Tag Archives: Gardening

Summer Doings

Leave a reply

I know I’ve been horrible at posting for months.

So, what have we been up to this summer?

Take a look and see!

We went camping:

We traveled to Nevada to work, see family, and spend time on the Homestead (click or hover over pictures to see captions):

preventative maintenance on the drainage ditches so they don’t wash out the driveway.
My little helper
Can you see the orange markings on the dirt? We started laying out the house!
Tea time with my sister and nieces
Working at the Ropes Course.
Working at the Ropes Course.

We worked on house plans:Exterior views

And found a building almost the exact size of the one we are going to build:20150610_155031It’s cool (and helpful) to see the dimensions in real life rather than on paper.

We harvested cherries from our very own cherry tree:

Dad and Flower Girl planted the garden.20150609_161319

Princess Girl and her BFF ran a lemonade stand and made quite a lot of money!20150613_170558

One of my sisters came to visit and we made raspberry jam after picking the raspberries from her extended family’s farm!20150701_103628

We had some weird stuff happen in the chicken coop:20150702_102452

We were messy like a typical 2 and a half year old (there’s STILL specks of paint in the bathroom from this!):20150702_153057

We had our first tomato (and a couple more since then). Mmmmmm….

20150703_134143

We played with sparklers to celebrate the 4th of July:

We traveled back to Nevada once again, then to Missouri for a family reunion (click or hover for captions).

Nevada beauty
Our “Shuttle” van which carried 7 people to Missouri and back.
Looooong road trip (34 hours on the road!)
Full van!
It’s my restaurant! (Almost spelled it right, anyway 🙂 )
Princess Girl and some of her cousins whom she just met.
Havin’ fun out on the lake.
Havin’ fun out on the lake.
Missouri sunset on the White River.
Cousins having some fun!
The Castle Rock family on the salt flats in Utah.

We did other typical summer type stuff (click or hover for captions):

Handstands!
Summer camp. Princess Girl is in that crowd somewhere and this Mamma’s heart was squeezing tight at the prospect of letting go, if for only 5 days.
Playing in the fountains at a park.
Playing in the fountains at a park.
Taking walks in the lush greenery of the PNW.
Hanging out on the nice shady deck in the warmth of the afternoon.
Hanging out on the nice shady deck in the warmth of the afternoon.
Hanging out on the nice shady deck in the warmth of the afternoon.

And we traveled back to Nevada once again so I can work –  (click or hover for captions).

Checking on and watering out apple trees.
Hoeing the weeds out of the driveway.
Working on the ropes course.
Putting up a tipi at the ropes course.
Putting up a tipi at the ropes course.

So, you know. We’ve kept busy.

🙂

Fresh salad!

1 Reply

Fresh salad, straight from our garden/yard. Yum! I needed to thin out the lettuce from the small garden, I picked some of the over-wintered-but-not-doing-so-well spinach from the big garden, and I found some dandelion greens in the yard. I had a head of purchased iceburg in the fridge and add to all that some borage flowers which just started blooming and you have a gorgeous salad almost too pretty to eat. Almost, but not quite. 🙂

20150409_175350

I love that dandelions are considered a weed, yet they are edible and good for you. And the borage is a volunteer which comes back every year.

Edit: For the health of you and your family, be sure if you are harvesting any wild edibles that they come from a trusted source not treated with any harsh chemicals! We don’t use any herbicides or pesticides or even any fertilizer on our lawn, so I know the dandelions are safe to eat.

Garden Update

Leave a reply

So, I went away for 10 days and came back to some radishes and lettuce ready to pick, or at least thin out (and eat the thinned one’s 😉 ). And just about everything too tall for the glass cover.

20150408_101728 20150408_101735 20150408_110320 20150408_110326

 

Princess Girl was excited to pick some of her radishes, even though she’s not even sure if she likes them.

I’m not quite ready to leave the garden completely open to the cat, though. He likes to curl up in the warm sun, right on top of my baby onion plants. So, I’m thinking I’ll put another level of boards up around the garden and raise the glass that way. Then we can continue to let the chickens roam free too. Yeah, the chickens would decimate the garden right now. In fact, they were out and about while I was checking on the garden this morning and were VERY interested in what was in that box!

In other news, the spinach in the pots on the deck are doing much better than the boxes on the fence. I’m thinking the fence boxes might be holding too much moisture. Need to drill a few holes in the bottom and see if that helps. And I need to trim the honeysuckle already. It grows so fast, but I knew it would. Hmmmm, looks like I have some gardening work ahead of me tomorrow. Ahh, shucks! 😉