The Other Part of the Day

We had an appointment in Ann Arbor, for William, Grace, and Juliet.  William's was actually a double appointment, because his orthodontist requested that he have 4 baby teeth removed before his next visit to their office!  So, when I made his tooth extraction appointment, they were able to bump his cleaning to an earlier time slot, and keep the girls at their same time.  

Grace and Juliet slept with twisted hair so that their hair could be 'curly' for the appointment.  It was certainly curly first thing in the morning!

When we arrived the parking lot was close to full, but we were plenty early, so we were able to wait for someone to leave, then we were able to park and went to check in.  Grace was able to go back earlier, since her dentist had an opening, and William's dentist was right on time.  Poor Juliet, her dentist had a patient right before her, and the patient was checked in, but in the wrong clinic.  So not only was she not able to go early, by was actually delayed. = (

William and Juliet both have to go back for treatment in November (and William will be going on a back to back Friday/Monday. = /  I may see if I can move his ortho appointment, because I don't want him to miss that much school in a row.)

We enjoyed a nice lunch in the atrium, William was only allowed to eat joghurt, so we gave him all that we brought, poor guy!  Grace found a cute little 'pig' marshmallow cookie!

After our 'detour' to the park, we headed home.  About 20 miles from Lansing, my car hiccoughed a bit, then the radio went out.  After about 5 more miles, my speedometer panel (gas, rpm, speed, etc.) also went out.  At the next hiccough, I made the decision to pull over at a rest stop, instead of trying (and possibly failing) to make it to the mechanic.

I turned off my car for a few minutes, then attempted to restart it, but it wouldn't even click over. = (

So, I called AAA, Billy, and the mechanic (in that order!)

AAA was out pretty quick, but we had access to a bathroom, water fountain and all the food we'd brought for our lunch, so we were pretty content while we waited.

Such a sad sight. =- (

Once my car was on the truck, Billy headed our way (there was no sense in him joining us to wait for the truck.)

One of our primary forms of entertainment was bottle flipping.  William got pretty accurate with his sprite bottle!

The 'pose' is staged, but the success was real in the same flip for both William & Juliet!!

All in all, I'm thankful that since my car did break down, it went out on our way home, close enough to home to be 'local', at a location with a bathroom and water source, that we didn't have a car full of camping supplies, for AAA, and for the sweet families who saw our car loaded up and made sure that we were okay and had help coming!

And while I'm in a reflective mood: a quick shout out to my sweet little garden, we had our first cucumber heartvest yesterday!!! <3

I hope the repair on my car is quick and relatively inexpensive, but Billy googled the symptoms and thinks it's the alternator. = (

later days

....and the Garden Grew

So, on the surface, it looks like these are back-to-back garden posts, but I'm making them approximately 3 weeks apart, so there has been tremendous growth and serval 'harvests.' = )

A harvest of sugar snap peas, we get this many, from 5 plants, every 3-4 days!

No before picture, because I couldn't wait any longer to enjoy our first cooked squash of the year!!!

This was the second squash harvest, the big one was intentional, the smaller one was not.  I was attempting to adjust the smaller one so that I could grow more easily, but it popped right off as I was adjusting it.  Grace was disappointed that there was not more to be had after we cooked them up! 

Yesterday's heartvest*, before the kids ate all of the sugar snap peas!  We probably had double the amount here, but they are so tasty!!!

The tomato plants are massive!!!  There are dozens of tomatoes on each one, but none of them are red yet!

I scored a freebie Cabbage plant at a rummage sale, and i think it's transplanted well, but not growing super fast.  The sugar snap peas do block a little of the sunlight, so that may also be affecting its growth?

The sugar snap peas have all outgrown their supports!  They seem to still be making new flowers and plenty of peas though. = )

It turns out that we did not give our squash plants enough space, because they are all crowded, but producing squash at a fantastic rate! = )

The green onion plants are huge and gave us a few shoots for our fried squash today.  yum!!

At that same rummage sale, I also got another tomato plant, but it doesn't seem to have transplanted very well. = (

One of our (5) cucumber plants has a flower!!!!! 

One of the pumpkin plants has taken over the garden, and the smaller one is trying to stake it's claim.  The smallest of the pumpkin plants hasn't really taken off yet, so I'm not sure if it will.

The tomato plant we had last year produced more tomatoes than we could even pick, and from one of the fallen tomatoes, a plant has grown!!!  It's having to fight for it's place in the garden, but I think it might have it's niche! = )

We already have a laundry list of what we want to grow next year, and I'm sure we will not have enough space!  

later days

*sarah coined it, and Emily loved it!

Garden 2023

During some of our warmer days in early spring, Billy and I filled up the raised bed, and refreshed the soil in the old garden.

It was still much to risky to plant outdoors, so the only thing we had in the garden was our onion pile from last year.  At the end of last summer, I pulled up all the green onions and offered them to neighbors.  Any unclaimed ones were tossed into a pile in the raised bed, which was being used as a kind of compost bin.  They seemed to have survived the winter, and so instead of covering them, I dug up the whole lot of them and transplanted them to the corner of the raised bed.  They have been so happy, and even flowering in their little corner!

Since they survived the winter and spring, they are ready to eat as needed!  Hopefully they will spread along the edge of the bed, and that can just be their new home! = )  I kind of think of them as a little wild at this point.

3/4 of the squash plants Billy planted are flourishing in the raised bed, and 2 of them have tiny squash, that may or may not be pollinated.  I haven't seen them flower yet, but maybe I just missed it?

Our sugar snap peas are happy campers!  They liked their strange cages that I bought, and have had flowers for a few weeks now.  We even spotted some baby pods!

I bought four tomato plants at the spring farmer's market.  I planted two in the raised bed and two in the ground.  Last year, the single plant that I purchased produced more tomatoes than I could eat, so four seemed a little bit like overkill, but with all the freeze and frost we got in May, maybe not.  Not a week after I planted the ground ones, and some creature came along and ate the stem, leaves and all!  = (  I think it must have been a bunny, and the ones in the raised beds were spared.

An inspection today showed not only a large collection of flowers, but also a few fledgling tomatoes!

In the ground bed, we have two happy looking pumpkin plants, and possibly a third!

And Emily and I enjoyed our plethora of cucumbers so much last year, that we took turns trying to get the seeds to grow.  She even started some inside, and then planted them outside.  It looked like none of them would grow, but today, it looks like we might have 5 tiny plants growing!!!

There are many weeds and other plants that sometimes look like one of our desired plants, so these may actually be less exciting, but we'll keep an eye one them!

Our garden is still so small, I wonder if seeing the flowering and growing plants ever gets less exciting?

later days

Growing Garden

My garden has been growing and producing lovely vegetables for a few weeks now.  It's still exciting to go out and pick things from our garden!

We had so many cucumbers ready that we started giving them away!

My second round of pickles was better than the first, but still not amazing.   My great aunt sent me a recipe, that I need to try before the cucumbers are finished.  I only have one plant still producing them.

We now have 2 cute pumpkins that are getting so big!  As September nears, I do worry about only having the two, but maybe the weather will hold, because all my vines still have flower blossoms on them.

One of my tomatoes finally turned red!!!  

I made it into a caprese salad. = )

Next year we are hoping to expand the garden, I would like to plant more pumpkins for sure, and maybe some other things too!

later days

Our Pocket Garden, Year 1

When it comes to mowing my lawn, I use a tractor type mower.  This means it is a pain to back into an area to mow it.  The area between our house and carport never looked all that great, and for 2 years now I've been wanting a garden, but did not want to "mow around" it.  

Well, the obvious solution finally hit me: put a garden in the spot I don't like to mow!

I put sand in the corners to kill off some weeds and shoveled 1.5 yards of cubic dirt out of my sister's truck when the weather was still trying to kill me.  I followed all the advice, from everyone.  We started some plants inside, and some plants outside, and bought the tomato plant already started.

All of the work and waiting was finally worth it, when we spotted our first baby cucumber last week!!

Billy's onions.

My still green tomatoes.  There are like 20 of them on there, but none are turning red!!

Our little sugar snap pea plants.

Well, it turns out our vines had more than 'baby' cucumbers.  We found some giants hiding under the leaves on the ground!  And now, we really have so many cucumbers, I don't know what we'll do with them all!  If any locals need a few, please feel free to stop by and help yourself!  

But we made a start with cucumber sandwiches and a side of cucumber!

And, excitement of excitements, we found a baby pumpkin on one of our vines!!!!! Then we found two more!!!!! I have images of filling my front porch steps with pumpkins from our very own garden!  We'll see how they do; my sister says they need a lot of water.

We've had enough success, that Billy is talking about making a couple of raised beds in the back, so that we have more room to grow things that need full sun.  

I'm just thrilled that we got anything! And hopefully you'll see a picture of our "orange" front steps come October. ; )

later days