What we've been up to...

My posts certainly have become few and far between! I thought I'd break the recent silence by posting a bunch of pictures showing what we have accomplished at home recently. Yay pictures!

First, some changes to the interior:

I made a sunburst mirror!

I solved our bathroom towel hanging problem. Our one and only bathroom is definitely a small bathroom which is fine except it isn't set up well to hang up towels.  Especially when we have a bigger family someday...  My solution to this was to take the door off of the little closet, paint the inside white, and organize the shelves.  While you can't see all of the space in the picture, we can now hang towels on hooks below the bottom shelf.  The door simply had to come off so that the towels will dry!  Problem solved!

I don't know what it is about canopies over beds, but I have always
admired them (but not the cost of a canopy bed...).  I used curtains that
were covering the close in one of the "kids rooms" and used long
thumbtacks (found randomly in a tree while landscaping at OSU) to
attach it to the ceiling.  Voila!  Free canopy! I like how it makes
our ridiculously giant bedroom look a little bit smaller, too. :)

Moving on to the outdoors... Outdoor pictures just aren't complete without chicken pictures!

Light from heaven streaming onto the lovely chickens.

Awww.  Who doesn't want to find Willow on their kitchen stoop?

Three happy, fuzzy chicken butts.

We took out a large swath of sod in the front yard to prepare  to put
in some raised beds.  We're getting ready to build them now!

Here's what used to be half of our driveway!  We rented a jackhammer,
and then we used the chunks to build these raised beds and put in
stepping stones.  All that's left is filling in between the stepping stones
with pea gravel, filling the beds with good garden soil, and setting up an
irrigation system!

Not a great picture, but we also added a contained compost pile in the
chicken run.  You can find the picture that inspired me here.  It'll show
what it looks like much better.  However, this picture is proof that
the chickens go in, each what they want, poop in the pile, and scratch
it all up.  It's a good system for us, I think!

That's it for now! I can just see in my mind all of out garden spaces lush and green in the summer with all sorts of deliciousness sprouting up everywhere. SO EXCITED!

looking back, looking ahead

I think that summer usually ends a little earlier than this in our area, but this year the warm, sunny, dry days stretched from early July to mid-October.  Today it is raining, though, and I think that we are officially tumbling toward winter.  Fall and spring both fill me with the oddest emotions.  Mostly, both of these seasons send me reeling with excitement as changes abruptly happen.  Though the seasons are nearly opposite, spring and fall bring me a sense of promise for good things.  Yet, as I feel excitement and hope, I also feel a sense of loss as I realize that another season of life has passed, never to return.

First, let's celebrate the end of summer.

These are some of my very own tomatoes.  Delicious.

What a lovely creature!  It's amazing that few months ago,
this beautiful chicken was a scrawny little fuzzball.

Never in my wildest dreams growing up did I imagine harvesting
my own sunflower seeds.  

This melon grew from a seed that germinated in the worm bin.

A blue heron surveying our pond.  The warm days and lack of rain
sure has the pond water mighty low!

While I really enjoy each season, and perhaps especially so since I grew up on the coast where seasons were less distinct, I am already looking forward to next spring when I can put the first seeds in the ground and start over again.  I am really happy with all that came out of our garden this year, and I am excited to improve next year.  Plus, we have plans to radically change our gardening space for next year.  We plan to demolish half of the driveway and tear out about half of the front lawn.  In this space, we intend to build raised beds and perhaps add some fruit trees and shrubs.  We also plan to move the raised beds from the side yard and plant a little fruit orchard there instead.  One other major addition we're planning on for next year is a grape arbor in the front lawn.  It's going to be a lot of work, and I am terribly excited to dig in and see the changes.

My professional dreams and goals have also lead me to unexpected places.  While I feel more confident with my teaching every term, I am holding onto the hope that I will have a part in starting a food co-op that will eventually have the means to employ me!  In the meantime, I soak up the days when my students tell me that they appreciate me, and I work to not let student failures bring me down.  Teaching is a good job, and I really enjoy working with my students.  There is just a part of my insides with a PASSION for bring good, healthy, local food to our city, and I also feel anticipation for how a co-op could unite people in our community to do so many good things.

And this post would be simply incomplete if I didn't mention that I love being a wife, and I still eagerly anticipate being a mom someday.  I could never express enough gratitude for the way my life fell into place.  How did I end up marrying such a wonderful person?  Matthew and my dream for our life has somehow evolved simultaneously throughout our marriage.  It is perhaps not every husband who respects and appreciates both my part-time work for money and my part-time work at home to help live our lives simply, healthfully, and with respect for our fellow humans and the world.  We are partners in our mission; he works full-time at his job so that I can have the time to use my bike to get the groceries.  Thanks to my dear husband who is simply the best, and thanks to God who inspires the passion within us and delivers the joys of our lives.

The garden at the end of July

It's fun to look back a month ago to see how big all these plants have gotten in the past month!  This month the peas have been winding down, although still producing.  Additionally, we've had plenty of lettuce, some green beans, a head of broccoli, and plenty of zucchini.  The carrots will probably be fully mature soon (we've eaten a couple just to "check on them"), and the tomato plants have a bunch of green fruit on them.  Additionally, the winter squash plants are getting bigger, and we have a few volunteer pumpkins already growing.

Also, PEEPOSAURS!

You  can't help but love the fluffy chicken butts.

These plants needed water.  They have since received some.

Spot the tomatoes!

A few winter squash getting watered.

The sunflowers are getting big!  Next year I will hopefully get more herbs growing
in this area.  The perennial lavender, rosemary, and sage are a good start, though.
I'm thinking I'll try to get some chard, spinach, and kale growing here this fall.
I almost might have a few broccoli and cauliflower transplants to fill in some space...

Garden Update

You can go here to see most of these plants a month ago.  It's kind of crazy how fast they grow!

I dug five shrubs out of here yesterday.  (Don't worry, I gave them away.
I have nothing against the innocent shrubs.)  I am planning to use
this space mostly for an herb garden.  It's hard to see, but I currently
have two sunflowers and a calendula plant (provided by our CSA)
along with some rosemary (kindly given to me by our neighbor).
Today I threw some basil, oregano, and cilantro seeds into the ground.
To go along with the disorganized theme, I tried some lettuce, spinach
and kale too.  We'll see what happens.  I want to figure out some more
perennial herbs (other than rosemary) to plant along with the annuals.
Work in progress...

Lettuce, kale, and a lovely pink flower that revived when
I started watering the lettuce and kale.

Awww.  Peeposaurs.

In the back you can see my peas.  Look how HUGE they are!
We have been getting a daily dose of peas for a couple of weeks
now.  In the front you can see a zucchini plant and some
broccoli.  I've had some problems with caterpillars (and
chickens before they were banned from the garden) nibbling
up the leaves... Hopefully they'll still continue growing nicely.

Random tomato plant, and a random patch of lettuce that looks extremely happy.

Probably pumpkins.

Some carrots and a couple of lettuce plants.

More zucchini... but I don't think that this is the type that
grows up trellises.  Oops... :P

The peppers are starting to look a little better.  While
they were potted inside, they got aphids on them which I
think turned the leaves yellow.  Now that they are outside the
are gradually getting new growth.

Another tomato.

This squash-ling actually is a volunteer from the worm bin!
It is also a mystery squash because we at all kinds of squash
over the winter.  I actually have six or so mystery squashes from
the worm bin going.  

Oh hey!  Exactly one of my spinach plants doesn't look like death
and plague.  The hail storm really destroyed the other ones.

The bush beans look pretty good, I think...

Oh hi, Apples!

This is a volunteer that looks like a tomato plant.
It's getting yellow flowers and everything... 

Basil!  I even bravely pinched off the top a few weeks ago.
They seem to be getting bushier as a result. :)

The Precious Pea

I did it!  I grew a vegetable!  Celebrate!

Where did all this GREEN come from?

It seems like spring was just beginning...

Where did all this GREEN come from?!

We've had roses for a few weeks now.

Pink poppy

Butternut squash seedling.  One leaf apparently became slug food,
but it seems to live on...

Lettuce and kale in a planter outside our front door!

I planted this garlic last fall.  I found the tupperware
on the side of the road with some leftover enchiladas in it.  I promise that I did NOT eat the enchiladas.

New basil plants

The chocolate mint survived the year despite the efforts of some
spider mites.

My peas are getting TALL!  Peas, please!

Mystery plants!  The cotyledon looked suspiciously interesting,
so I didn't weed these out when they germinated.  From looking
at picture online, I think that it's not a weed.  My best guess
is that these are some sort of squash.  If not squash, maybe a melon?
Anybody have a guess?

Some carrots grow here.

Onions... There's also some little garlic plants that
I put in.  I also put in a celery plant that's growing
from the bottom of a celery bunch that I bought at the
store.  It has a few little leaves...

One of my tomato seeds turned into this!

Young lettuce plants.

Another mystery plant... Squash?  Melon?  Other ideas?

Broccoli also started from seed.  I have four of these plants, currently,
and I put a few more seeds in the ground to see what happens.

The pond

Matthew and I made this trellis over the weekend from some
posts we found lying behind our shed and some twine.  There
is a bitty cucumber plant (a start I got at the Farmer's Market)
 in the back right of the bed.  We also plan to have a couple
 of zucchini plants going up the trellis.  In the front of the bed we
 planted a couple more butternut squash plants hoping that they
 will happily sprawl onto the lawn.

Pepper starts that I bought at the Farmers' Market.

Another one of my very own tomato seedlings.

My spinach did NOT fare terribly well in the hail. :(

A couple carrots that didn't get eaten by slugs.

Onions and garlic.

Apple blossoms turn into bitty apples...

Strawberry blossoms turn into bitty strawberries...

I'm a fan of irises.

Someday these Peeposaurs will be big enough to lay eggs in
these nesting boxes.

Peeposaur sister love.

Baby chickens are happy when they can wander
a bit into the sun.

Deliasaurus usually follow me around the coop.  Especially
when I'm about to step outside.  She'll just sit there and patiently
wait for awhile hoping that she'll be allowed to sneak past me and
run into the great bug-and-slug-filled world!

So far I have learned that slugs are pretty much as obnoxious as everybody says they are.  A few of my "raised" beds are barely above ground, and I have learned that slugs can and will devour plants in those beds.  Since that is the case, I'm going to try to plant slug-resistant plants there (spinach, bush beans, onions, and garlic are so far seeming alright, while lettuce and carrots haven't worked terribly well).  I also am considering natural options to deter slugs.  I have heard that oyster shell sprinkled around the edges can keep them at bay.  Perhaps Diatomaceous Earth might be an option, but I hear it might wash away each time it rains.  The chickens DO eat slugs, which thrills me, but they're still currently a problem.  Any other ideas?

Here's hoping for many fruits and vegetables this year!  Since it's my first year, I'm trying not to expect too much, but that doesn't mean I can't pray for plenty. :)