Mary, Mary, how does your garden grow?

Well, mine won't be cockelshells and all the other stuff in Mary Quite Contrary's garden - but it's about that time to be thinking ahead, isn't it?

So, the last two years my garden has been a complete and utter failure...  a flop...  a waste of water and time...  frustrating and often beyond pointless!  Our soil is mostly clay and/ or gumbo, our winds can rip through just about anything, including blowing plants over, pushing tomato cages sideways, and well, you get the idea.

This year I'm hoping things are different.  For starters I heard about a couple of things I can do to improve my growing area - I could spend thousands of dollars (that I don't even come close to having) to improve our soil quality, OR I can make raised garden beds...  gee, guess what we're doing??  Then, talking with a friend who is an absolute genius with plants and gardens, I got the tip to put my planter boxes (just the 4 walls/ frames) down in their designated places and then to layer the bottom with cardboard (cool - saves us a trip to the recycling place!!!) and then pile with manure (no problem there, our horses have been obliging us with LOTS of that...) and let it compost...  top with soil and plants!

Then I heard about another method...  the hugelkulture - interesting stuff...  you can read more about it on a guy's blog who has cool equipment and way more knowledge than me here:  http://www.pierresoleil.com/ourblog/?ny0wOYCy

So, the guy we bought our house from had this huge pile of firewood (and yet, the house has no fireplace... yet...)  so we gave a lot of it away last fall to people in our homeschool group who actually do have fireplaces!  Well, we had a lot of little chunks of wood and scraps and chips and...  all still piled up behind the barn, and I've been wanting to get it all cleaned up and hauled away - well, no problem - send the kids out with the wagon and wheelbarrow and have them pick up all of those little pieces of wood to haul to the garden for me, where I dump them into the garden boxes and pile over the top with manure... 

It's not exactly the hugelkulture method, but combined methods of two tried and true methods...  I'm hoping for good results!

Now to find a way to combat the wind...  I've thought about putting boards up around the lower half of our garden's fence (used to be a large dog run - I use it as a fenced garden to keep children and critters from playing in it!) but that would block some of the sun...  so I"m not really sure if that will work or not...  or what I'll end up doing for that respect - but there's time to figure it out yet :)

Praying this proves to be a far-less-expensive way to produce a good garden with decent soil/ growing medium!

Ultrasound update

We had an ultrasound for this pregnancy on Friday - things look good so far, with a strong heartbeat of 180 beats per minute, and I could see our little peanut wiggling around in there - and was relieved to see that there is only one little peanut in there! lol - people often ask me "how do you do it?" in regards to a large family and my standard response is ONE AT A TIME! haha - well, I'm "advanced maternal age" these days (oh, don't I feel old??  lol - well, when I look in the mirror and see all the white hair that was once brownish auburnish colored...  and the wrinkles around the eyes and...  yeah, I feel kinda old these days, but not too old to have babies!) anyway, being "advanced maternal age" increases our chances of several things, including twins...  and down's syndrome and other health issues...  that's ok, though - none of it takes God by surprise - He has a plan, and however our babies come out, they are perfect within His great design!

Anyway, it was such a relief to see our little one moving around, and that strong, steady heartbeat...  it is our hope and prayer that this pregnancy carries, and in August or September we are holding a sweet newborn again. :)

For the time being, my belly looks like a very bad archery target!  With the twice daily needles/ injections that make sure my blood doesn't clot and cut off baby's blood and oxygen supply, and they always seem to bruise, it looks like someone is either a really bad archer or a horrible boxer, haha - thankfully it's nothing so violent as all that, and the injections increase our baby's chances of survival and health!  I'll play pincushion for those odds to be sure!

Thank you for praying for our little wee one!  Your prayers are more appreciated than I know how to express with words!

My new sign...

We picked this up at Hobby Lobby last month -  I haven't figured out where to hang it just yet, so for the time being, it's propped up on my dresser :)

It says:
~~~~~~~~~~~~

In Our House

We do second chances
We say prayers
We do I'm sorry's
We do loud really well
We give hugs
We do love
We Are Family

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I so love this message - and boy howdy, do we do loud well!

Where DOES the time go?

So I tried to post something last week, and somehow managed to disable the internet access from my computer (ha - go ahead and laugh - I can be such a dunce...)  took the majority of the day (and my husband coming home at the end of his workday to point out a fairly simple solution to my problem...  yeah, I was feeling pretty dumb when he showed me the problem - but if I can't laugh at my mistakes, we have problems, because I tend to make at least my fair share, if not a bit in excess!!!!)

So I look back over the past couple of weeks and wonder where the time has gone?  We've been sooo busy with day to day stuff...  the stuff that you can't really *see* at the end of the day or week...  and yet if it wasn't done, it would be painfully obvious, right?  So we've been working on school (6 grades takes a good bit of the day to accomplish everything that everyone needs to get done - at least according to my lesson book...  and I made the lesson book and filled in all the pages myself, so it's not a curriculum specific thing, lol - we just go through a lot of school stuff, but it's all good - the kids are learning, and for the most part they enjoy their studies (though there are a couple of the kids who really dislike math...  or science - actually the science is fun, it's writing up the experiments and what not, and writing out the answers to all of the end of chapter questions...  it's not *required*, per se, but I require it anyway, because I think it's good for them to do! *wink*  As mom and teacher, I get to make those calls, and like it or not, it has to get done for them to get credit for the day's work!

So we needed some incentive...  a few of the kids do great about focusing on school, getting in there and doing it, having fun, and ready to run off and play when their work is completed...  that's so fun!  However, there are a few who make me feel like a dentist at times, doing deep root surgery or even just pulling teeth to get it accomplished...  so I put together an incentive chart - each day, each of my 6 school age kiddos (and the toddler little dude who likes to color "for school") can earn a star for good behavior and doing well with their work.  If they don't earn their star, they get a line through that day instead.  At the end of the week, those with 5 stars get a treat or a reward for a job well done!  This has made it fun and extra rewarding for my extra cooperative kiddos, and has given some incentive for those less enthusiastic about schooling...  the treats are simple - a sheet of stickers, a small baggie of jelly beans or gummy bears (I get the Surf Sweets brand or the Yummy Earth brand from amazon - no corn syrup, artificial dyes or flavors...  no food reactions - yeah! and everybody likes them, so it's a win-win!  Well, they are a little bit spendy, but it's a reward for once a week, so one box of treats will last us at least a month... so it's all good :)

Anyway, we've been keeping busy with school, cleaning house - I tackled the upstairs closet, the laundry room, kitchen cupboards, and the schoolroom...  the school closet (with all of our curriculum and educational extras) took a full day...  but I love how it's organized now!!!

The barn is clean, the chicken coop is clean, the garden has a very thick new layer of animal "organic material" added to it from the barn and chicken coop... 

and that's about it.

We really haven't accomplished much that you can really *see* - and yet we've been sooooo busy!  What's up with that???  Well, I guess that's just life...  and I'm ok with that!  One of the great things about being mom is that we don't have to have the recognition for daily tasks that seemed so important working outside of the home...  Don't get me wrong, my husband notices and comments - which is very nice and encouraging!  However, it doesn't go further than that.  and I don't need it to!  It's just nice knowing we're on top of school, doing well, kids learning and progressing well with their studies, and the house is, for the most part, clean.  We have daily messes, and they have to be cleaned daily or it looks like it hasn't been done in months...  but then there are ten bodies in our home making those messes, so I guess that's to be expected, right?  So long as we start the day with a clean house and end the day with a clean house, I'm happy!  (though I admit to having interrupted the school day about half way through for a quick clean up - if the mess is enough to drive me batty or to distraction...  and that may or may not be the rule or the exception...  but if you ask my kids, they will say that our vaccum cleaner does work overtime most days!

We're also working on some character training...  it's amazing, isn't it, how feeling cabin feverish can bring out the ugly in us, isn't it?  We had a couple of weeks with sub-zero temps, and very very cold, but above zero temps (10 to 18 degrees for a couple of weeks, with strong winds which made it feel even colder!) so we haven't had a lot of outside time...  and patience has been running short amongst the kids (and yeah, sometimes me).  We are looking forward to warmer temperatures that make outside time more of a frequent reality!