Do you ever have one of those moments, when you're moving nonstop trying to get everything in the world done in one day, and you just have to take a second to breathe when you realize that maybe you're trying to do too much? I've been having a lot of those lately.
Ever since January, I've been moving at a nice steady pace. Clean the house in the morning; take care of the animals; clean the yard and animal areas in the evenings; come in when the sun goes down and cook dinner; then settle in for my evening shows just in time with a plate of food. It was going pretty well.
But as the weeks went by, and little things here and there upset my normal routine, it starts to get rushed. Clean the house in the morning; take care of the animals and make sure the new chicks have fresh feed and water; tend to the garden (whether that means planting or weeding); water the garden, the vineyard, and the new trees we've planted this year; make some attempt at cleaning the animal areas in the evenings; come in just before the sun goes down and cook dinner; then watch the first half of my evening shows while finishing dinner so it's ready by the time my husband comes in when the sun goes down and I can sit with a plate of food for the last half of my shows.
As the last month of my pregnancy closes in, my due date getting dangerously close and the work piling up, I start to think of all the things that still need to get done and how difficult they will be to do once there is a newborn in the house. There are just two problems: (1) I'm getting so tired after expending the smallest amount of energy, and (2) the days are getting long and hot, and it's harder and harder to move fast enough to get things done before getting too hot and needing a break. Now I have to start regulating things to do for different days, such as skip cleaning the house today to get some work done outside, but tomorrow skip the work outside and concentrate on doing water changes in the aquariums and finishing laundry. It would be so much easier if my son was old enough to do chores.
At this exact moment in time, I skipped cleaning the house this morning so I could go to town and do the grocery shopping. The house needs to be cleaned, dishes need to be washed, a load of laundry still needs to be finished, the animals need to be checked on and refed and watered as needed (ducks and geese are most definitely out of water by this time of day), the garden needs to be watered (which takes at least an hour and a half with a spray hose), the vineyard and trees need to be watered, the quail eggs in the incubator need to be moved over to their new egg trays so they fit better and give us more space in the incubator, the chicken eggs need to be collected and put in the incubator, dinner needs to be cooked, my husband will most likely ask me to clean a bit outside to make room along one fence to plant the last of the Crape Myrtles, and I would really like to be able to sit down at least from 7pm to 8pm for the American Idol results show (2 people are going home tonight, and last night I voted a million times to ensure Scotty, Paul, and Casey stay another week). The sun will most likely be going down by 8, which means I will be inside for almost the last hour of daylight. My husband is very adamant about using up as much sunlight as he possibly can each day before coming indoors. Which means that I will be cooking dinner while watching my show to give me a bit more of a reason for being indoors during that time. Oh right, as I look over at my son playing ball with the rabbit, I am reminded that I also need to clean the rabbit cage.
It is already almost 3:30pm. There is no way I'm going to get this all done tonight... but a lot of it really needs to be done today. So I was rushing around, trying to do it all at once and I suddenly realized I needed to stop and breathe. And as I did so, I had one of those moments. When I'm moving nonstop trying to get everything in the world done in one day, and I just had to take a second to breathe when I realized that maybe I'm trying to do too much. To quote Bilbo Baggins from Lord of the Rings (the Fellowship of the Ring, Part One) I feel like butter being spread over too much bread.
I think it's about time to slow down, and convince myself of the obvious truth that my mind refuses to grasp: I will still be doing these chores every day even after the baby is born. The house will always need to be cleaned, dinner will always need to be made, the animals will always need food and water, and sometimes there will be things that just need to put on hold for a day or so to get other things caught up. The incubator and the garden will only need to be tended to during the summer and the beginning of fall, until the birds are done laying for the year and harvest season is over. Just because I have a newborn does not mean that I have to hold him and fuss over him every minute of every day. There will be time to get it all done. I just need to slow down, remember to breathe, and focus on one thing at a time. If you find yourself having one of those moments, just remember this. Remember to slow down, remember to breathe. There is never a good enough reason to spread yourself too thin. If you dont have enough butter, dont make so much toast. Have a bagel and cream cheese instead. Or a bowl of cereal. Or whatever you want, really. Oh, you get it.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Monkey See, Monkey Do
My son is just adorable. I love watching him play, and I am just amazed at the things he shows that he has picked up on, and the things that he learns all on his own. But most of the time, it's just amazing to see the things that he learns from watching us. You dont think they pick up on things, you dont think they will notice the smallest habits you have, until you see them mimic you. And my son teaches me every day just how attentive he is.
Some of what he learns is cute and good that he knows. When I brush my hair in the morning, he knows what a brush is for. He picks up another brush and starts trying to brush his hair. He knows that you are supposed to stack the crackers, meat, and cheese in a lunchable. He makes stacks of cracker, cheese, cheese, cheese, cracker, meat, cheese. He knows that shovels are for digging in the ground, and he knows that you put water on plants to make them grow (well, he might not know exactly why you water them yet, but he does know that you put water on plants). He knows what a toothbrush does. He lets me brush his teeth first, then he enjoys holding it himself. He has a hard time moving the brush back and forth, so he puts it in his mouth and shakes his head back and forth to brush.
He even picks up some of our words. When he's doing something we dont want him to do, we tell him to stop. Well he knows exactly what that word means now, because when we do something he doesnt want us to do, he tells us "toooooop!" LOL it's hilarious. When he wants something, he knows how to say please. It actually sounds more like "eease?" He says it when he brings us his empty cup, asking to be refilled. He says it when he brings us a closed package of crackers or a lunchable asking to be opened. I feel really bad when he says please and I have to turn him down, like candy before breakfast or something, but in a case like that, I dont care how cute he is or how he asks, there is no way he's getting candy before breakfast!
I dont talk on the phone very often. At least, I dont notice that I do. But I know that my husband calls every day from work to talk about his day and see how we're doing. Well, my son has picked up on what a phone does, because he picks up my cell phone, holds it to his ear with his shoulder, and talks on it. Sometimes, he even manages to press the right buttons and call someone! Usually (thankfully) it's only my husband that he calls, and he always shows it off at work that his son, not even 2 years old yet, misses him enough to steal mommy's phone and call him. Haha. Of course, my son will pick up anything that looks like a phone and try to talk on it. It's especially cute watching him try to talk on the TV remote or my iPod.
When we're outside feeding the animals we take a bucket, fill it with bird seed and corn, and go to each cage and fill their feeders. My son has taken a small bucket he found and holds it up to us near the feed barrels and says "please?". This tells us he wants some feed. We give him a scoop in his bucket, and he picks a nice comfy spot in the grass and dumps out his whole bucket. The yard birds (chickens, ducks, geese, and guineas) all come running to eat the feed, and my son just sits there and laughs. He reaches out and pets them, and he even picks a few of them up. He's especially good at catching the chicks when he's in the brooder boxes... we just need to teach him that chicks arent meant to be thrown!
On the topic of throwing things, I find that my son also picks up on our bad habits. When we take off our shoes at the couch, we have a bad habit of just throwing them over to the shoe rack by the door. Later, when I get up again, I'll go over and stack them correctly, but at that exact moment I just toss them over there. My son now things that we throw our shoes everywhere. He even thinks that the shoe rack is a nifty device that holds your shoes until you are ready to throw them. It has made us realize just how much we throw and toss things around the house when we are too lazy to get up and put them away. And we cant just tell our son "throwing is bad" because how bad can it really be when mommy and daddy do it all the time? Guess we'll have to make a few changes. On the bright side, my son is not even 2 years old yet and he can throw a football with better precision and aim and just mindblowing accuracy then I could have ever imagined possible. Of course, he's still learning how to catch. We have to start with step one: hold out your hands, lol.
Some of the things he does, I have NO idea how he learns it. Whenever he hears music, he starts dancing. My husband and I are both very positive of the fact that neither of us can dance. Well, my husband can 2-step, but I think that's a normal country thing that country people just sort of know how to do. But my son can get DOWN. I mean he moves his hips side to side, sometimes he picks up his feet, he bobs his head, and he moves his arms around. If it's a slow song, he moves slower, and if it's a fast song he really gets moving. And he really loves it too, because once he starts moving to the music he gets the biggest grin on his face and he looks over at us to make sure we see him. I admit that I sing along to just about anything, whether its a song on the radio, a song in a movie, or even a song on a commercial. My son has started singing along to music as well, and sometimes when he's not doing anything, like sitting on the couch or just standing around in the living room, he will start singing and dancing out of nowhere. He just starts swaying and singing... he never uses any words in his songs, but its very obvious that its a song. The best song I've ever heard is the one my son sings to me when he sits in my lap and looks into my eyes and just starts to sing.
But of all the things he does, I have one favorite. We give him hugs and kisses all the time. We tell him we love him all the time. Whether it's just because we feel like telling him, or if it's because he fell down, we make sure he knows it. Sometimes I can tell it annoys him. I'll move in for a hug, but the moment my arms are around him, he wiggles out of it and yells "toooop!". It's hard to even be sad that he didnt want a hug with his cute little version of "stop". But there are times when he wants me to hold him or play with him, and I just cant. Sometimes I'm busy planting or weeding in the garden, sometimes I'm trying to get some dishes clean, whatever it is I just dont have time at that exact minute to hold him. I guess he thinks he did something wrong, or he knows I'm not in a good mood... or he's just the sweetest kid in the entire world and wants me to know he loves me too. Once I'm sitting on the couch or for whatever reason down at his level, he puts his arm around my shoulder and leans his face over mine with his mouth wide open in the traditional toddler kiss. Once I give him a kiss, he climbs up in my lap and gives me the tightest most awesome hugs in the entire world. He doesnt let go until I tell him I love him, and at that point either he stays in my lap or he gets this satisfied look on his face and runs off to play.
No matter what he happens to pick up, I am just thrilled that he knows how to show love. He is the sweetest kid. I hope when his little brother is born, he will be a good role model and show his brother how to do all sorts of things.
Some of what he learns is cute and good that he knows. When I brush my hair in the morning, he knows what a brush is for. He picks up another brush and starts trying to brush his hair. He knows that you are supposed to stack the crackers, meat, and cheese in a lunchable. He makes stacks of cracker, cheese, cheese, cheese, cracker, meat, cheese. He knows that shovels are for digging in the ground, and he knows that you put water on plants to make them grow (well, he might not know exactly why you water them yet, but he does know that you put water on plants). He knows what a toothbrush does. He lets me brush his teeth first, then he enjoys holding it himself. He has a hard time moving the brush back and forth, so he puts it in his mouth and shakes his head back and forth to brush.
He even picks up some of our words. When he's doing something we dont want him to do, we tell him to stop. Well he knows exactly what that word means now, because when we do something he doesnt want us to do, he tells us "toooooop!" LOL it's hilarious. When he wants something, he knows how to say please. It actually sounds more like "eease?" He says it when he brings us his empty cup, asking to be refilled. He says it when he brings us a closed package of crackers or a lunchable asking to be opened. I feel really bad when he says please and I have to turn him down, like candy before breakfast or something, but in a case like that, I dont care how cute he is or how he asks, there is no way he's getting candy before breakfast!
I dont talk on the phone very often. At least, I dont notice that I do. But I know that my husband calls every day from work to talk about his day and see how we're doing. Well, my son has picked up on what a phone does, because he picks up my cell phone, holds it to his ear with his shoulder, and talks on it. Sometimes, he even manages to press the right buttons and call someone! Usually (thankfully) it's only my husband that he calls, and he always shows it off at work that his son, not even 2 years old yet, misses him enough to steal mommy's phone and call him. Haha. Of course, my son will pick up anything that looks like a phone and try to talk on it. It's especially cute watching him try to talk on the TV remote or my iPod.
When we're outside feeding the animals we take a bucket, fill it with bird seed and corn, and go to each cage and fill their feeders. My son has taken a small bucket he found and holds it up to us near the feed barrels and says "please?". This tells us he wants some feed. We give him a scoop in his bucket, and he picks a nice comfy spot in the grass and dumps out his whole bucket. The yard birds (chickens, ducks, geese, and guineas) all come running to eat the feed, and my son just sits there and laughs. He reaches out and pets them, and he even picks a few of them up. He's especially good at catching the chicks when he's in the brooder boxes... we just need to teach him that chicks arent meant to be thrown!
On the topic of throwing things, I find that my son also picks up on our bad habits. When we take off our shoes at the couch, we have a bad habit of just throwing them over to the shoe rack by the door. Later, when I get up again, I'll go over and stack them correctly, but at that exact moment I just toss them over there. My son now things that we throw our shoes everywhere. He even thinks that the shoe rack is a nifty device that holds your shoes until you are ready to throw them. It has made us realize just how much we throw and toss things around the house when we are too lazy to get up and put them away. And we cant just tell our son "throwing is bad" because how bad can it really be when mommy and daddy do it all the time? Guess we'll have to make a few changes. On the bright side, my son is not even 2 years old yet and he can throw a football with better precision and aim and just mindblowing accuracy then I could have ever imagined possible. Of course, he's still learning how to catch. We have to start with step one: hold out your hands, lol.
Some of the things he does, I have NO idea how he learns it. Whenever he hears music, he starts dancing. My husband and I are both very positive of the fact that neither of us can dance. Well, my husband can 2-step, but I think that's a normal country thing that country people just sort of know how to do. But my son can get DOWN. I mean he moves his hips side to side, sometimes he picks up his feet, he bobs his head, and he moves his arms around. If it's a slow song, he moves slower, and if it's a fast song he really gets moving. And he really loves it too, because once he starts moving to the music he gets the biggest grin on his face and he looks over at us to make sure we see him. I admit that I sing along to just about anything, whether its a song on the radio, a song in a movie, or even a song on a commercial. My son has started singing along to music as well, and sometimes when he's not doing anything, like sitting on the couch or just standing around in the living room, he will start singing and dancing out of nowhere. He just starts swaying and singing... he never uses any words in his songs, but its very obvious that its a song. The best song I've ever heard is the one my son sings to me when he sits in my lap and looks into my eyes and just starts to sing.
But of all the things he does, I have one favorite. We give him hugs and kisses all the time. We tell him we love him all the time. Whether it's just because we feel like telling him, or if it's because he fell down, we make sure he knows it. Sometimes I can tell it annoys him. I'll move in for a hug, but the moment my arms are around him, he wiggles out of it and yells "toooop!". It's hard to even be sad that he didnt want a hug with his cute little version of "stop". But there are times when he wants me to hold him or play with him, and I just cant. Sometimes I'm busy planting or weeding in the garden, sometimes I'm trying to get some dishes clean, whatever it is I just dont have time at that exact minute to hold him. I guess he thinks he did something wrong, or he knows I'm not in a good mood... or he's just the sweetest kid in the entire world and wants me to know he loves me too. Once I'm sitting on the couch or for whatever reason down at his level, he puts his arm around my shoulder and leans his face over mine with his mouth wide open in the traditional toddler kiss. Once I give him a kiss, he climbs up in my lap and gives me the tightest most awesome hugs in the entire world. He doesnt let go until I tell him I love him, and at that point either he stays in my lap or he gets this satisfied look on his face and runs off to play.
No matter what he happens to pick up, I am just thrilled that he knows how to show love. He is the sweetest kid. I hope when his little brother is born, he will be a good role model and show his brother how to do all sorts of things.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Garden 2011
Last year I started a garden. It was a small 10 foot space in the backyard with a few tomato and pepper plants. I also had a small vineyard off the side of the yard stretching about 30 to 40 feet down with 2 rows, having about 10 grape plants. The grapes were bought as little sticks in a bag, with the instructions saying that they were just "dormant" and that throughout the season they would grow into full producing grape vines. Well, the bag lied. All season I just had little sticks in the ground. My pepper plants were eaten down to almost nothing by my geese, and the tomato plants, although they did produce tomatoes, didnt give us hardly anything until AFTER the producing season was over, and they were all bite size tomatoes. On the bright side, they were REALLY good bite size tomatoes.
Well this year, we decided to try it again, and learn from our mistakes. First, my husband fenced off a 40 foot by 80 foot area for the new garden, and we spread out weed killer over the whole thing. In February my husband had a friend from work bring out his tractor and till it up, and all we had left to do was wait for the last frost to be over.
We figured we'd be planting in March, so I began to prepare. We bought all kinds of seeds, and I planted them in mini greenhouses and kept them indoors. The seeds I planted were: pumpkin, watermelon, cucumber, cantelope, carrots, eggplant, squash, lettuce, banana peppers, corn, and sunflowers. We also bought onion bulbs and seed potatoes. Plus, my husband surprised me with tomato plants, a variety of pepper plants, more grape sticks, and some blueberry plants (that were really just bigger sticks). I was super excited when my seeds all began to sprout out into tiny seedlings, then they grew and were green and pretty and started getting true leaves on them... by the time March came around they were getting a bit too big for their little peat pots.
The weather had warmed up, so we went ahead and planted the tomato plants, the onion bulbs, and the pepper plants in their own rows in the garden, and we planted the grape sticks in the vineyard and the blueberry sticks in a big 4 foot container where my old garden had been. The blueberries and grapes had little green buds on them, and the tomatoes and peppers were looking good. Thats when things started going downhill.
It seemed like almost overnight the pepper plants started to look smaller. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that they were being eaten. The tomato plants were dying all on their own. The little green buds on the blueberries and grapes disappeared as if they, too, were being eaten. It didnt take long to find the culprit: rabbits. Cottontails were hopping right into the garden (which had been fenced off with barbed wire to keep out the horse, goat, and llama) and eating my peppers. I bought small animal repellent and spread it all over the garden. Think it made a difference? Not a bit. It was like all I had done was put seasoning on their food. They kept right on chomping away. So we did the next best things we could do: we bought some garden fencing to keep out the rabbits, and in the evening our new hobby was rabbit hunting. We saw a little bit more being eaten off the peppers (there are still a few spots along one fence they can still get in), but a few days later my husband got 3 rabbits in a row! After that it seems like the eating has slowed down to nothing. So my garden is pretty safe from the rabbits now. Of course, the tomatoes still died. Only 7 of the tomato plants miraculously came back to life, and we even bought more tomato plants, but they all died too. So we have just 7 tomato plants out there, in an 80 foot long row. Really demotivating. Today my husband came home from work with a whole bunch of different types of tomato seeds. Hoping to have better luck with the seeds than with the actual plants.
On the bright side, while all this sadness and frustration was going on, my onion bulbs all sprouted and are now currently at least 6 to 8 inches tall. Very proud of my little onions.
Then the seedlings. I was thrilled and amazed to watch all these little seeds sprout up and grow out into little seedlings. Unfortunately, they didnt like getting moved outside. They all very quickly withered and died. All that time, the weeks that I put into them, the pride I had in them... all flushed down the drain in a matter of days. I felt so useless as a gardener... nothing I was planting was growing and when it did grow, it was only a futile effort before it died. I almost gave up right then. But seeing the onion bulbs sprout up gave me some hope. It made me realize that maybe what the garden needed was more nature and less me. I mean yes, it needs a bit of me, but I can't control it all. It a natural thing and I needed to let it do what it wanted. So I took more seeds last weekend and planted them straight into the ground in their respective rows in the garden. The only things I kept saplings of is eggplant and banana peppers. I have 8 rows out there. Here's what I planted:
Row 1: Sunflower seeds
Row 2: Corn seeds
Row 3: Squash seeds, lettuce seeds (and a space at the end for the eggplant saplings)
Row 4: Pepper plants (with space at the end for the banana pepper saplings)
Row 5: Onion bulbs
Row 6: Tomatoes (all but 7 died, but as I mentioned we got seeds today so I can plant them)
Row 7: Seed potatoes, carrot seeds, garlic cloves (from the kitchen, lol)
Row 8: Cantelope seeds, cucumber seeds, watermelon seeds, pumpkin seeds
Now for the grapes and blueberries. The blueberries are right in the backyard. Three of them were tiny little plants, with a few leaves, and two of them were a bit larger with green buds all over them. All the little buds disappeared. I thought maybe it was from being transplanted, and the buds grew back in a few days. But then they disappeared again. This time, as they grew back, I watched them more carefully. My yard chickens were eating the green as it appeared, before it even had time to open into leaves! We're still in the process of putting up a wire fence around them, but they are both fighting against the chicken attacks by producing about a million little green sprouts all over them... I have so much respect for these two blueberry plants. Until they grow into actual bushes, we happened to notice that Walmart has blueberry bushes that are already huge and grown out, covered in flowers already! So we bought 2 of them and planted them next to the vineyard. They are currently growing well and healthy. The grapes were also getting green buds, but just as they opened into bright green leaves, they were being eaten off. We discovered that last year the grapes were being eaten by the cows, so this year before they were even planted we put up a two-strand barbed wire fence around them. It kept out the larger cows, but not the calves. So we put up a third strand, and no cows have set hoof near my vineyard since. Unfortunately the grapes were still being eaten on. It wasnt until a week or so ago that I watched 3 rabbits hop right up to my grape sticks. Hubby took care of them :) then we put wire cages around each of the grape sticks, which I am proud to say all have pretty green leaves on them and are doing wonderfully. I have real hope for the grape sticks this year, and with a little luck these same grape sticks can earn the title of actual grape vines.
Today I bought some larger peat pots for the eggplant and banana pepper seedlings, and am transplanting them after I'm done posting this. I went out into the garden earlier this afternoon and am happy to report that I have lots of seeds already sprouting up from the ground: sunflowers, corn, squash, lettuce, cucumber, and pumpkin. Plus, my onions are all still doing amazing, my 7 tomato plants are still growing well and I plan on planting the tomato seeds sometime this week, and all of my pepper plants grew back from the stems with lots of little leaves growing all over them. It's all growing and nothing is currently eating them. FINALLY! All I have to do is make sure they get the water they need.
We also bought 2 hanging strawberry baskets with seeds, and the seeds are due to be sprouting sometime later this week. And if I ever forget that I really can make things grow, I have an Ivy in the house that has been growing faster than a weed (and very healthy and green) and I have 3 curly willow branches that came in a flower bouquet that grew roots and are now beautiful little mini willow trees. I'm already in the process of "hardening" them, transferring them from indoor plants to outdoor plants. Once they're outside and growing in full sun, they should go through a real growth spurt. Once they're at least three feet tall, We can plant them in the ground.
Well, that's what I'm growing and how it's going. I look forward to updating you on the garden growth as things really start to grow. This week I'm going to weed out the garden as well, since it's been long enough that some weeds have started popping up. If you start your own garden, I hope you have better beginner's luck than I did, but if you've learned anything from reading this post it's that you cant give up. Keep on trying, and learn from your mistakes, and you can grow anything! :)
Well this year, we decided to try it again, and learn from our mistakes. First, my husband fenced off a 40 foot by 80 foot area for the new garden, and we spread out weed killer over the whole thing. In February my husband had a friend from work bring out his tractor and till it up, and all we had left to do was wait for the last frost to be over.
We figured we'd be planting in March, so I began to prepare. We bought all kinds of seeds, and I planted them in mini greenhouses and kept them indoors. The seeds I planted were: pumpkin, watermelon, cucumber, cantelope, carrots, eggplant, squash, lettuce, banana peppers, corn, and sunflowers. We also bought onion bulbs and seed potatoes. Plus, my husband surprised me with tomato plants, a variety of pepper plants, more grape sticks, and some blueberry plants (that were really just bigger sticks). I was super excited when my seeds all began to sprout out into tiny seedlings, then they grew and were green and pretty and started getting true leaves on them... by the time March came around they were getting a bit too big for their little peat pots.
The weather had warmed up, so we went ahead and planted the tomato plants, the onion bulbs, and the pepper plants in their own rows in the garden, and we planted the grape sticks in the vineyard and the blueberry sticks in a big 4 foot container where my old garden had been. The blueberries and grapes had little green buds on them, and the tomatoes and peppers were looking good. Thats when things started going downhill.
It seemed like almost overnight the pepper plants started to look smaller. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that they were being eaten. The tomato plants were dying all on their own. The little green buds on the blueberries and grapes disappeared as if they, too, were being eaten. It didnt take long to find the culprit: rabbits. Cottontails were hopping right into the garden (which had been fenced off with barbed wire to keep out the horse, goat, and llama) and eating my peppers. I bought small animal repellent and spread it all over the garden. Think it made a difference? Not a bit. It was like all I had done was put seasoning on their food. They kept right on chomping away. So we did the next best things we could do: we bought some garden fencing to keep out the rabbits, and in the evening our new hobby was rabbit hunting. We saw a little bit more being eaten off the peppers (there are still a few spots along one fence they can still get in), but a few days later my husband got 3 rabbits in a row! After that it seems like the eating has slowed down to nothing. So my garden is pretty safe from the rabbits now. Of course, the tomatoes still died. Only 7 of the tomato plants miraculously came back to life, and we even bought more tomato plants, but they all died too. So we have just 7 tomato plants out there, in an 80 foot long row. Really demotivating. Today my husband came home from work with a whole bunch of different types of tomato seeds. Hoping to have better luck with the seeds than with the actual plants.
On the bright side, while all this sadness and frustration was going on, my onion bulbs all sprouted and are now currently at least 6 to 8 inches tall. Very proud of my little onions.
Then the seedlings. I was thrilled and amazed to watch all these little seeds sprout up and grow out into little seedlings. Unfortunately, they didnt like getting moved outside. They all very quickly withered and died. All that time, the weeks that I put into them, the pride I had in them... all flushed down the drain in a matter of days. I felt so useless as a gardener... nothing I was planting was growing and when it did grow, it was only a futile effort before it died. I almost gave up right then. But seeing the onion bulbs sprout up gave me some hope. It made me realize that maybe what the garden needed was more nature and less me. I mean yes, it needs a bit of me, but I can't control it all. It a natural thing and I needed to let it do what it wanted. So I took more seeds last weekend and planted them straight into the ground in their respective rows in the garden. The only things I kept saplings of is eggplant and banana peppers. I have 8 rows out there. Here's what I planted:
Row 1: Sunflower seeds
Row 2: Corn seeds
Row 3: Squash seeds, lettuce seeds (and a space at the end for the eggplant saplings)
Row 4: Pepper plants (with space at the end for the banana pepper saplings)
Row 5: Onion bulbs
Row 6: Tomatoes (all but 7 died, but as I mentioned we got seeds today so I can plant them)
Row 7: Seed potatoes, carrot seeds, garlic cloves (from the kitchen, lol)
Row 8: Cantelope seeds, cucumber seeds, watermelon seeds, pumpkin seeds
Now for the grapes and blueberries. The blueberries are right in the backyard. Three of them were tiny little plants, with a few leaves, and two of them were a bit larger with green buds all over them. All the little buds disappeared. I thought maybe it was from being transplanted, and the buds grew back in a few days. But then they disappeared again. This time, as they grew back, I watched them more carefully. My yard chickens were eating the green as it appeared, before it even had time to open into leaves! We're still in the process of putting up a wire fence around them, but they are both fighting against the chicken attacks by producing about a million little green sprouts all over them... I have so much respect for these two blueberry plants. Until they grow into actual bushes, we happened to notice that Walmart has blueberry bushes that are already huge and grown out, covered in flowers already! So we bought 2 of them and planted them next to the vineyard. They are currently growing well and healthy. The grapes were also getting green buds, but just as they opened into bright green leaves, they were being eaten off. We discovered that last year the grapes were being eaten by the cows, so this year before they were even planted we put up a two-strand barbed wire fence around them. It kept out the larger cows, but not the calves. So we put up a third strand, and no cows have set hoof near my vineyard since. Unfortunately the grapes were still being eaten on. It wasnt until a week or so ago that I watched 3 rabbits hop right up to my grape sticks. Hubby took care of them :) then we put wire cages around each of the grape sticks, which I am proud to say all have pretty green leaves on them and are doing wonderfully. I have real hope for the grape sticks this year, and with a little luck these same grape sticks can earn the title of actual grape vines.
Today I bought some larger peat pots for the eggplant and banana pepper seedlings, and am transplanting them after I'm done posting this. I went out into the garden earlier this afternoon and am happy to report that I have lots of seeds already sprouting up from the ground: sunflowers, corn, squash, lettuce, cucumber, and pumpkin. Plus, my onions are all still doing amazing, my 7 tomato plants are still growing well and I plan on planting the tomato seeds sometime this week, and all of my pepper plants grew back from the stems with lots of little leaves growing all over them. It's all growing and nothing is currently eating them. FINALLY! All I have to do is make sure they get the water they need.
We also bought 2 hanging strawberry baskets with seeds, and the seeds are due to be sprouting sometime later this week. And if I ever forget that I really can make things grow, I have an Ivy in the house that has been growing faster than a weed (and very healthy and green) and I have 3 curly willow branches that came in a flower bouquet that grew roots and are now beautiful little mini willow trees. I'm already in the process of "hardening" them, transferring them from indoor plants to outdoor plants. Once they're outside and growing in full sun, they should go through a real growth spurt. Once they're at least three feet tall, We can plant them in the ground.
Well, that's what I'm growing and how it's going. I look forward to updating you on the garden growth as things really start to grow. This week I'm going to weed out the garden as well, since it's been long enough that some weeds have started popping up. If you start your own garden, I hope you have better beginner's luck than I did, but if you've learned anything from reading this post it's that you cant give up. Keep on trying, and learn from your mistakes, and you can grow anything! :)
Time for a Life Update
Hello there blog! Sorry I've been gone for so long, I've been feeling really sick since I got pregnant. WHAT?! PREGNANT?! Yes, I know, I stopped writing before I got the chance to give you the good news. Well, surprise, to all of my 2 readers (shout out to Mom and Bree). Actually, not too much of a surprise since I told you both once I found out, haha.
Anyways, I'm starting to feel better (and yet at the same time starting to feel worse, since I'm going into the homestretch... last 3-5 weeks of pregnancy! Yay!) so I feel good enough to get on here and give you an update on my life and what's been going on these past 9 months. Just to inform you, a big part of my life right now, being the spring season, is my garden. But that has so much to it, that I will cover that in a seperate blog post after this one.
Okay, so September. My husband and I took our little boy to Colorado to visit Estes National Park at the Rocky Mountains. He's a little country boy, just like his daddy, and loves camping in the outdoors even though at the time he was just over a year old. Unfortunately and quite surprisingly our trip was cut almost a week short due to a positive pregnancy test. Dont misunderstand my use of the word "unfortunately". I was thrilled to be having another baby. I just wasnt thrilled to already feel the pangs of nausea that accompany morning sickness. We came back to Texas, and I went through my THREE MONTHS of sickness. The entire first trimester, and then some. I was too sick to continue playing World of Warcraft. As a matter of fact, I was too sick to even look at a computer screen. That pretty much is all that went on all the way to December.
In December, with my sickness barely easing up, I had my ultrasound. I considered this to be my Christmas present from the universe, because just in time for Christmas, I was blessed with the knowledge that my new little baby would be a boy. My husband and I were hoping for another boy, and had already decided after having our first son that our second one would be named Levi Michael Burton. He's due April 30th, 2011. For Christmas, while still on the subject, I "bought" my husband 2 porter-cable routers (one fixed base and one that he holds). By "bought" I mean he told me he wanted them and I told him "Merry Christmas, go get the ones you want" lol. In return, he surprised me with Wii Fit Plus for our Nintendo Wii system. I have wanted that since last January when I first began working out to get back into shape. Of course, it sits pretty useless most of the time, waiting patiently for me to have my second child so that it can aid me in getting back my shape once again. Nothing else too new in my second trimester. Oh right, my husband's computer broke, so my laptop is pretty much his now.
Okay lets start around February. Last year I had a small garden, and it didnt do what I wanted it to, so this year we decided to try again and hopefully learn from our mistakes. As I said at the beginning of this post, I will go into much more detail about the garden in the next post, so I'll just sort of summarize for now. We sectioned off a garden, I enjoyed starting seeds in mini greenhouses and watching them grow, and all through March (so far) we have been battling rabbits, cows, and chickens to try our hardest to let things grow. The baby has been growing as well, and apparently trying his hardest to kick his way out as forcefully and painfully as possible. My first son David is ever more the country boy and spends all his time outside feeding, chasing, and catching chickens and geese. Oh yeah, and my husband over the time since his computer broke, has been ordering new computer parts and just recently built a brand new computer. I couldnt believe that just from reading a how-to book, he was able to built a fast, up to date, perfectly working desktop with amazing graphics and 2 TB of memory! The really hard to believe part is that he says its for me. Ha ha. Hard to believe since he plays WoW on it every night, lol. It's okay. I like how happy he is being able to play with the graphics set to "ultra", the highest you can go. We've never been able to do that before. And on a 32 inch HD screen at that. After seeing how great this turned out, he wants to buy all the same parts (well, maybe a different motherboard) and build one that really is for him.
This past week has been the most interesting. It's chick season, so we have bought Americauna chicks, assorted bantam chicks, white phoenix chicks, and a whole bunch of ducklings and goslings. Sadly, we had to get rid of my dog, a bloodhound, because she was killing our birds. She did so well for a full year that I just couldnt believe it. But when I found one of my black ducks dead in the yard, I knew we just couldnt keep her any more. My husband said "dont worry, we'll find a new puppy for David, maybe even an Australian Shepherd". Here I was, thinking that it would be good to go a while with just the one little dog that we have, and maybe after the baby is born we can start looking. Australian Shepherds are a bit harder to get around here since everyone wants them, so they go fast and are usually at least 200 dollars. Well what do you know, last Monday my husband calls me from work and says "Call this number, they have Australian Shepherd puppies for sale". I call, thinking they are probably sold out, but no! We are in luck. They have 2 males left, the father being a black and tan and the mother being a Blue Merle, and they were 100 dollars but now are only 50. My husband comes home from work, picks up me and David, and we drive out and get a puppy. We were trying to find a really good original name for him, but after sitting on the porch watching him play with David and not being able to think of a single acceptable name, we went generic and just started calling him Buddy. And he's living up to that name so far, being David's little buddy. Also within these past weeks, I got a kitten from my mother-in-law, and she is the sweetest little kitty... she's grown up around birds, so I have no worries from her there, and her mommy has been training her and her sister to hunt mice, which I hear she's good at. She's a long haired Calico, with pretty green eyes, and I feel bad that I havent named her yet, but she comes when you say "here kitty kitty" so I dont think there's any real rush with her.
Last of all, this weekend. Friday I scheduled a doctors appointment, just a normal check up, for April 5, which is next Tuesday. By Friday afternoon I was sick, stuck in bed, temperature doing the wave and having a hard time staying hydrated no matter how much I drank. But Levi was staying active so I didnt feel the need to go into the ER. This morning I scheduled an afternoon appointment and went on into town feeling good enough to drive, if not good enough to get anything done today. The doctor said it appeared that I only had a stomach virus, and that a few more days of taking it easy and drinking lots of fluids would see me up and about again in no time. Also, I have been gaining weight appropriately and am right where I should be (which means it will be nice and easy to lose the weight after having the baby). Speaking of the baby, Levi is doing great. He is growing at a perfect pace, he's right where he's expected to be, with a healthy strong heartbeat. And dont worry, my cervix is still completely closed, so I'm not having the baby this week. LOL. I'm on 35 weeks, so it's still 2 weeks before he's considered full term, 3 weeks before I really start to expect him, and 5 weeks before the official due date. But I really am expecting him around week 38.
Well, it's been a long post, but I think you're up to date on just about everything. Oh, haha, one last thing. My rabbit is a girl. My husband bought her for me on Valentines last year, and it took me until just this year to finally check and find out for sure. No fuzzy bunny balls. Anyways, I'm going to get to writing about that garden now. Thanks for reading! (If you managed to survive my babbling all the way through.) Hope to write again soon. Or at least, before another 9 months goes by :)
Anyways, I'm starting to feel better (and yet at the same time starting to feel worse, since I'm going into the homestretch... last 3-5 weeks of pregnancy! Yay!) so I feel good enough to get on here and give you an update on my life and what's been going on these past 9 months. Just to inform you, a big part of my life right now, being the spring season, is my garden. But that has so much to it, that I will cover that in a seperate blog post after this one.
Okay, so September. My husband and I took our little boy to Colorado to visit Estes National Park at the Rocky Mountains. He's a little country boy, just like his daddy, and loves camping in the outdoors even though at the time he was just over a year old. Unfortunately and quite surprisingly our trip was cut almost a week short due to a positive pregnancy test. Dont misunderstand my use of the word "unfortunately". I was thrilled to be having another baby. I just wasnt thrilled to already feel the pangs of nausea that accompany morning sickness. We came back to Texas, and I went through my THREE MONTHS of sickness. The entire first trimester, and then some. I was too sick to continue playing World of Warcraft. As a matter of fact, I was too sick to even look at a computer screen. That pretty much is all that went on all the way to December.
In December, with my sickness barely easing up, I had my ultrasound. I considered this to be my Christmas present from the universe, because just in time for Christmas, I was blessed with the knowledge that my new little baby would be a boy. My husband and I were hoping for another boy, and had already decided after having our first son that our second one would be named Levi Michael Burton. He's due April 30th, 2011. For Christmas, while still on the subject, I "bought" my husband 2 porter-cable routers (one fixed base and one that he holds). By "bought" I mean he told me he wanted them and I told him "Merry Christmas, go get the ones you want" lol. In return, he surprised me with Wii Fit Plus for our Nintendo Wii system. I have wanted that since last January when I first began working out to get back into shape. Of course, it sits pretty useless most of the time, waiting patiently for me to have my second child so that it can aid me in getting back my shape once again. Nothing else too new in my second trimester. Oh right, my husband's computer broke, so my laptop is pretty much his now.
Okay lets start around February. Last year I had a small garden, and it didnt do what I wanted it to, so this year we decided to try again and hopefully learn from our mistakes. As I said at the beginning of this post, I will go into much more detail about the garden in the next post, so I'll just sort of summarize for now. We sectioned off a garden, I enjoyed starting seeds in mini greenhouses and watching them grow, and all through March (so far) we have been battling rabbits, cows, and chickens to try our hardest to let things grow. The baby has been growing as well, and apparently trying his hardest to kick his way out as forcefully and painfully as possible. My first son David is ever more the country boy and spends all his time outside feeding, chasing, and catching chickens and geese. Oh yeah, and my husband over the time since his computer broke, has been ordering new computer parts and just recently built a brand new computer. I couldnt believe that just from reading a how-to book, he was able to built a fast, up to date, perfectly working desktop with amazing graphics and 2 TB of memory! The really hard to believe part is that he says its for me. Ha ha. Hard to believe since he plays WoW on it every night, lol. It's okay. I like how happy he is being able to play with the graphics set to "ultra", the highest you can go. We've never been able to do that before. And on a 32 inch HD screen at that. After seeing how great this turned out, he wants to buy all the same parts (well, maybe a different motherboard) and build one that really is for him.
This past week has been the most interesting. It's chick season, so we have bought Americauna chicks, assorted bantam chicks, white phoenix chicks, and a whole bunch of ducklings and goslings. Sadly, we had to get rid of my dog, a bloodhound, because she was killing our birds. She did so well for a full year that I just couldnt believe it. But when I found one of my black ducks dead in the yard, I knew we just couldnt keep her any more. My husband said "dont worry, we'll find a new puppy for David, maybe even an Australian Shepherd". Here I was, thinking that it would be good to go a while with just the one little dog that we have, and maybe after the baby is born we can start looking. Australian Shepherds are a bit harder to get around here since everyone wants them, so they go fast and are usually at least 200 dollars. Well what do you know, last Monday my husband calls me from work and says "Call this number, they have Australian Shepherd puppies for sale". I call, thinking they are probably sold out, but no! We are in luck. They have 2 males left, the father being a black and tan and the mother being a Blue Merle, and they were 100 dollars but now are only 50. My husband comes home from work, picks up me and David, and we drive out and get a puppy. We were trying to find a really good original name for him, but after sitting on the porch watching him play with David and not being able to think of a single acceptable name, we went generic and just started calling him Buddy. And he's living up to that name so far, being David's little buddy. Also within these past weeks, I got a kitten from my mother-in-law, and she is the sweetest little kitty... she's grown up around birds, so I have no worries from her there, and her mommy has been training her and her sister to hunt mice, which I hear she's good at. She's a long haired Calico, with pretty green eyes, and I feel bad that I havent named her yet, but she comes when you say "here kitty kitty" so I dont think there's any real rush with her.
Last of all, this weekend. Friday I scheduled a doctors appointment, just a normal check up, for April 5, which is next Tuesday. By Friday afternoon I was sick, stuck in bed, temperature doing the wave and having a hard time staying hydrated no matter how much I drank. But Levi was staying active so I didnt feel the need to go into the ER. This morning I scheduled an afternoon appointment and went on into town feeling good enough to drive, if not good enough to get anything done today. The doctor said it appeared that I only had a stomach virus, and that a few more days of taking it easy and drinking lots of fluids would see me up and about again in no time. Also, I have been gaining weight appropriately and am right where I should be (which means it will be nice and easy to lose the weight after having the baby). Speaking of the baby, Levi is doing great. He is growing at a perfect pace, he's right where he's expected to be, with a healthy strong heartbeat. And dont worry, my cervix is still completely closed, so I'm not having the baby this week. LOL. I'm on 35 weeks, so it's still 2 weeks before he's considered full term, 3 weeks before I really start to expect him, and 5 weeks before the official due date. But I really am expecting him around week 38.
Well, it's been a long post, but I think you're up to date on just about everything. Oh, haha, one last thing. My rabbit is a girl. My husband bought her for me on Valentines last year, and it took me until just this year to finally check and find out for sure. No fuzzy bunny balls. Anyways, I'm going to get to writing about that garden now. Thanks for reading! (If you managed to survive my babbling all the way through.) Hope to write again soon. Or at least, before another 9 months goes by :)
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