Variety

On Saturday I will be heading to the Farmer's Market for the first time this year. I CAN'T WAIT! My mouth waters at the thought of fresh fruit and veggies. I know it's still early in the season and there won't be much, but hey I'll get what I can take.
If it's nice I plan to work on my own garden some Saturday as well. I need to find some cheap pretty containers for the front yard. That's where I'll have my herbs and some other surprises.
They have to be pretty containers because we live in Naziland, oops, I mean HOA-ville. I know I say every year that it will only be for one more year. This year I hope I mean it. We are finishing up the last of the floor work and then painting. I'm really, really hoping we can put our house on the market not long after Miss Lily makes her appearance. Even if we have to stay in this town I would like to at least have a bigger yard and less restrictions.
Dh is looking for a job, but not much yet. It's ok though. We believe the promises of the Bible. God cares enough for the plants and animals to provide for them, I think we are covered. ;)
I came to the realization that in just a week and a half I will be entering the third trimester. It has gone by quickly. Of course it helped that I missed the whole first trimester. As anxious as I have been these last few months that probably is for the best!
Well, I hope you all are doing well.
Be Blessed!

In the garden

My garden is doing just as poorly this year as last.. oh well. I will keep trying and keep learning. I think it was still lack of bees.
Here are some squash, zucchini and tomato plants. The tomato plants actually look a lot bigger now and I have staked them. We will see. The squash looks bad and no results.

Here you see pepper plants and my gynormous cucumber plant. The cucumber plant just keeps going and going and going. My pepper plants look beautiful but nothing. Last year they bloomed and fruited really late in the summer though so I have not given up hope yet. With all the rain we had in the past few weeks the weeds are totally out of control. I pull and pull and pull, but they just keep coming back. Here it's not so bad. Of course this picture was pre rain!

And here it is, boys and girls, my big garden bounty so far this year. Yum-O they are good!

I really believe in growing my own food so I will just keep trying. Someone suggested a humming bird feeder for the back yard so that is on my list of things to try.

I thank God for the cucumbers though. It's nice to see something for my labors. :)

Be Blessed!

Homestead Happenings

So, whats been going on around here? Rain, Rain, Rain. Lots and lots of it. My garden is very green. Roy is going to put in two more boxes for me, I'm hoping this weekend. I have one box of mostly bell peppers and some cucumbers. My second box has mostly squash/zucchini and one row of banana peppers and one row of tomatoes. I keep praying over these boxes, it would be a big help to our grocery budget. Our neighbor brought us some cabbage over from her garden and it was huge. I am so going to grow some of those next time.

We have some new floors to get in. In three more months we will be painting and doing some touchups on the wood around here. Our goal is to have our house market ready by the end of this year. Of course that always seems to be our goal, but at least we have the means to make that happen now. We have been decluttering like crazy, but still have no room. Let's face it this house was built for a family of four who were never expected to actually LIVE here. The storage space is just sub par. :) But we make do. Creativity is the key!

Homeschooling is going well. I have to do evaluations next month for Karly and Kelsie so I'm busy putting there portfolios together. It stinks because I'm no where near where I wanted to be at this point, but we just keep pressing on. I have to change up what I'm doing with Tamara and Adrian some. Adrian is taking to reading a lot quicker than Tamara. We have been working through An Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Your Child to Read, but the kids don't like it and I'm slacking because it just does not fit our family. I'm moving back to my trusted Saxon Phonics and Explode the Code. These worked great for Kelsie I don't know why I thought I needed to change. :)

Well, I guess I need to get back to my day. Just wanted to update with some of the stuff around here. I miss blogging more regularly but it's been neat to see what all I can get done in a day. LOL

Be Blessed!!

This and that...

I thought I would just do a mid week post since I have not been around the past couple of days.
We started Co-op today with our homeschool group. Jonathan is in the nursery.
Tamara and Adrian are in the K-2 grade class. The first hour they are doing Apologia Zoology. The second hour we are learning about butterflies.
Karly and Kelsie are in the 3-5th grade class. First hour they are learning about Florida wildflowers and animal habitats. The second hour they are doing Science Experiments.
They all had a great time today.

As for my previous post. I hope everyone understands I was not telling you that you must also do this. I was explaining what our family does and how we got to that place. Some have never even given it a thought and I wanted to just kind of put the idea out there and get others thoughts. I am very interested in what everyone is saying. :)
Last but not least, guess what I have in my garden??? All my lamenting, praying, sobbing, hopelessness BUT NOT GIVING UP has paid off. I ate a cucumber from my garden yesterday and have about 4 more that will be reading in a day or so! I also noticed my broccoli coming in and there is another plant with a flower that might turn into something! AND my basil is gorgeous. I guess I really need to figure out how to harvest it and dry it. Its so beautiful though. I also have something that looks like a cantaloupe out there.

I am hoping to spend some time in the next week getting my other bed planted. Still planning all that though. :)

I wish I had pictures but I am having problems loading and downloading from my mom's computer.

Be Blessed!

Gardens...

.... just not mine. :)

Alas, my camera and computer are not cooperating with one another. I was going to go to Walmart and just make a disk but DH asked me to let him tinker with it awhile longer. Longer being the key word!! LOL
SO! I just decided to show you other people's gardens. Gardens I can only dream about because I am a long way from the gardener who designed these gardens. Right now I'm just praying that I can get a few vegetables to prove to myself I can do it. I planted zucchini and cucumbers for goodness sake. You know the kind of vegetables "real" gardeners are afraid of because of the high yield?
Right now I have a lot of green in my garden. Its a good thing. I have something growing on one of my plants that has the potential to be either squash or a disease that will kill the plant. Ho-hum. We are praying it's squash! Although at least one of my kids is busy praying it's a disease!! She hates squash! Who can hate the nutty sweet flavor of yellow squash?? Weirdo!
Now for my expert advice. Pay close attention for this epiphany!
Label your garden so you know what you planted where. Yep! I have no clue what each little box contains. The sad part is I planted some basil. I have about three plants that could possibly be the basil. Of course what if I pick the basil leaves and it turns out it was really the pepper plant? *Sigh* I just have to wait and pray something appears. :)

Be Blessed!!