, although didn't have enough for all week. I did some laundry, I got the flowerbed cleaned up (T and I decimated the blackberry bramble that was trying to take it over) and so hopefully the mums won't have disease this year since all the old growth is cut out. I tried to pull up some of the grass that has a hold of part of it but I think that's a lost cause. It's a shame the bed wasn't maintained, there's a lot of really pretty flowers in there. When we pulled out the bramble we discovered a rosebush that had died. :(

I did get all the purple broccoli potted up and a lot of the cabbage. I got a yard of compost and was able to spread it all. I got my bulb onions transplanted outside and the scallions will be OK to wait another week. Potatoes are planted. I didn't get any of my direct seeding done, though. Still have the regular Waltham broccoli and a little of the green sprouting broccoli that's trying to grow out of the flat and take over the grow rack. It's hard when they are so big because then you break half the seedlings trying to untangle them!

The worst part about it? I can't find my garden plan! I spent all this time making one that took into account shady spots, crop rotation for next year, companion planting, etc. So, I just planted some of my onions in each bed except the one I remember I wanted to put my tomatoes in. We'll see. This morning I laid out a new one and it's waiting for me to redesign it.

Anyway, this weekend was frustrating because I just couldn't seem to get stuff done. And I was going to start running again now that it's light out early enough but I slept through my alarm. I'm just so dog-tired these days. I don't know how moms with young babies are supposed to get back in shape if we're so tired from being UP ALL NIGHT with a teething baby that we can't even wake up on time. Can you tell I'm annoyed? Still need to do a lot of direct seeding and a lot of potting UP. And I realized that I really should have 2 shop lights on each rack instead of 1, especially when I have the bigger cups. So I'll probably be spending more of my allowance this weekend. There's worse things to spend it on, that's for sure :)

One thing I keep telling myself is that I don't have ROOM for all these plants so it's OK if some of the seedlings die. I have 100+ potted up plants. I do plan on selling the extras on craigslist but the thing is, people are going to want herbs and tomato plants... they aren't going to be as excited as I am about french cabbage, purple sprouting broccoli, etc. So it's ok if I let some of those guys go. I still have a flat of peppers that will need transplanting in a week or 2, and a half flat of broccoli & cabbage & eggplant.

Any of you gardeners out there know exactly what I'm deeling...

more ordering and Wola cuteness

This morning I used the $25 off $25 GardensAlive coupon my mom got me. I got a floating row cover, long enough to cover 3 of my beds, some organic houseplant fertilizer (for my plants at work) and some soil inoculant. I'm sure my soil in the beds is fine, with all the compost, manure, leaves, etc, that's in there (and I plan on moving my worms into the garden beds when it warms up a bit also) but for the started plants I wanted to get some mycorrhizae into the starter mix. I hope this will work!

This morning when we were going out to the truck Wola was walking on the hard packed snow in the yard like she always does. When I came to get her she said "Careful, don't fall down and get owies!" She's so cute when she copies us... :)

Halloween!

I feel like I've been gone for AGES! Our internet was down for a while and I've been busy busy busy this week. So I'll do a couple posts this weekend, probably :)

We've been sick here at our house so not a whole lot exciting has happened during the week. Last weekend we carved our pumpkins. Wola wasn't super excited about the pumpkin, she thought it was "Yucky Gross" but she did try and help a little with scooping them! So Tommy carved her a skull (surprise surprise!).

I ended up doing Eric Draven with a crow on his shoulder, and Tommy freehanded the Misfits skull. His pumpkin didn't turn out well for the picture but it looked really cool, you can sorta see a glow through the part where he peeled off the skin and it just looked really eerie.

Then, this week, we had a pumpkin carving contest at work and my team decided to do our boss's face. I ended up doing the design from a photo of him, and it turned out really well. We won the contest, of course :)

And then after all that, we got home too late last night to even have any trick or treaters. So now we have candy in the freezer... lol. One of the casualties of my late shift but hopefully next year I'll be on a better schedule.

Wola helping Tommy with her "ponkin"

Tommy's Misfits skull
Eric Draven with the crow on his shoulder (You know, the movie "The Crow")
Wola's skull

Here's the pattern I did for the carving of my boss' face. I wish I had a picture of it lit up but no candles left!Wola had a harvest party at daycare so she's pretty worn out. She was a skeleton this year :)
Sophia is a ladybug :) You can't see them but there's these cute little antennae attached to the hat.

Wii!

So last week we bought a Wii and a Wii Fit. I'd been wanting one for a while but we didn't have the cash for it so when the IRS graciously decided to finally give us our tax refund and stimulus (don't ask... long story) we went out and got one! My sister has one and I think it's really fun, and the Fit looked cool. We've both really enjoyed it in different aspects, and one of the things I really like is starting my morning with some stuff to get my blood going just a little bit.

There's pros and cons to it. Fact is, I'm pretty overweight and while I'm motivated to lose weight, I am limited by the fact that I'm nursing Sophia. When you are nursing you don't want to go *too* gung-ho on weight loss because you could lose your milk supply, which I don't want. Before I got pregnant, I was working out on my lunch breaks and I was making good, steady progress. Of course, now I'm pretty much back to where I started from except I no longer live at the apartment complex with a workout room.

Therefore, I need something I can do at home while the kids are asleep (so even going walking or jogging would be out anyway). The Wii Fit has been great so far - I've been able to stay motivated, get up and do some yoga and step aerobics. Is it the most wonderful powerful workout ever? Of course not. Is it great for a working mom of 2 who has limited time available? Absolutely! I've been losing weight steadily since I started about a week & half ago. I've also been focusing on eating better (of course). One of the good things is that Tommy also wants to focus on his fitness - his old job was physically intense and kept him in pretty good shape but of course now he's not doing that anymore. He has a bowflex he's been using which is working well for him, but he's also seriously on board with the better food type stuff.

I cook from scratch mostly when I can. though with working and whatnot it gets complicated. In any case, I'm very happy with it. It's a nice way to start my morning, is fun enough that I haven't been unmotivated (except yesterday when I slept in because Eleora decided at 4:30 am that she was done sleeping for the night and I fought her on it until 7am). The yoga is surprisingly do-able and I like the step aerobics, though I wish I could do it at a faster pace.

What I REALLY like about it is that I can see my weight loss on a graph all done up for me and it tracks everything. Since I generally just do my weigh-ins at 7am in the morning, it's pretty consistent as far as fluctuations are concerned and so I know the results I'm getting are pretty accurate. Of course, I am keeping in mind that just nursing burns about 2-300 calories per day anyway so I'm sure that's helping, but I never had much luck with the nursing helping my weight loss by itself. I just unlocked the boxing exercise today and I'm hoping that will be something that I can do. The boxing game on the regular Wii Sports is VERY aerobic and had my arms sore for days.

So all in all, I really like it and it was a great investment. Very worthwhile. Basically, you get what you put into it. There's lots of ways to cheat and pretend you worked hard when you didn't. For me, I figure, I'm just cheating myself and so if I'm feeling lazy or tired that particular day, then I'll just do easier exercises.

Coffee grounds again!

Good news - I'll get to collect the grounds from work! I'll need to go get a container. I have a 3lb coffee can at home that's empty and I might cover it but I think I might want to get something bigger that I can put garbage liners or even paper grocery bags in. That way I don't have to rinse it out and it won't get stinky over the weekend. I am one of the last folks out of here so I don't think it'll be a problem to keep it up. This will be great for my compost pile and also the lawn! Coffee gounds can be bagged up and kept in the garage all winter and spread on the lawn in the spring, though I imagine it would be a bit stinky. I might just try to compost them all... but it depends on how much it ends up being. I'm really glad I got this all hooked up since I haven't found an actual coffeeshop that will save them for me yet.

So that's good news! Work is going well and I'm getting right back into the swing of things. The bad part is that it's being a difficult adjustment for all of us as far as the daycare thing. The girls are a little more volatile... Eleora is acting even MORE terrible 2, and Sophia yesterday spent a good 30 minutes just crying hysterically before I could get her calmed down enough to eat and go to sleep. This isn't going to be easy. I think I'll start a monthly countdown... lol. If Tommy finishes his program in May of 2010, I'd say by July or so I should be done. He does have a job waiting for him already at his old employer (they were so sad to see him go that they are going to create a drafting position for him, isn't that awesome!) so I don't have to worry about him finding a job. So, that's 21 months away.

So... 21 months and counting. :)

Trip up to the property

On Saturday we went for a day trip up to the property. My parents and my sister both have trailers up there and were camping, but I didn't want to stay since it would get cold and T had a lot of homework to finish. Eleora had a blast up there! I took a bunch of pictures of the place so that you could see the future place. The parcel I chose is more wooded, and so I'll be doing a lot of clearing out, but it's absolutely perfect.

Here we are on our property! Sophia was asleep when we took the picture, so she isn't in it. Isn't it a beautiful view? I can't wait to look out my kitchen window and see that! So basically, to reiterate... my parents bought this 120 acre piece of land and each of us siblings has chosen a parcel and we will buy it from them and build on it. Most of us are planning on living there full-time at some point except the youngest, she's still not sure. It's a gorgeous spot, and the beauty is that we each liked a different piece and so there was no arguing about which spot. Each of us will have 20 acres and so plenty of space around us but we'll still be close by each other.

This all came about because when I was young, we lived out in the semi-country on a little acreage. There were several houses all grouped together, my cousins in one. I remember that time so well, and I had such a wonderful life when we lived there... catching tadpoles, eating peas from the garden, playing in the mud, swinging on the rope swing, running around with the dog, you name it. I wanted that life for my children! As we all began to discuss things we realized that all of us siblings wanted the same thing for our kids. So we decided that we would all move up there, giving each other enough space to do their own thing, but being close enough that our kids could grow up together. It's important to me that my kids grow up in the country, and I'm excited for the day that we can move up there. If we're lucky, we might be able to get up there in about 5 years or so.

The northwest view
This is a flat "bench" area that is right north of the homesite. The homesite overlooks the valley, but right below is a longish flat area that will be perfect for greenhouses or maybe an orchard someday.

This is the southwest view of the place You can see the bench down below a bit - it's the lighter, un-shaded area before the trees start.Looking back down the driveway
The southwest view
This is the campsite that will someday be the homesite.


I brought up a couple cloves of my garlic to plant. The soil up there is fantastic! We'll see what happens.

Here's me with my little helper planting the garlicShe's bringing leaves over to the garlic to mulch it. Isn't she cute?
And the mulched pile. I planted the garlic all within about a square foot (5 cloves) and then I stuck the stick up to mark the spot. With the leaf mulch it ended up looking like a shallow grave... :)

This is actually directly south of where our home will be located - at the highest point on the bluff.
Partly cleared area - this will all be a part of my growing space someday. Right by the second tree on the left is where I planted my garlic.
Our new wheels! It's a Honda CR-V, we just got it on Friday. It sure is nice to drive a vehicle that isn't all rickety and feeling like it will fall apart any minute! Thank you, Granddad!
Eleora loved the swing - the men put in a playground for the kids since we have so many young kids in our family. It's a really great thing for them when we are all camping up there!
She also had fun in the dirt

Here's Eleora planting wildflower seeds with her Grammie :) Oh, and Snick the dog...

This is actually a photo of what will be my brother's parcel, but it was a cool picture so I wanted to include it.
And here's the pasture - the closest part will be my brother's and then further along will be my parents' part - the parcels run parallel to each other.


So there you have it! It'll be nice to take pictures in the springtime - all the grass is brown and dying right now but the place is so gorgeous in the springtime - everything greens right up and there's so many flowers everywhere!

Back to work...

My time has come. My maternity leave is officially up and I go back to work today. The next couple years of my life are probably going to be very busy, and so I probably won't post as much during the week. I'll try, though! The tradeoff is that after Tommy finishes with school, I can quit my job and be a full-time stay home mom. I think about that day... probably every single day.

This last weekend was great - we went up to the property on Saturday for a day trip and I planted a few cloves of garlic just to see what would happen :) I'll post pictures later, of course. The area is so beautiful, every time I go up there I am so refreshed by it and then there's a definite melancholy when we have to leave. Eleora had a fantastic time and I think she'll really enjoy camping next year. We didn't do a lot of it this year since it is pretty hot during the summer and I was pregnant. We went back in may but she wasn't super stable on her feet yet and kept tripping on the underbrush. This time, she was a fully stable, running toddler. Don't they grow SO FAST?!?!

And the coffee photo... well, yesterday I went to Costco and they had EGGNOG and I just love eggnog in my coffee. So, it's a bittersweet day.

Taking my 8-week old baby to daycare later will not be fun. Sorry about my mood... I'm not feeling very happy right now. Don't get me wrong - I actually enjoy my job. If I didn't have kids I'd probably love going to work every day but I really just feel like I should be at home with the girls. Tommy going to school is a big deal and it will change a lot of things for us and will be what enables me to stay home with the kids... but that isn't making it any easier to gather up blankets, bottles, diapers, and whatnot to bring with the kids, hand them off to someone else and say "here, take their whole day." I'll probably get about 1 1/2 hours per day with Eleora - I get off work so late that she goes to bed 30 minutes after I get home.

Sorry, I'm being emo - I'll stop now.

Sourdough bread

When I was a child, we lived for several years in Nuernberg, Germany. We were missionaries and my dad did a lot of work with local churches in addition to making trips out to the poverty-stricken eastern european countries. It was a very formative time in my life in many ways.

One of the things I'll always think is ironic about that time is that I spent my time there longing to come back to the States and when I was back here at age 11, I longed to go back to Germany. We did that with the food, too - when we were there, we missed peanut butter, chocolate chips, and soft white bread. But then when I came back to the U.S., one of the things I missed the most was the good, solid German cooking, especially German bread. I went back for a visit several years ago, and one of the best things I brought back (besides chocolate) was bread that had been baked fresh the morning I left. They actually had a bakery IN the airport!

German rye bread is definitely something to be cherished. I spent many years trying to perfect it, and last year I finally did. It's a simple sourdough rye, with wheat flour and salt. I remember when I first baked it for my mom, she took a piece and ran it upstairs and made my dad (who was still asleep) eat it. He wasn't too impressed with the being woken up part, but everyone agreed it tasted pretty authentic.

Unfortunately, I moved into an apartment where something seemed to be wrong with the air, and my starter went bad, along with any other starters I tried to make. Even my plants died in that apartment. I was so busy that I stopped baking bread and began to buy it instead.

In July, we moved into this house and I've been meaning to start again. I hate to say it, but I can't really remember what I did to make that bread taste authentic, but I decided to start again. I bought some organic whole rye flour and also pumpernickel rye from Barry Farm, and began a starter this morning. There was a perfect crock for it in one of the boxes of canning jars I recently acquired - not safe for canning in, but perfect for sourdough. I'll keep a picture log and in a week or so when the starter is ready, I'll post the progression photos along with instructions.

As I try and remember, I think part of my success involved my attempts at no-knead bread. No-knead bread is basically where you mix yeast with salt and flour, mix in some water to form a slack, shaggy dough, and let it sit for 24 hours or so. You bake it in a La Cloche, dutch oven, or even a lidded casserole pan.

I made a homemade baking pot from a upside-down terra-cotta flower pot (I got the idea from somewhere on the internet, it isn't mine... can't remember where though). What this does is trap the steam inside while the bread is baking, which makes for an amazing crust. When I tried the regular No-Knead recipe, I found it too bland for my taste but when I made a sourdough version, it was amazing. So, after a furlough, I'm excited to try again :)

If you are more interested in the no-knead technique, here's a fantastic website that is very educational on the method with videos and everything - Breadtopia.

Pumpkin Patch

We had quite a day yesterday! In the morning we headed up with my sister and her bunch to the pumpkin patch. We have a great local grower's association about 30 minutes north of here. It's basically just a huge area with different farmers, and the association advertises for them and whatnot. It's called Green Bluff. We go up there in the summer for all sorts of u-pick fruit and also pumpkins in October. The farm we go to for pumpkins has a huge cannon they shoot pumpkins out of. They also do fun stuff for the kids... this year there was a big straw pile to roll in, a straw maze, chickens, donkeys and horses to pet. Last year they had pony rides, but not this year.

Eleora had a great time just running around and getting dirty. They had all kinds of old vehicles and farm machinery just set up for playing on or taking pictures, etc. She tried to pet the chickens, petted the donkey (Eeyore)
...was only semi-afraid of the straw maze, and had a great time in the pumpkin patch itself. She mostly liked to pick up handfuls of dirt and throw it around.

We also got a family picture, since my brother-in-law is a fantastic photographer, and of course I'll post that when I get it. It'll be one with ME in it! I'm usually the person with the camera so you don't see me in many of the pictures.

The pumpkins were excellent this year. Last year there were a lot of them that had already started to rot but this year there were so many great ones to choose from! I got 8 pie pumpkins to process into puree to freeze for pies and pumpkin bread. Mostly pumpkin bread, though... I'm not a huge fan of pumpkin pie but I adore pumpkin bread! We also got a couple for carving. I think Eleora will really have fun carving pumpkins... especially the part where she gets to squish her fingers through the pumpkin guts... hehe.

I also picked up 2 pints of local honey while I was up there - I love buying directly from the growers. I think it's so important to buy our food as close to the source as possible to eliminate the corporate middlemen. Farmers in this country get a fraction of each dollar we spend on their food, and so the closer to them that we can buy it, I think is better. I am actually transitioning our family to local eating... I don't think I can do 100% just yet but I've been focusing on buying local produce. One of the grocery stores nearby stocks a lot of locally grown produce. I wasn't able to put up enough of it to get us through the winter so I'll probably end up doing most of our transition in the spring.

We also would like to put a side of beef in the freezer but we don't have the space for it, or the money (since we literally have no income right now until I go back to work next week). I'm hoping by this time next year to be pretty much transitioned. We do live within wheat country, so I think that's definitely possible. With 2 small children and me working full-time (Tommy has a really high workload with school and also part-time work) we are too busy to really be able to fully transition but I'd like to do MOSTLY local. And then when he's done with school and I can quit my job and stay home with the kids... watch out! I'll be a preserving, gardening maniac ;)