Natures bounty

The other day, maybe a week ago now, we watched snail for a long time. Matthew insisted on eating on the steps to watch it! I had never really watched one. It was fun to watch it's shell wobble from side to side as it moved along.

Inside of an orange iris that bloomed today.

The joy of wheat fields.

And the joys of dogs.

The garden is starting to sprout. I believe these are radishes. I think that sunflowers, squash, and beans are starting to sprout. It is raining tonight, so that will be great for the garden. We really needed it.

While weeding the flower bed, I noticed a black walnut tree sprouting. As I dug it up, I was most surprised to see that it had the walnut attached and you could totally see how the process works. Matthew and I studied it...

...and moved it to a new location. Normally I have no problem killing sprouts because we have so many trees, but I had a fondness for this one!

Soggy Doggy, Airplanes, Kites, and Flowers

My husband doesn't like to buy flowers, "because why give the gift of death?" But once in a blue moon something unexpected shows up. In the mail this time.

They smell like heaven.

More kite flying because we have wind.

Then the most curious plane flew over that seemed to have an escort. President on his way to El Paso perhaps?

And these always smell like heaven and are delightful. My parents are so lucky to have several varieties.

Heading due south.

Thanks to the high heat, we got to have some water fun.


Scampie preferred to watch.

And because of the high wind, more high flying fun!

Errands

*photo by Matthew

Matthew and his "morning toad."


*photo by Matthew

We admired blooming flowers, toads, and put together a new carseat. This was before 10 am. Then we ran errands most of the day. One of the best parts, ordering a pair of brown and blue cowboy boots for the little guy. The little guy finally got a cowboy belt. The other best part, having Matthew tell a clerk thank you and the clerk being so surprised that he praised him for his good manners. Affirmation that I'm doing a good job as mom. Nice to get those once in awhile.

Happy Mother's Day

Nature's gift to me today was allowing my favorite iris bloom. So much more spectacular in person.

3 generations of moms.

I've decided that you haven't really lived, until you are pushing your cart through a busy store with your child brandishing a half gallon of chocolate milk and loudly proclaiming, "Bring out your chocolate milk. Bring out your chocolate milk and then you can be like me. Bring out your chocolate milk." Ahhhh, the joys of motherhood! Happy Mother's Day.

The garden is planted!

One small boy decided to plant carrots.

Over 800 seeds in one small plot, which is the whole package! Boy I hope some of them can grow!

I love how the garden looks! Now if it grows it will be great!

Here is Matthew's plot. It's where over 800 carrots seeds are, along with 4 flower plants he picked out today and a strawberry plant. We decided to put the strawberry plant in a pot so that can be taken out of the garden.

Garden stores are dangerous places for me. I bought myself a patchouli plant. I didn't even know you could buy them, so I jumped on it. I planted it the flower beds, but I will pot it up before winter, probably should just do it now.

Mom and I got chocolate mint, mint julep mint, apple mint and lemon verbena, yum!

And my son got a tomato plant! I questioned if he really needed it since he can't stand tomatoes. He thought for a minute and said, "I'm going to grow a little and then I'll like tomatoes." Far be it for me to discourage him, so it came home with us. We planted it in the flower bed in hopes it does well. For some reason, I suspect that the black walnut trees are killing them, they aren't doing well in the garden anymore.

I planted everything on the list, except for the lettuces and greens. They can be tucked in later. I added zucchini, spaghetti squash, nasturiums, 3 different kinds of mint and sage and 3 Fooled Me peppers.

Nostalgia

Matthew's Poppa retired 11 years ago. By time my Dad was 10 he was driving tractors, doing simpler jobs like plowing, and by the age of 12 he was combining. By 19, he was getting his own contracts to farm plots of land, independent of his father. At one time, he farmed over 1000 acres of land.

That's all he wanted to do and loved. The farmers on either side of his family go back farther then we know. When my Dad retired, it broke my heart. I almost feel like our soil runs in my blood. It calls to me. I answer that call by gardening, but there are days I wish I could have joined my Dad in the farming operation.


Today Matthew and I helped Dad drill wildflower seeds into our CRP ground. It was a really thrilling moment for me, as I haven't seen him on a tractor farming for so long and Matthew never. I'm so glad we were home to share this day with him.

kinderGARDEN Thursday: week 1

Yea! It's kinderGARDEN time again! Matthew and I are so excited! We've been discussing what to plant this year since January. We started the year living in TX, in a rented house. We planned another container garden because we weren't allowed to touch the yard of weeds, I mean grass. In February we started planting cold weather crops and seeds to plant out later after danger of frost is gone, since that comes around the beginning of April. Due to my husband being injured and being "deployed" we had to stop in our tracks and concentrate on moving. We've ended up back home, for the time being, and have taken over a lovely enclosed garden space. Since early planting starts about now at this location, we really aren't behind! The last 2 days we've worked hard to get it ready. For the last 2 days Matthew has been informing me, "Mom, if your child wants to plant seeds, you have to let him!" Well, I agree, but we have to get the ground ready first! We have planted some strawberry plants in the flower beds and herb seeds. We'll see how they do.

So to answer Kim's questions in her post at The Inadvertent Farmer.
1. Tell about your family and what is our plan. We are minus Daddy at the moment and plus Mamaw and Poppa. I think Mamaw and Poppa will be mostly encouraging and admiring, while Matthew and I will be the laborer's, which is just fine with us. Our plan, good question. I guess we'll try to go with what we planned in February and expand since we'll have more room, and plant things like gourds and Chinese yard long noodle beans. The whole family is interested in eating better. Fresh foods we grew will go a long way towards that goal.
2. Matthew and I are veteran gardeners, but we don't claim to have excellent advice to share!
3. I will be gardening with my big helper, my son Matthew!
4. Originally, Matthew and I thought we'd be expanding on last year's idea. I even got to books to read up on how to container garden better, but now we don't really have to. So we are going in a whole different direction, more traditional garden. Matthew, I think, wants to put something fun in the garden, make a hobbit house or toad house, a dirt patch for his toys, or something, but we haven't gotten that nailed down yet.
5. Matthew is dreaming of purple green beans and carrots. He thinks flowers would be good too. Along with the play element in the garden!

We were going to plant our seeds today, but it started raining bright and early this morning. 7:30 am to be exact. Hopefully we'll be able to get them planted by next Thursday, but we are supposed to get rain off and on for the rest of the week. Do click on the links in the post to catch up on stuff we've done so far. Especially what we've done so far to the garden. We're pretty proud!

Gardening season

Get ready people, it's that time again. My favorite time of year. Gardening season! Tomorrow the kinderGARDEN series starts again. We can't wait! *photo by Matthew of yours truly

Matthew has been loving being outside. Yesterday and today we've worked in the garden and he also has wandered around taking photos. *photo by Matthew

*photo by Matthew

*photo by Matthew

So the garden was a wreck, as usual. We have terrible follow thru with fall clean up. It was set up as a 2 plot square foot garden. The frames have long since rotted away. We don't square foot garden, so it was wasted space. I've decided to make some changes.

*photo by Matthew

Matthew helped me dig up probably over 50 bricks that had been partially or completely buried over time. They were the walk ways once upon a time.

Then he took advantage of loose soil in the best way possible!

Voila! All bed with a brick border, except for the middle path. I can kneel on the bricks and reach to the back of the beds. I think it will be great. We can plant things like yard long beans and gourds next to the fence and plant other stuff in front. Matthew is dying to plant seeds and I am too. I have a tiny section yet to dig up, otherwise we are ready to go. If the rain holds off, we'll be able to plant at least some of it in the morning!

The biggest surprise was finding this iris baby in the middle of the garden! I had tried grow iris seeds in a pot that I think I repurposed for growing the pumpkins last year. I think that's how this little guy got here. I moved it to the flower beds. I also discovered the day before that we had daylilies growing in the middle of the yard, that have been mowed off every summer I've been live. I quickly went and dug up some from every clump and added them to the flower beds. Can't wait to see if they are different from the others on the property!

Yesterday wore me out

Once again, Blogger didn't care about the order, so here we go. Matthew found a new kite.

Irises are starting the summer show.

Everyone up bright and early to fly the new kite.

This kite came with stickers to put your name on it, but Matthew used every single one to decorate the back.

An allium starting to bloom.

At the mall fountain playing with 2 special monster trucks.

Displaying a pair of shoes I was buying.

We ran across a free bounce house set up in the middle of a parking lot. He has so much fun jumping and sliding. I remember when he was so scared that he wouldn't bounce.

And it's up up and away!