Gardening Weekly

The Big Seed Purchase:

I'm afraid we've out done ourselves this year! We are doubling the size of the garden and bought a lot of seeds. The Johnny's catalog is filled with little yellow tabs and stars on what we "need". I'm not sure about starting things inside and I don't have a cold frame yet so most of the seeds I'm buying are good in cold weather and can be ground sown... so it says :)

I'm planning on buying my tomato plants... I know those are to be started inside and there is just not enough light for all the plants I want.

The plants that have been chosen are:
Corn: xtra tender
Sugar snap peas: sprint
Cukes: genuine
Lettuce: black seeded Simpson and concept (I'm putting these in flower boxes... who needs flowers??? I want to eat what I grow!!)
Alfalfa sprouts
scallions: White Spear
eggplant: Orient Express
sweet bell peppers: Ace
Jalapeno peppers:
zucchini and yellow squash
and tomatoes! Red Grape, Big Beef and Valley girl... as plants!

We are also going to start a strawberry patch and a grape arbor. I'm going with the smallest batch of strawberries (25!) and 2 grape plants. Other fruit choices are:
Cantaloupe: Sarah's choice
honey dew: honey orange

It doesn't look like a lot when it's written down here. I know I'm missing root veggies... they are cheap and I'm sure the CSA will have a bunch of them for me. I'm also missing herbs... don't worry I'll get a bunch, they are going in flower boxes out back this year. I do have my onion and potato experiment to plant, and the pumpkin seeds from last year. This is so much bigger than last year's tomatoes peppers, cukes, and herbs!!!

Can I tell you how nervous I am about this??? Seeds scare me! The work involved, the failure rate, and the sticker shock. I looked at the order and couldn't believe how quickly they added up. I'm still thinking I should have gone to Skillin's nursery and bought plants. Nice safe seedlings :) What do you think????

YOU KNOW YOUR GETTING OLDER....

When your Birthday goes like this:

~Instead of singing "Happy Birthday", Your kids wake you up singing "Stay on the sunny side, always on the sunny side, stay on the sunny side of life (slide whistle sound wooowooot) you'll feel no pain as we drive you insane, stay on the sunny side of life (whoooowoooot)" and you think it very fitting for your life::

~You enjoy selling girl scout cookies at 9am in the fog and drizzle because your out with people and only one of your children::

~Your mom is acting more like your grandma and your *gasp* acting like your mother!::

~You spend your alone time with your hubby at a home and garden show, Cabella's, a cooking store wine tasting, a music store, and dinner with your favorite cousin::

~You can't believe they put you on a saddle to sing you happy birthday::

~You tell the waitress you just turned 23 and she smiles and loudly says "She's turning 23 AGAIN!!"

~You go home at 9pm exhausted::

~You go to bed thinking "What a great day!!!"

Fab Fridays

We finally made the kites! I thought that deserved a spot in Fab Fridays... I mean, geesh, I've been talking about them long enough!!


I am sad to say my photography skills were lacking. It may have been that we were doing this at 8am on a few sips of coffee or that I was so excited to finally make them that I forgot to take pictures, and hurriedly took the ones I did. Any way, this is the only 1/2 way decent picture taken of the kite making process.

I thought it was a lot like making paper airplanes. you folded the paper in the middle length wise then each side corner to corner (like a triangle). We used 12 X 12 scrap booking paper. The girls decided to put the print on the side with the rudder (so they could see it in the sky). One huge tip: put the hole for the string at the top of the rudder or it will fly upside down... oopsie!!

This is the finished product (with the pretty ribbon tail cut out, shucks!). With no wind they didn't fly up in the sky. No matter, if you ask the girls they were wonderful and flew great! That's all counts :) Well, and that they are just adorable and make a cute spring decoration.

Notice thing 1?? She's sporting her two loves. Her kite is decorated with water colors, and she's wearing her favorite PJ's!! Flying kites at 8:30 am requires you to still be in PJ's... but I did talk her into wearing pants under them... that's what I call success.

Just in case the girls decide they want to fly kites up in the sky, I found these at the dollar store and decided to stock up. I heard they fly great and also fly right out of the store so I bought a bunch. Really, you can't go wrong for $1!!!!

Have a great weekend everyone! See you on Monday!

Crafty Wednesdays

There may be two posts today... the girls want to do the kites today but they are content playing with their friend. I'll see how the morning plays out. Now I want to give you what we did yesterday. This was kid driven all the way, totally their idea... which means it was my favorite!!!!
UPDATE: I may be doing these kites myself... we didn't get to them again!!!

We started out with water paints. We haven't done this in a while and the girls love it.

Then thing 1 decided to make "codes" with her white crayon
I had forgotten that I used to do this! It tickled them pink to give each other codes to figure out. (this one says I love you)

Here is some of our finished work:

Try this today! So simple and so fun. We didn't want to get ready for the bus.

Gardening weekly

The vegetable bowl experiment:

**Disclaimer**: I have no idea what I am doing!!!
I'm just going with my gut and hoping for the best.

Last week I found this large onion growing in my veggie bowl. (Oh I see those looks! Are you going to tell me that's never happened to you???) It looked so healthy I couldn't throw it away. I should have looked on the Internet but I went with my instincts and tried to root it.

I was amazed that after sitting in the water for a day roots began to grow! This is after 4 days of being in the water. What do I do next??? I have no idea to be honest. I don't know what kind of onion it is (is Shaw's Yellow a good variety??) I'll give it a few more rooting days then I'll plant it in a bucket until it's a little warmer outside. If anyone has a better idea let me know!!

In the same sad veggie bowl were a couple of potatoes with eyes. They were pretty much beyond the point of safe consumption so I decided to stick those in water too. I feel like I've seen this before, but they were cut in half.... do you know why they were cut? These shoots have grown since being in the water. There are also little hairy roots growing.

This isn't the first the first thing that's gone bad that I've tried to rescue. With my frugality (and ah humm... laziness) I am beginning to understand how beef jerky, sundried tomatoes, and raisins were created. I'm learning that the middle process might be unsightly and seem gross (like leaving wilted parsley in my crisper drawer for a few months) but the end result is again surprisingly edible (voila, I now have dried parsley!)

I am enjoying this. Not sure if I'll get more potatoes and onions out of it but won't it be amazing if I do?! If not, It all goes into the compost pile... where someone else probably would have put it in the beginning.

I challenge you, what can you rescue from your garbage today???

Maine Maple Sunday

We participated in our first Maine Maple Sunday. It was a crisp beautiful day. The small sugar operation was quite busy, we even saw friends of ours! Here's a glimpse of our day:I loved that they had some old fashion buckets near the shack for us to see.

I think they are beautiful.

The girls loved the new way of collecting sap. All those blues hoses looked like a maze.

They couldn't believe how much sap was collected in the big bucket.

We waited a long time but finished the day with a horse drawn hay ride then a little shopping!

As we were leaving the wind picked up and it started snowing! Very pretty, but oh what a reminder that we live in Maine!!

Fab Fridays....

Calendar Spring is here!!! From my years as a preschool teacher and mom in New England I have learned to call today the first day of "Calendar Spring". Why??? Because kids think of spring as trees full of leaves, beautiful flowers blooming, warm air, and butterflies. I have had more than one child come to me very disappointed that the snow did not melt and the leaves and flowers did not pop out overnight!!!!

In Maine, it is now "Mud Season".... Spring as the kids know it, arrives in May. Calendar spring is still a great time of year. Its a time of hope, with the brightly shining sun there is a knowing that warmer days will soon arrive.

We have spent the last week drawing with chalk outside, riding bikes (being sure to peer around the snowbanks and watching out for ice and mud puddles), and blowing bubbles. It's over 30 degrees... spring enough for us!!! It helps that we have a paved driveway and road, as long as they don't step on the little bits of exposed grass there's not much mud...thank god!!

Today, the twins and I went on a Spring Cleaning Adventure!!!!! We took out our bottles of homemade "Go Green Cleaner" (made of equal parts vinegar and water) and our reusable rags and went to town. I cleaned the yucky smelling wood stove and all around it while the girls cleaned the windows, TV's, Baseboards... whatever they could think of... they love to spray!! This is the first time they've actually wiped things well too!! A few streaks remained but that doesn't bother me... as the Flylady says, even cleaning done wrong blesses the family! Boy do I feel blessed! That wood stove smells great when it is running but stale wood smoke is just gross! I couldn't figure out how to get rid of the smell for the longest time. It finally dawned on me that cleaning the dusty soot off everything may just help ;) Yep, I'm a smarty ;) The vinegar really helps neutralize the odor too... after it stops smelling like deviled eggs!!

To end today I again want to wish a Happy Calendar spring to my New England friends, and Happy Spring to the rest of you! For a glimpse of spring that I'm totally Jealous of check out the Pictures Jess at KadyHope took this week. Oh to live in California!!!! LOL!!!