Okay, picture time. Here is Trinity with our new dog, Lucy. She was the accidental offspring by a breeder raising corgis and shelties and she is a mix of the two. She is a very sweet girl (as you can see by her licking Trinity's hand in the picture) and on the timid side. A good temperament for our young ones.


Here is a picture of Trinity and David when we were out in Santa Cruz in early August.


Again, in Santa Cruz, some pics from the boardwalk. Grandma treated everyone to ride tickets and the girls had great fun!


Poor Trinity was not feeling well, and you can see it in this picture. When we finally got home (finally b/c we missed a connecting flight and had an unexpected overnight in Memphis) and took her to the doctor, turns out she had strep throat. What a trooper she was going along with the family on all our outings.

Posted in: Santa Cruz, Slow Lane on Sunday, August 31, 2008 at at 3:07 PM 0 comments    

We had the most beautiful day in my memory the other day. It was 84 degrees, sunny, and a lovely breeze that blew almost continually. Did not feel at all humid. I broke out my clothesline and the girls got to have their first lesson in hanging clothes. Trinity did very well. Angelina did her best to help. Generally she went and stuck clothespins upside down over the clothes Trinity already hung!


Here is Trinity with a squash and a cucumber that she picked in the garden. This was the first day we were back from Maryland.

And speaking of the garden.... I am including pictures especially for Miss Synida who didn't understand the whole "plant a seed, it grows into food" concept. ;p Well, Synida, for the most part, we have achieved our goal. There are a few that didn't do so well, but this is my first garden, so I am feeling pretty good overall. Here is the whole garden. You can see our corn growing in the bed on the left. We planted 48 but not all of them are growing. Probably have 40-45 ears growing.

This is our broccoli plant. Seems to be doing well, although it is a cool weather plant. I had read the square foot gardening book back when I was pregnant with Trinity, so I know made some mistakes with my planning. I just ordered the book off of ebay so soon I will know what to do the rest of the growing season. The tiny little plants in the foreground are baby tomato plants. My first planting never produced anything. I replanted and now have several small plants coming up. It is still to be seen if they grow or not.
Here are the two squares of carrots I planted. There were 16 seeds in each square. Only 2 came up in the one on the right. I eventually replanted in the left square and you can see we are getting about half of them growing. I had reserved the 2 squares behind them for carrots too, but I am not wasting my time on them anymore. I think I am going to plant some more mesclun in those squares. My mesclun patch grew out of control while I was in Maryland. I am harvesting the plants that are there and using the lettuce for chicken treats. I am going to let the strawberry plants take over the back bed rather than try to keep them contained in one end.

Here is a shot of the cucumber plants in one bed. You can see the little cucumbers just starting on the plants. (click on pictures to make them larger)

This is in the other bed - a shot of a large cucumber and a zucchini growing. There are actually about 3 large cucumbers on that plant right now.

I love having the squash and zucchini growing up instead of traditional mound planting. The veggies stay nice and clean without discoloration from laying on the ground.

Here are the lima bean plants, just starting to produce pods. In the foreground is a nasturtium. I planted four of them and only one has come up. They are supposed to be a good natural insect repellant.
This is an "I spy" photo. Can you see the cantaloupe? It's there...about the size of a baseball.
Sigh...our sad little pea plants. I was expecting these to be tall vining plants. Just didn't happen that way. I don't know if they are just too crowded with the zucchini and cucumbers on either side or what. I planted more in the other bed so I will see if they do better than these. They are producing peas, just not much. :(


Here is my other sad little plant - this is a green pepper plant. This was planted at the same time as everything else and is only just starting to attain any significant growth. Verdict is out on this one. I am sad because I love peppers!
A lovely shot of the straightneck squash in bloom. I should have taken a picture of some of the leaves. They are getting a kind of mottled yellow coloration on them. I remember reading that just about the time your squash plants start really producing, the squash beetle can come along and kill them. I am a little worried that may be happening to this plant. I have another one, so all would not be lost, but I still don't want to lose this prolific provider.
Here is one of the tomato plants. Trinity knocked the largest tomato off last weekend, so we are still waiting to eat our first home grown tomatoes.
Can you guess what this is??? It is a watermelon! There are about 6 growing on the vines. I am using one of the girls old stockings to support the melon so as it grows bigger, it won't weigh the vines down.
This is a shot of the beautiful web spun overnight in the garden trellis. Really lovely in the morning fog.

PLEASE send any gardening tips you have!!! I know a lot of you have been successfully gardening for awhile. Thanks!

Posted in: Garden Lane, Homeschool Lane on Friday, July 25, 2008 at at 9:20 AM 0 comments    

I had the sweetest conversation with Trinity this evening. We were out in the garden collecting lettuce. Trinity held the colander for me while I clipped the leaves. Here was the conversation:

Trinity: "Mom, is this heaven?"
Me, smiling and chuckling: "You know, someone else asked that same question once, in a movie. No, honey. This is Iowa."
Trinity: "No, I think this is heaven."
Me: "You're probably right."
:) How cute is that!?

Just some miscellaneous shots taken today.
Angelina out in the front yard.
We discovered we have a mulberry tree. David is inspecting the fruit and Trinity is eating down below.
A series of pictures of the girls and Maximus on the front porch. (btw...those nifty planters were scored off the free section of craigslist!)

Have I mentioned that "monkey see, monkey do" describes Angelina and how she has to do everything Trinity does? That includes making funny squishy faces. :)

We made a zip line for the kids, which also is a really fun swing. Here is Angelina swinging...
Trinity taking a turn.

BTW...the official egg count after our first full week with the chickens was 35. So, almost 3 dozen eggs in a week. Way to go ladies! ;)

Posted in: Chickens, Is this heaven?, Maximus, mulberries, Slow Lane, thrifty living on Friday, July 4, 2008 at at 7:21 PM 0 comments    

The first of the lilies to bloom - really beautiful. (I would have had a pink one already but Angelina plucked it before it could open!)

Here are some of the ladies hanging out on the ladder into the run.

Trinity down by the barn feeding clover to the chickens.

Angelina joins her.
The ladies are now quite fond of seeing Trinity seeing as she is typically a source of clover! Inside the barn... on the right is the viewing/ventilation window I cut out of the coop. On the left the window looks into the run and the kids can throw the chickens treats through the larger openings. I stacked hay bales so the kids can climb up and see.

View from window looking into the run.
Chillin' in the pop hole. The screen on the right closes at night for added protection from predators.
The feeding zone.
I caught a couple of the ladies working on eggs this morning.

Since we got the hens on Sunday we have collected 21 eggs. I like the motto, "My pet makes me breakfast." Eventually we hope one of the hens will go broody and raise us some roasters too!

Posted in: Chickens, lilies, Slow Lane on Tuesday, June 24, 2008 at at 10:29 PM 0 comments    

Well, we wanted chickens -we got chickens. We just adopted a flock from a couple who lost their farm in the floods. They are relocating to Wisconsin with friends and needed to find a home for their chickens. They live about 3 hours from us, so we met in the middle today and made the exchange. We got 7 laying hens and 1 rooster. (not to mention everything you could want to take care of chickens - feeders, waterers, heat lamps, bags and bags of food, grit, seeds, oyster shell, etc.) Instant chicken farm! We turned the enclosed room in the barn into the coop, which I have named Cluckville. I cut a big viewing/ventilation window out of one side and stacked bales of hay there so the kids can watch the chickens. The window out to the open stall is their pop hole and we have closed the front up with harware cloth and half buried chicken wire. The next step is to lay concrete all around the metal walls to deter digging predators. I think the chickens will be safe. (hoping, praying - lots o' predators around here)

Anyway, here are the chickens after arriving at Cluckville.
Still in the box...

Venturing out....
I had just put in one long roost, but their "mom" told me that they liked to huddle together to sleep. When I saw them all piled on top of each other by the pop hole I knew they weren't going to just adapt to the long roost. I slid another board in and all but one is sleeping there now.In case you were wondering what they are wearing, those are called chicken saddles. It is to protect the hens from getting torn up when the rooster climbs on them. Machine washable too.... :) (apparently, the rooster, whose name is Randy, is well....named appropriately! ha-ha!)

Here are the girls from the other day. Trinity pulled the outdoor furniture pad off to sleep on and Angelina of course had to follow suit. She got her pillow and blanket and they laid down in the yard. Such silliness... where do they get it?!?!
Finally, a beautiful rainbow after a quick downpour the other night.

Posted in: Chickens, rainbow, Slow Lane on Monday, June 23, 2008 at at 12:34 AM 0 comments