Great ideas

I wish that I had known and picked the brain of a veteran homeschooler before I embarked on this journey.  It seems like we've been flying by the seat of our pants for a while now and while I'm happy that we are, I wish I had other's experiences to draw on before we'd even started this road.  And that, my friends, is the problem with choosing the road less traveled. 

But I'm rectifying this situation now, I am surrounded by people who are at the same point as we are, just starting out, and those who are closer to done than us.  Sure, we talk about the big issues:  What curriculum is best for Language Arts?  How do you deal with the younger sibling who isn't of age to be actively involved?  Who has a homeschooled teenager who will watch the kids while I go to the dentist?  When is the best time to go to Disneyland?  But its the little things that are catching my attention. 

A friend mentioned in passing that someone had suggested that they fill their shelves with field guides.  I have never thought about this as I'm not a bird enthusiast (that is the nice way of saying I'm terrified of birds).  Sure, the man has field guides to rock and mineral identification, but that is work related.  I filed the idea away in my head and decided to at least take a look at it.  You know, we can always use more reference books...  For Easter this year, we bought the kids each a small field guide.  The Angel thumbs through hers in her spare time.  The Boy sleeps with his.  We had a chance to use The Princess' guide the other day when we came upon a bird that was nesting in the gravel. 

I really wish I had known of this great idea, which seemed so insignificant when it passed in conversation a few months ago.    Maybe when new babies are born to those around me, I'll give out field guides instead of Pat the Bunny.

Our square foot gardening adventures

Adventures?  Sure, why not.  I'm going to attempt to explain this in an easy way. 

We like to go to a hardware store and buy 2 2x8's, cut them into 4 foot lengths there and bring them home.  If we are having a bit of foresight we buy a bag of vermiculite (the 2 cu. ft.) a bale of peat moss (the 4 cu. ft.) and 3 cu. ft. of composted manure.  Technically, experts call for 3 cu ft of each, but its not sold in those quantities around here, so we fake it.  Last year we did just fine with this mix.

Then we bring the lumber home, drag out the deck screws and drill and put the frame together.  Buy deck screws when you are at Lowe's if you don't have a ridiculous quantity of them hanging around your house. 

We measured out where we wanted this frame and placed it in the yard.  We'll let it sit here long enough to yellow the grass under the frame so that we know exactly where we want to install the garden.  This saves on painting lines in the yard, and give a natural outline when we pick it up to dig.  You don't have to dig out the grass, and instead you can place a layer of weed block under the frame, but we liked the idea of having the natural (though poor) soil available under the garden, in case anything we grow gets super ambitious.

That's hard work, which is why I'm taking a picture instead of picking up the shovel laying next to the wheelbarrow. 

This is what it looks like with the aforementioned soil mixture.

We used clothes line to mark out our 4x4 grid.  We had some laying around in the cabinet.  We have friends who have used the metal slats from old miniblinds to make a grid, and you can always use something like wood slats from the store to make your grid too.  Just be sure to mark out a grid before you plant, it makes it easier, and you waste less of your space.

This is last year's garden right after we planted the starts.  We got a late start so we didn't bother to try to start any seeds.  Can I say "start" any more in this paragraph?  Start the starts and start now.  Or whatever works for your area. Start, start, start...

We ended up discovering that we shouldn't grow corn.  It's a huge space hog, and ours rotted on the ear anyway.  It costs more for us to grow corn than it does to buy it at the store.  Other people may have better luck with it than we did.  Last year we grew squash, pumpkin, zucchini, corn, peppers, rosemary, basil, thyme, strawberries, head lettuce (another failure), leaf lettuce (grew great), watermelon and marigolds in the bed.  We learned that 2 zucchini will take over 1/4 of the bed, so if you plant them, plant one and make certain you have a vining kind that can be trained.  This year our second bed will be the home to the vining squashes, where we will train the vines to grow in a less trafficked areas.

Now, we have cats, and if you do too, I suggest covering the bed soon after your final harvest and cleanup, anything wintering over (we wintered over strawberries), can be left out from the cover, but really, these are just too tempting to cats to be left open.  Our cats do ok, and generally stay out of the garden once we plant and water it, but as long as they see bare, dry soil, they think we have installed the world's best catbox.  We covered ours with some leftover lumber last year.  In a fit of spring fever, I pulled the covering off and then realized that we needed to recover it until planting.  We put black plastic over it, which will help to warm the ground too, making seeds germinate better when we plant our carrots and the other things we'll plant from seed this year (we'll cover those areas to keep the cats out when we do plant).

As you can see, our strawberry square is uncovered (and our grass is sparse, until it recovers from winter.  It will look great again by May, when the snow stops falling at random intervals).

My love of Henry

Henry, oh Henry (wait, isn't that a candy bar?).  I met him yesterday.  He stood there tall, proud, strong, and ready to come home with me.  The man wasn't sure about him, since we'd have to bring home more than one if I bought Henry, and the price was kind of steep.  Not to mention that Henry will make a bigger mess every year we have him, plus he will require a lot more care than what we'd originally intended to invest.  But in the end, I asked some questions and found that I could get Henry for half the price, and I could get his mate, Ethel for that price too.  I'm so excited!

Now we just need to finalize Henry's and Ethel's forever homes, where they will probably live longer than we will.  Hopefully, since Summer Crisp Pear trees are self-pollinating, we will have beautiful pears for a very long time.  These are our first trees that we've picked out and bought for ourselves. Let's hope we don't kill them!

Wheel spinning Mondays

Yep, its one of those days.  Actually these days don't come along too often, but today has been one.  Dadman had to go to work early today, so the kids are a bit off-kilter.  Sweet Princess Girl tearfully asked if Daddy had kissed them goodbye when he left.  Of course and he'll still kiss you tonight in any case.  The Boy stumbled out of bed, hair on end and every which way, demanding Daddy to make his pancakes and sausage.  Sorry kiddo, no pancakes and sausage today, how about waffles.  "No pan-takes and sausage?" he asked soulfully with giant, sad blue eyes.  Angel Girl had a bit of a sob and then threw a shortlived fit that stemmed from me refusing to make pancakes this morning.  Maybe I should have caved... but waffles are so much easier and so much less mess.  We managed in any case, and the strawberries and whipped cream helped to soothe some unhappy feelings.

I love a couple of things about this situation.  One is that my kids wake up and their biggest worries on a Monday morning is that they may have slept through Daddy saying goodbye and wishing them a good day, and that Daddy didn't make them breakfast.  Two is that they were all thrown off by him not being here.  Sure it happens, its part of his job.  But we've made the choice to keep the kids home for school, which ensures that we'll always have as much time as possible with them.  I can't help but to sit in the midst of quiet time and reflect on just how sweet it is that the kids aren't too busy, too hurried or too ready to get out of the house to want to be with their parents.That time may come, so I'll enjoy the sweetness of this for now.