kinderGARDEN Thursday: week 4

It's been a very slow week. We've had such lovely rain, that we only had to water 1 time this week. And my great helper took it upon himself to water what needed to be watered. His watering can is in TX, so we have to use what we can find.

He had so much fun that he watered some plants that didn't. All the same stuff is growing as last week. We did some weeding in between showers. The carrots are starting to get their real leaves and Matthew is refusing to thin at this time. The squash is steadfastly refusing to sprout. I have even planted more. I might order some more in case the seed is too old.

We started the great strawberry experiment again. We water from below and mist on top. I want to keep the varieties in their sections. I'm so protective of them, this pot is already packed in the car to head south tomorrow. I know, there's something wrong with me!

And the biggest news around here is that we've have hummingbirds! We saw them buzzing our iris and peonies Monday, and then when they were buzzing the red coleus at the end of the walk, we knew we needed to make sugar water pronto! So far, this is the best shot I've managed to get. I'm going to keep stalking them.

Hopefully the garden can take care of itself because we're going to be gone till next Thursday. Beach, here we come!

To read Kim's post, go here.

Cowboy

The store called yesterday and said the boots were in. Well, we had the hat, the shirt, the belt, and now the boots, so I figure we better get the real Wrangler rodeo jeans.

I think I might have created a real cowboy.

The guys were pretty proud.

And then the boy was so proud, he insisted I start a photo shoot.




They make the boy, I mean cowboy. And just in time for the rodeo.

Track and Rain

We got up early yesterday morning to walk with the second graders to and from their track and field day. Boy have track and field day changed from my youth. In my day, there was events like the relay race, potato sack race, high jump, long jump, and 50, 100 yard dash. Today there is some running but more events like foxtail, softball throw, tin can race, shuffle run, and hitting the ball of the T-ball stand. I miss the old events. Dare I say they were better? Now it lasts 2 hours, back when I was little, it was an all day event. At least they still get ribbons.

15 minutes after we got the second graders back to the school, it started to rain. It stopped and then in the evening we had storm after storm hit. Luckily, no tornadoes or hail, but the wind was wild. I'm sure the garden is happy for the over 2" it received! The toad certainly seemed to like it.

Icecream and chores

It's been a busy day. We visited my Grandmom, stopped at the library to find out when storytime ends and summer reading programs begins, and came home for lunch. After lunch we napped, played, scared a wild turkey in the woods, watched a hummingbird fly around our flowers, watched goldfinches eating in the yard, sprayed our strawberries seeds, watered various plants and...

went for an afternoon treat. After supper we watched the cottonwood fuzz aka seeds float around the yard. It's been a pretty good day.

Getting back on track

It's been noticed by some that I haven't been posting as much as usual. I apologize, I have every intention to, but I do so much here that by time I can start blogging, around 9 pm, I'm so tired I don't. But have no fear, we'll try to squeeze it into the daytime routine!

Above and below fun with the 2 snails we talked about in the week 3 kinderGARDEN post.

They sure tickle as they slime along. One tried to go up Matthew's shirt sleeve! Today we had to go look for more. We found 3 more where we left the other 2. Matthew was delighted. He really wants to keep them for pets. I had to take the 3 out today as he pouted.

With the recent rains, came lovely deep puddles to blast through.

My favorite peony bloomed! It smells heavenly.


Yesterday we decided to take the lawn mower tire back up to our house and try and get it put back on so that we could mow. As I was preparing to leave, Matthew came running around the house with a baby bunny. He was so proud because he had gotten it away from Scamp. We took it 1/4 of a mile south of our house to a field we own and left it there. That field is not in Scamp's daily routine, so we hope it does well. We checked on it when we got home and it was gone. Matthew was most unhappy as he wanted to keep it, but no one I know has ever been able to keep a wild bunny alive at home. Finally he decided that it's mommy bunny found it and took it back to our house. All was well.


I suppose it was a matter of time till the Tonka's were introduced to the deep mud pit.


Baby birds we've been watching.

I think the Tonka's need a bath!

Last night, 30 miles away as the crow flies, this storm that I took photos of, produced a monster storm that involved a tornado hitting a small town. I'm glad that we've missed the wild weather so far. The turkey vulture didn't mind the wild clouds rolling by.

A Matthew update moment: For about a month now Matthew has been telling the education cartoons what letters and numbers are on the screen. He can recognize the alphabet with almost 100% accuracy. He can recognize to 10 with the same accuracy. In calendar form, he can count to 31. He can count to 12 on a clock correctly and it starting to understand how to tell time slightly. He can count backwards from 5 and possibly 10. He is memorizing short simple books faster. His cause and effect and reasoning skills improve all the time. He is trying to use hypothesis correctly and make hypotheses. I think he's an amazing little guy.

kinderGARDEN Thursday: week 3

Just like the rest of you are talking about across the nation this week, it's rain, rain, ...

...everywhere! At least at the tail end of the week.

The garden is looking soggy, but that's ok. Here in the mid-west, we are in the grip of a drought, so every drop we get is precious to the garden and the crops. Being a farm family, rain is something we treasure and never cuss, because some years we can't get enough. On a side note, before it monsooned, Matthew and I planted some ditch iris and found old plastic edging that had become buried under about 2 to 3" 's of soil. We used it to edge "Matthew's garden."

Because of the rain, we have snails out and about. We found 2 in a mint pot and Matthew had tons of fun letting them crawl on him, but more about that in a different post.

Because we finally got rain, there were lovely puddles to run and jump in.

And I didn't even mind the extra laundry!

But I digress, this is a GARDEN post. Mostly we are waiting for things to sprout and grow. We have lots of radishes, carrots, giant sunflowers, nastrisums, beans, and some marigolds and onions growing. We have not one single squash of any variety up, which is alarming, and only 1 actual green bean plant going. Which I'm sad about because it's such a tasty variety. I have the 3 pepper plants I bought growing, but the pepper seeds aren't sprouting. I've never had luck with them. Bad luck or bad seeds, I don't know. The eggplant isn't growing either and I have gotten it to sprout before. The tomato plant had to have 2 blossoms pinched and has grown bigger. While we are waiting, Matthew and I put dragonflies, bees and a frog stakes out in the garden to add some whimsy.

My mom caught an oh so flattering photo of Matthew and I working out in the garden, pulling weeds between rain storms. *photo by Beth

Last year, one of the assignments of the week was to allow your child to take photos of the garden. Matthew took it to heart and often swipes the camera and brings it back full of garden photos. This is one from this week. *photo by Matthew

And lastly, my helper helped me plant the iris I've found this year so far. This is the most unusual one I've found this year.

Shayne, from Life Under a Blue Roof wanted to know how I got pink blooming strawberries. I'll tell you, I got the only variety at our areas Walmart this year, "Berries Galore." And yes, I know Walmart is bad, but sometimes it's the only place to go. I had 5 varieties of antique alpine strawberries going, but allowed them to burn up right before we left TX, so being desperate, that's what we got and I have to admit, they are stunning. Matthew got the only variety at our garden center and I haven't seen what it's blooms are like yet.

What have you been doing in your garden? To see what Kim, The Inadvertent Farmer, talks about this week, go here.

Stuck in the past

I've been digging through boxes of family memories the last couple days. I am still trying and failing to find the 1 photo I'm after. I've found every other possible item, but it. I'm ready to admit defeat.

I drug myself away this evening to go ditch digging with Matthew and Mom. We got some more colors of iris we don't have, I didn't think it would be possible, but it was. We probably have around 40 varieties of iris now.

Matthew and I added some whimsy to the garden this morning. Photos to follow later!

Parks and Racing

We've had a busy weekend. Here a a few photos of what we did.

My life revolves around knowing what park my son wants to go to. Each has it's own name. Blue park, horse park, and school park are the names here. Last night Matthew and I went to "blue park." This is the park I went to when I was little, if I got to go to the park.


"Blue" park because they painted the swings blue.

Today we popped by the school park.

Quite the little monkey.

Yesterday I did alot of work on a project Dad and I are working on. This is me on my Dad's twin engine Model T Ford racecar. It is a very rare racecar from 1920. One because normally they were wrecked and junked and...

...because it had 2 engines. It was actually raced on dirt track races at the very beginning of the birth of American racing. This car was a family friends car. My Granddad had a Buick and raced against this car. We have a newspaper clipping where my Granddad took 1st in a race! During WWII, my Granddad's car was stolen for scrap metal. The men that drove cars like this up to 80 miles an hour, were very brave men. I remember my Mom holding me while we drove down the road (I was probably 4) and I had to get off! The pavement went by too fast for me.

kinderGARDEN Thursday: week 2

Here we are on the second week of kinderGARDENS! We would have posted Thursday, but as most of you know, Blogger was down, so here we are today.

This is Matthew's part of the garden. He planted 800 carrot seeds and can't wait for them to sprout. For the full story go to The garden is planted!.

Thursday we got the opportunity to see how trees sprout from seeds. For full story go to Natures Bounty.
Planting the 800 seeds. I suppose a better teacher would have spent alot of time explaining how it's not a good idea to plant that many seeds in a small site and tried to make him space them and plant them properly, but this time I just sat back and let him go to town. I feel like I don't let him experiment or experience enough in the garden (because I want it to work right), so my goal is to let him to his own thing, at least in his garden space.

Our little strawberry plants are blooming, so we are hoping for strawberries once and awhile this summer. I'm going to try getting strawberry seeds sprouting again and plant them. I had 5 varieties of sprouts, but in the last crazy moments of the move, the delicate little things got crispy fried!

Everyday Matthew has to go out and see his sunflower sprouts!

Checking to see if the tomato plant is doing ok. It already has blooms.

Matthew is so excited about those sunflowers, the minute Mamaw got home from work, he was dragging her over to check them out.

As some of the others are experiencing, I'm having trouble deciding what is the best way to efficiently to water the garden. This this space doesn't have traditional rows for hoses to march up and down, it's a little hard to water everything. Using the "soggy doggy" sprinkler worked pretty good, but I still do alot of moving of water elements (got soaked in the process) and it soaked my garden path. I'll keep working on it!