Square Foot Gardening

Square Foot Gardening

This February we decided to plant our own garden the "Square Foot" way...With the help of my children we planted string beans, tomatoes, sugar snap peas, herbs, wild flowers, radishes, cabbage and spinache.

First we built the boxes and filled them with compost, mulch, etc..(we followed Mel Bartholemew's "Guide to Square Foot Gardening" Book).We planted our seeds. SOme seeds required to be planted indoors while seeds such as the sugar snap peas were sturdy enough to withstand the remaining colder months until they were ready to srpout in the warm spring weather.

Everyone wanted to help!

Next we put our dividers on

More seed planting

In late March the plants began to grow. It is amazing to see the seeds that you planted come to life.

By May our sugar snap peas took over the boxes!

Chicks

We went to a friend's farm. Her name is Ellen. She raises alpacas for their wool. She also has goats, chickens and dogs. Out of all of the animals the children loved the chickens the best. Ellen offered some eggs to take home to incubate. It sounded like so much fun...and she was right!
The embryo's in the eggs don't begin to develope until it reaches a steady warm temperature of 99.5 degrees...a fertilized egg just can't be left out in the cold...
So we put 6 eggs in an incubator.
Every few days we shined a flashlight through the eggs to chart the growth of the chicks. It was fascinating! The gestation period of chicks are 21 days...in 3 weeks we had baby chicks hatching! So cool.

Hatching Chick...it took her all day to work her way out.

Only 3 hatched..which actually is good odds. It is usually 20% of eggs hatch...Sadly 2 of the chicks died :-(
It took all day for them to work themselves out of their eggs. We watched helplessly. We wanted so much to help them get out. But we couldn't. Part of their working themselves out of the eggs enables the fluid to be pressed out of their lungs. The struggle makes them stronger....isn't that a great life lesson right there?
We got more than we bargained for when I decided to incubate chicken eggs. It has become a great learning experience for our whole family!
But we still have Mathilda--the lone surviving chick!

Mathilda

14 years!

Happy Anniversary to my husband!
It has been 14 years and every year is better.
We have grown to love eachother more ...hoping we get to grow old together.
We compliment eachother perfectly (our quirks and all)
We are still learning how God wants us to live out our union.
It is a great journey.

14 Years

Up a Tree

This is what happens when you run from your problems in panic....our cat takes flight from everything it seems...I know that is how I deal with stuff sometimes. I can so relate to her. But running away is often not the greatest solution. Now this cat has another dilemma. She is too afraid to get down. My son was gently coaxing her to get down. She eventually did because she trusted him....coolness

It's Not About the Tree

Every year we get a real tree. This year we decided to go to  to a family owned Christmas tree farm which was about an hour away from our home.We have gotten wonderful trees right off of Pelham Road next to the Bilo grocery store from Grandadday's trees. They do a great job by conveniently  bringing fresh cut trees right to the neighborhood. But this year we were heading to the farm.
    The children were so excited that morning. They donned on their Santa hats and we all  jumped into the car.  As we drove to the farm we passed Christmas tree sellers along the road. We could have easily picked up a wonderful frasier fir from one of these sellers but we pressed on to the farm.
Finally we found the signs "The Merry Christmas Tree Farm."  I love the title. As we began driving up the driveway we were immediately greeted by the most perfectly triangular Christmas Trees. It was definitely worth the drive. Further down into the farm we were met by our friends. Friends we are doing small group life together. It was so fun!

  The Merry Christmas Tree Farm was a dream for all of the children to run as they raced among the fields of evergreens. We explored the farm . In one area of the farm their is a hillside where trees do not grow very well and remain as stunted tiny twigs. It is dubbed the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree Patch. These trees are free! Each child picked one out. They were a hit. This picture is the children posing with the Charlie Brown Christmas tree they chose as their very own:

After picking out our 'big" Christmas trees we watched the farm owners wrap them up and helped them hoist them atop our cars. The whole while we laughed, took pictures, talked, and drank hot chocolate. I realized watching everything on the sunny day it wasn't about going to get the Christmas trees. It was more about the memories.

Best Time of the Year if you Choose

It's Christmas time..I have come to believe it is what you choose it to be. It can be a stressful time or a sweet time...

 I used to be an over achiever at Christmas.

My gifts were wrapped beautifully, Christmas cookies and cards would be done by now, house decorated everywhere perfectly, children in matching clothes....Puullleasse...what was I thinking?...Now after having 4 children , homeschooling and married to a busy husband- I have realistic expectations. I mean expectations of the things I am able to do without making myself insane....and it is awesome.
 I have a quarter of my cards done (I lost my card list-I may  just send en masse email,hmmm), my mantle and Christmas tree is all I am attempting now, half of our Christmas lights are working outside---and I am totally cool with it.

Now we are officially on Christmas break. We barely made it though. This time of year we are all so weary of school work and the whole busy schedule that is  a part of the American culture
 It's time to get gifts and wrap.

I will say I am very thankful for online shopping since I am a homebody.

My body likes to be at home.

It's nice to shop for deals on the couch by the space heater while watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer with the children. You just can't beat that. It rocks.

                                          Now to on- line shopping in my comfy sweats....

       During the 2010-2011 school  year our HIStory lessons covered (so far)  the Middle Ages, the Reformation and the Renaissance during this school year. Some of the topics we delved deeper into were about knights, the Plague, Joan of Arc, Martin Luther & the 95 Theses, Leonardo Davinci and his brilliant creations...and really so much more.

Above the kids made their Richard the Lionhearted shields. Doesn't that 6 foot knight poster look real?

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Science is a favorite subject in our household...In ecology we learned about biomes, food chains, and animal adaptations. Above is our oldest child's Upstate South Carolina Ecology project.

 Our 6 year old loves everything about astronomy! His favorite lessons were about the moon.  We used Apologia Science Astronomy text which just made us more amazed by God and the universe He created.

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The Three R's: Reading, wRiting , 'Rithmetic ;-)  Bible , and our Classical Conversations Curriculum--take up  much of our time during the school day.Although we have a school room we have found that our kitchen table has become the favorite place to learn (closer to the snacks?)
We attend a homeschool group every Tuesday-LOVE it (I'll write more about that later)...
Here is the website that provides more information about our studies :http://www.classicalconversations.com/