the big garden post...

Yep, this is a BIG garden post. I meant to chronicle this bit by bit...as you can see that didn't work for me. So here is everything garden-ness from our house so far this summer...

We love having a vegetable garden at our house. We have a nice spot behind our garage for one, and we have worked on it bit by bit over the 4 years in this house. When we moved in, there were little terraced beds between it and the backyard. They looked very nice, but were begging for small children to climb up them and escape. So in 2007, S took out those beds and used the landscaping bricks to build a small wall between the garden and the backyard instead. In 2008, G grew a little more so S added one more row to the retaining wall, and we also added a little more dirt. In 2009, we just concentrated on what was growing in the garden. But this year, with a beautiful early spring, S and I took a good look at it and decided to make some changes.

The plan (as of early April): Add another row of retaining bricks to the wall between the garden and backyard (last one, even though we know the kids will keep growing). Square off garden to the backyard gate (adding quite a bit to the size of the garden), continue retaining wall around the side of the garden to the garage. Figure out better composting plan. Redo and widen walkway by the garage to the spigot on the house. Add more dirt to make garden level. Be finished by Memorial Day, aka garden planting day.

Yeah, take 1 busy family, 3 small children, and a bunch of other goings-on and our garden looked like this on Memorial Day (really, we had worked on it and this was progress!):

But not to be discouraged, we kept working away when we had time. And when I say "we", I really mean S. I do believe if he had to quit pharmacy and take up another profession, it would be landscape architecture. And he would be good at it too!

Yes, this is S working on the walkway in the garden at about 10:30 at night. We got the kids down early one evening and he decided to go out to the garden to work, and when it got dark and I asked if he was going to quit an come in, he said "No, find me a light source." So an extension cord and the floor lamp it is! He worked diligently until midnight and finished the walkway and step. And our neighbors now officially think we are crazy.

See what an awesome job he did on the walkway?

Now onto extending the garden 2 feet into the side yard and building the retaining wall on the side. We had a slight change to the original plan. Instead of squaring off the garden completely, we decided to leave one of the small tiered beds next to the gate because of these:

These cone flowers were planted by the previous owners in the actual garden. We wanted it more for a vegetable garden, but loved the flowers, so we moved them next to the gate. They have been doing awful for the past 3 years so we were just going to call it quits and get rid of them. Then this year they go and do this on us. This meant more work on curvature for S, but we are happy we kept them!

S's Dad (Hi Papa B!) and Mom were here the weekend of VBS program and W's birthday, and Dad B helped S out on Saturday, which was MUCH appreciated!

They finished the wall on the side of the garden (nice and level!).

And they also used Dad B's pickup to haul in a load of dirt. We could probably use another, but we decided to go with it this year and see what compost we'll add for next year before getting another load.

We also purchased a tumbling compost bin from Costco in an attempt to make better compost (we are lazy composters and didn't turn or water our stationary bin, and then we had all sorts of chunks of leaves and sticks when we emptied it in the spring and fall). S filled the tumbler and we tumble it when we go out there every week or so, and we put all new compostable items in the black bin. Then hopefully when the compost in the tumbler is done, we will put what is in the black bin in the tumbler...and rinse and repeat...

In our heads, our second try at a goal for completion was getting everything finished by the end of June. Well, it is June 30 in this picture and we were ready for planting! Yay!

G loved helping plant the garden and is very excited about gardening in general. Nothing better than bare feet in dirt, too!

Garden planted - 5 hours before deadline. =)

Being that we planted the garden on June 30 (very late, even up here in the frozen tundra), our plant choices and hopes for success were a bit limited. We will see how our (clockwise from top left) 2 rows of green beans (Blue Lake Bush, one row organic heirloom seeds from Mom and Dad R's garden), 1 zucchini plant, 5 pepper plants (2 green and 3 red), 2 squash plants (Butter Bush - supposed to be a bush of squash rather than a vine), 1 row of sweet corn (leftover from a 10 cent packet from at least 4 years ago), and 3 tomato plants (one cherry, one roma, one Big Boy) do this year. Oops, I forgot a picture of G's carrots. She has 2 tiny rows of carrots (also very leftover seeds from previous years).

Week 3 - we are doing great! Beans are up, sweet corn is patchy, carrots are iffy, but weeds are at a minimum and the other plants are growing well.

Dad, don't look at the straightness of my corn row. Embarrassing for a farm girl...

Week 4 - OK, where did all those weeds come from? I swear they popped up overnight. Ah, I guess it is the curse of Original Sin we will never get away from...

happy moments...

We have been trying to slow down our computer usage lately so that we can focus more on the "life" happening around us. Not that it has made a huge difference in the normal ups and downs of the days, but it has helped us be a little more tuned in and focused. So I stop by quickly this evening to share some happy moments from this past week:

this day brought to you by...

My lovely birthday yesterday was brought to me by: hugs from my sweet children, being sung to multiple times, my birthday list (see below), special card from G, phone calls from family and friends, trip to the dr to check out W's foot (he jumped off the small picnic table - no break, just pulled ligament), lunch from Panera (yes G, on momma's birthday, we CAN go out to eat 2 times!), birthday cards in the mail, fun package from my mom and dad, hugs from my sweet nieces (thank you for the present and cards and raspberries!), Clifford and doghouse made out of Legos, kids helping pick up without fussing, S bringing home flowers and special birthday cake from Truffles and Tortes, family picture, supper at Noodles and co, walk around the pond to visit the ducks, then moose tracks ice cream and watching 24 in our jammies after kids were in bed.

my birthday list

G gets all excited about birthdays, so she asked me to make a list of all the things I wanted to do on my birthday. We do these lists with pictures for our "to-do list" for the day quite often, and then if there is a lull, all I have to do is say what's left on our list and the kids go running to check (we make sure to add fun things like reading books and going outside and making cookies along with the regular chores). This was really fun to do for a birthday though, and I think we may just have to start a tradition with it!

a blessed June...

family photo: best we could get! =)

June was a month of VBS, strawberries, garden and sick. The sick was the hard part. I got a terrible head cold, then the boys got hand-foot-mouth disease. Not fun! We had to stay home-bound for the last few weeks of June so that we did not spread it further. I always think that we never go anywhere, but once we couldn't go anywhere, we missed the few places we did go regularly (church, library, parks, cousins'/friends' houses). Thankfully the weather was pretty nice and we played a lot out in the backyard. And one thing neat to see with being stuck at home with each other was how they really had to play with each other. C is getting big enough now that he wants to join in the play so I have really been working on G and W to include him.

talking on their "phones"

playing computer games, or watching G play computer games

G notes:

• wants to be big and do things for herself that I have to work at letting go a little, like use a knife to butter her own bread.
• and at the same time seems to have regressed a little - awfully fussy, wants to be picked up and carried and ride in the shopping carts...she wants more attention that is sometimes hard to give when you have 2 other little ones to take care of.
• LOVED VBS! It was so right up her alley...following a schedule, doing crafts, recreation time outside (which she keeps mixing up and calling "craftreation"), following instructions, etc. Makes us realize more and more how ready she really is for school this fall.
• Has memorized, like really memorized ("hidden in her heart" type memorize), her first Bible verse. It was from VBS: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled" Matthew 5:6. She will say this out of the blue for us here and there, and keeps asking questions so that she remember what it is about too. Awesome.

W notes:

• turned 3! Yay! Loved his birthday weekend and sharing it with lots of family. This was the first year where he really got that his birthday was special - I remember that when G turned 3 too, and that is so much fun!
• is starting the process for giving up his nap. There have been many afternoons that we have not been able to get him down to sleep for a nap. (Obvioulsy resulting in crashing around suppertime or very early to bed.) I am so not ready for this yet, although on days when he hasn't slept, we have been able to get him to do "quiet time" like his sister, which means he is getting big enough to grow out of them. He understands that he needs to be quiet and read books on his bed and he can't come out until the set time on his clock - and he does this quite well, none of the excuses or escaping or whining that we had transitioning G with that.
• have I ever mentioned that this boy loves fruit? He could eat it for every meal and snack and still go for more. So the summer fresh fruit season has been awesome so far. I try to vary the fruit that he has, and often have to not put the watermelon on the table until after the main course is finished otherwise he won't want to eat anything else but the watermelon (or whatever fruit we are having)
  

C notes:

• still teething...still growing...although I have noticed a lot less awkward falls this month - less tripping over nothing falls, but more "I want to try that because G&W did that" falls.
• I think we may have turned this sweet baby into a couch potato during our sick period. We watched a lot more kids tv and videos and movies while we were all sick, and of course C watched right along with us. And now he points to the TV and grunts (his way of asking to turn it on), and whenever any sort of moving picture is on (even if it is a small sports clip on ESPN.com that S is watching), he finds a pillow or chair or lap and settles in like it will be an hour long movie. He can say "boaw-boaw" and sign the paws for Blues' Clues theme song, can toot the whistle with the Dinosaur Train theme song, and dances with glee to the WordWorld theme song. He also has caught on to the big 2's fussing when you turn the TV off and will shout "NOOOOO!" right along with them. (Yes, we have our issues at this house, and are working on them, thank you very much)
• Loves to go and play outside and will go and grab his shoes and bring them to you, and if you are busy and can't comply, he will put his own shoes on (crocs work well for this), stand at the door and scream short screams over and over to get out.
• And has aquired that bad habit too - grunt screaming for things he wants rather than using his words. Thankfully this is getting better, but we were all at fault too because there were 4 people that could get him what he wanted just so he would stop!
• New words (I think this might be the last time I do this - getting harder to remember what is new now that he is talking/signing so much!): listen/hear, bicycle(this is such a fun sign to watch him do!), flower, guy, ear, nose, mouth, teeth, hair, toes, feet, outside, "Blues Clues", hi, good (in response to "how are you?"), and he also likes to answer any question that is asked him - if he doesn't know the right answer? he will just say "Bubby" confidently enough that others will look to me for interpretation...which I don't have.
  
• and much to my mother's shagrin, he has gotten really good at saying "Boppa" for my dad...and as much as she (and I) tried to get him to say "Aahma", he would just look at her, smile sweetly, and say "Boppa!" So I leave you with a cute picture for my mom:
  

playing on the front steps with Aahma R

strawberry jam...

This picture makes my mouth water a little. My family loves homemade strawberry jam. Growing up, we would always go to the local strawberry farm (45-50 minutes away) and spend a morning picking many many pounds of strawberries. We would then stop in town on our way back home and pick up the supplies needed to make strawberry jam. The rest of the afternoon into the night was spent cleaning berries and making strawberry jam. Growing up my brothers and I would complain about this whole process a lot. I even remember trying to pretend to be sick one year so I didn't have to go pick. But we loved having that jam for the rest of the year. And as soon as I moved away from home, that was one thing that I really missed. Store-bought jams just don't compare at all when you have only ever eaten the homemade stuff. So Mom and Dad would start rationing out jars to us, and it was a huge deal if they came to visit and brought one along (ask them to describe the giddiness of my response, even 10 years later!). For the past number of years, I kept saying that I should go and help Mom and Dad with jam so that I could take more jars home. But with 3 small children, that just wasn't an option, especially with the berry farm being so far away. But it has always been on my list to learn to make jam, and this year the opportunity kind of fell into all of our laps. Mom and Dad were here for W's birthday and Father's Day, and were going to stay until Tuesday. We had no plans for Monday, and then my Dad asked "Do you have a strawberry farm near here? How about making jam?" So we looked everything up Sunday evening and Monday morning when S went to work (sure, he used "work" to get out of doing strawberries, likely story...), Dad stayed home to watch the boys, and Mom, Grace and I went out to pick strawberries. The kids were very tired and crabby that morning, and you would have thought that I would have scrapped the whole idea. But I was so excited, that I figured even if we only made one batch of jam and sent the rest of the berries home with Mom and Dad it would be worth it! It turned out to be a great day, I learned a lot from Dad and Mom, and in the end we had 30 pints of strawberry jam! But just to help me remember the process for next year, here are the instructions from SureJell and some pictures.

1. Gather supplies needed: SureJell, sugar, jars, screw band rings, NEW lids, canning funnel, stockpot, bowls, measuring cups, ladle, rubber spatula, trivets, bath towel, hot pads.
   
2. Wash jars and screw band rings in hot soapy water. Rinse well and air dry.
   
3. Pick strawberries (we did not take the camera along, so G drew a picture of us picking strawberries).
4. Admire strawberries (ok, maybe a few of these steps are added to the SureJell instructions). Aren't they beautiful?
5. Pour boiling water over lids in a small bowl.
   
6. Tape SureJell instructions to cupboard for easy reference.
7. Clean strawberries, removing stem and hull (tip - inserting a straw in the end of the strawberry really does this step quite easily).
8. Mash berries in 9x13 cake pan with a potato masher.
9. Measure out 5 cups of mashed berries.
10. Measure 7 cups of sugar in a separate bowl (G loved this job. And yes, I know this jam has a ton of sugar in it, but it is not like you are having all 7 cups on one piece of toast for breakfast! I do ration this to my poor children with awful teeth, though.)
11. Pour berries into large stockpot. Add one package SureJell and 1/2 Tbsp butter (to prevent foaming).
12. On high heat, stir with flat bottom wooden spoon CONSTANTLY (see my Dad for stirring lessons. Yes, it does matter.). Bring mixture to a full rolling boil (one that does not stop bubbling when stirred).
13. Add sugar quickly (KEEP STIRRING!). Bring to full rolling boil again, and boil for exactly 1 minute (helps to set timer for 1 minute before you get to this point so all you have to do is hit start).
14. Remove from heat (to big trivet) and skim off foam into small bowl.
15. An aside - once cool, skimmed foam is great snack for kiddos with animal crackers. Keeps them busy for quite a while so you can make more jam!
16. Back to jam. Ladle quickly into prepared jars (canning funnel REALLY helps here), filling only to the start of jar threads.
17. Wipe jar rim and threads (have thick bath towel laid out for filled jars to set on).
18. Remove lid from hot water (don't burn fingers, found a cool magnet tool to get lids out which worked awesome), place on jar, and screw on ring over lid very tightly (careful here, hot stuff!).
19. When all jars from the batch are filled and covered, turn them upside down for 5 minutes (careful, again, hot stuff!).
20. Say quick prayer of thanks that your youngest child took 3.5 hour nap and then spent another 30 minutes in high chair happily eating.
21. After 5 minutes, turn jars right side up and let cool on towel for 24 hours (within an hour or so you should hear the wonderful "joink" of the lid sealing - any jars that did not seal after 24 hours, refrigerate and use first).
22. Wash pot and spoons and other sticky things, rinse and repeat whole process until berries are gone, or you are out of SureJell or jars. In which case mash rest of berries to be had over giant bowls of ice cream later that night...on second thought, make sure you mash some berries regardless to be had over giant bowls of ice cream later that night!
23. Admire all your beautiful hard work again before putting in pantry to be enjoyed all year long (best if jam is used within a year - NEVER been a problem).

Thanks, Dad and Mom, for the help and the jam lesson (we on again for next year? will have to get S in on it next time. =). I loved every bit of it, am looking forward to continuing the tradition, and am ecstatic to have the jam to enjoy too!