Friday Farm Update

It's been a busy growing week at the farm. Lettuce is ready to be harvested, green beans are happy and saying hello. Strawberries are emerging and trying to turn red. And my purple sand cherry begs me daily to trim it up, but it's too beautiful!

Lettuce, Bell Pepper, Basil and Cilantro

Beautiful purple sand cherry!Bed #1 - look at all that lettuce!

Bed #2 - green bean alert!

For Kelly

A couple of weeks ago Dave took the day off to volunteer at the new temple, but they ended up not needing people that day. So we went to Thanksgiving Point to play. We went to the Dinosaur Museum, Farm Country, and ended up eating ice cream at the deli.

Building his own Jurassic world

Oooh! Sand is dirty!

Yeah, we love each other sometimes.

Clara seriously loves horses these days. She was thrilled to ride the ponies.

Josh befriended the biggest pony in the bunch.

Conjunction Junction, What's Your Function?

We are taking off this afternoon and heading to Grand Junction for the weekend. My hope is that it involves a lot of sitting around while watching the kids play. I'm in need of a sitting around weekend instead of a millions of squats while gardening weekend. I may even try to get rid of my farmer tan.

Josh and Clara are very excited to play with all of the guys. Clara burst into tears this morning when she thought that Dave was leaving without her. But before we leave...

Hanging baskets - so pretty
I'm starting to love container planting.
Another container plant
Front bed - we are in the process of removing the railings on the front porch. You can see a few of the annuals that I planted that will hopefully fill in. What a labor of love!
Front island - lots of new annuals. I can't wait to see what they look like mid-summer.
Awww, I love snuggles.
Raised square foot garden on deck: Lettuce, cilantro, bell pepper and basil
Bed #1: Lots of lettuce, bell peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, yellow squash, basil, parsley, cilantro, and bush beans
Bed #2: I spent this week hooking up the sprinkler system so that it will self water. I have a few tweaks that I need to do, but so far so good!
Clara is definitely ready for the weekend
What a diva
Josh is ready, too!

It's In. It's All In.

Well, come on. You've been through a few years of gardening with me now. You know I tweak and tug and plant excessively. However, it is getting hot and I'm tired of my cuticles being thrashed. So this year I might be done. Almost. Anyway.

Friday on the Farm will start this Friday. Won't that be fun? Only this year I have FOUR boxes to take pictures of, plus I might take pictures of various beds for my own entertainment in order to see before/after. Today I planted a bunch of red, white and yellow annuals. I'm starting to get on board with the annual thing. I am creating places for them each year in my beds where I don't put mulch.

So far in my SFG I have planted:
bell peppers - and lots of them
tomatoes
basil - lots of it
lettuce
beets
cilantro
jalapenos
squash
zucchini
cucumber
green beans
strawberries

And I have raspberries growing in half barrels.

I May Be Fat, But You're Ugly and I Can Diet

Yeah, remember that saying? It doesn't work! I can't diet. Well, I mean, I can attempt dieting, but it doesn't work. It used to work. It worked as of two years ago. But it doesn't work anymore. Unless you count losing five pounds in eight weeks successful. That is .625 pounds a week. Who aspires to that?

It could because I am 37 and my metabolism is shutting down. Which would make sense except I have two large zits on my face and who gets zits at age 37? Me, apparently. And not just little pinprick zits, but big ugly under the skin painful zits.

And I have no toenail. Well, I have like a millimeter of a big toenail now, but it has been three months since my big toenail removal fiasco and if it is going to only grow a millimeter every three months it will take five years to grow back.

However, in five years at .625 pounds a week of weight loss I will have lost 162.5 pounds. Which is impossible, but I really like to look at the bright side of things.

And maybe my zit will be gone by then, too.

Community

Sunny and a High of 60!

Perfect temperature. Perfect. The rest of you might be freezing, but I am loving it.

Today Dave took the day off to volunteer at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. Apparently General Authorities schedule visits ahead of the regular open house so they need help with that. Well, no General Authorities were scheduled for today so he isn't needed, but took the day off anyway. I'm working this morning and then we are running away and taking the kids to Thanksgiving Point. We are going to the Dinosaur Museum, the Barnyard, and maybe the gardens to wander around. The point is, we are going to wear them (and us) out. And get them some of that thing called education.

This evening I will probably work on the yard, putting down weed barrier and adding mulch. I may plant the rest of the plants that are just sitting in their containers in the backyard waiting for me. Or I might just sit on the front porch, sipping fresh mint tea (we have a LOT of mint at the moment and apparently just steeping it in hot water helps with digestion. Did I just say that?) and watching the world go by.

I love Spring. Not a huge fan of mid-summer heat, but I love the 60's and 70's (temps, not decades). I love not having the heat or air on and opening the windows during the day. I love that my kids are old enough to ride their bikes all over the place for hours and play army with their friends and hunt for worms and potato bugs. I love that I already have a green bell pepper growing on my plant and it is the size of a walnut. I love, I love, I love!

Why I Will Never be the Relief Society President

I am, always have been, and always will be, one of those "rock the boat" types of people. I try to be tactful about it, but sometimes I am not, and sometimes I don't try to be. Sometimes being blunt is just the way to go in order to get through thicker heads. And my head is the thickest. I can accept that.

Our ward is having an EQ activity on Friday night. It's basically a cooking competition between the men in the ward. An announcement was made in RS that it was for "couples", not kids. I wasn't there when the announcement was made, however, as a former older single person, I know the hairs on the back of my neck would have been raised had I heard that. Especially considering my mom is in my ward and is single. Now, I realize that it wasn't an intentional slight, however, it is all too common in our blissfully, happily married church. I have many friends that are single that experience being excluded weekly in their wards. Weekly.

But wait, there is more. Because this is my blog and my rant. Not only is it for couples, but babysitting isn't going to be provided. So everyone in the ward who wants to go, has to find a babysitter and then provide a meal worthy of competition. When I mentioned that it would be difficult for people to go because we don't have a lot of babysitters in our ward, a friend said, "Don't you have a built in babysitter?" Again, my mom is in my ward, and therefore invited to the activity! I should ask her to stay home and babysit my kids for free instead of going, right?

I do not think that people should ever be asked to find babysitters in order to attend a Church sponsored activity. Ever. I know of several members of my ward struggling financially with a few kids. They are supposed to spend $15-20 on babysitting to go to a ward activity? And cook for it? So now they are out $30? How does that make sense? It doesn't to me. Thick skull that I am.

I'm just raining all over this parade, aren't I? Poor EQ - they just wanted to have a fun party and in the process here I am criticizing their invitation methods as well as their planning methods.

But in a world where a growing majority of the Church is older and single and struggling to find where to fit in, it pains me that there isn't more sensitivity and thought put into things like this. And in a world where friends are losing jobs and struggling to make ends meet, I find it sad that they might be excluded from spending an evening with friends because they can't afford to pay a babysitter.

Please - be sensitive!!! People have left the Church over situations like this because it was just the last straw. We are not a society exclusively of young marrieds with little kids. There is much to be learned and admired about men and women who stay active and strong in a Church that is centered around families. The more all are included, the better off we will all be.

Rant over.

Mother's Day

Basically since we moved into this house the only thing I ever want for Mother's Day are plants for the yard. This year is no exception. What I also wanted was slave labor. Dave was thrilled to have the opportunity to spend the day out in 67 degree sunshine. Thrilled. He weeding and yardwork more than anything on the planet.

We got started at 7:30am. I went out back and started pulling weeds in the back flower beds. He went out front and started pulling what was basically sod out of the front tree bed. We have given up on trying to plant in those beds because the grass just keeps on coming. So instead it's all about the weed barrier and mulch. This year we are going with rubber mulch because the color lasts for 12 years instead of one year. Plus it is much easier to move around if you need to and repels bugs. Ka-chow!

As the day progressed we mowed, edged, bought plants, planted, assembled sprinkler drip system thingies, spread dirt around, watered, prayed, begged, and sprayed weeds. A huge thanks to the Suds and the Pecks for "babysitting" our kids all day. Certainly not by choice - more like by default since our kids just migrated to their houses. They claim they got stuff done, too. I love our neighborhood kids and their way of hearding from location to location. I hope that they remember these summers as happy and carefree.

And now, for your viewing pleasure.

The Island - the tree to the left will someday be quite large so we left room for it. Other plants = rosy glow barberry, burning bush, red twig dogwood, yellow barberry, mugo pine, and artemsia.
The front bed - you can see the small juniper off to the left. It will eventually get about 8 feet tall and frame the house well. The red tree is a Japanese Maple. I also have candytuft, basket of gold, carnations, peonies, dianthus, bleeding hearts, and a few other things.
Begonias
Container plants - this will have more when I figure out what I want to put in it. Probably wave petunias.
I moved the greenhouse down to the ground so that it will have more afternoon shade.
Raised beds - I haven't planted these annuals yet. These lower beds will be my primary annuals and I will change them up based on my moods every year. I am going to get the drip system arranged so that it will water these beds.
The Deck - these bushes are the only original bushes that I still have in the yard. Sad, huh? We are going to be putting trellis around the bottom of the deck probably this Fall so we can block the weeds from view better.
Square Foot Garden - I have two 4x4 boxes against the back wall, and two 3x3 boxes in the greenhouse. I've got a few things in right now and will put some seeds in this week sometime.
Square Foot Garden - look familiar? This is last year's box. Alive and kicking! I'm growing some lettuce and started some tomatoes. In the wine barrels are raspberries that my mother in law gave me.
Back garden bed - this is the view from the raised beds. The rocks scattered throughout are to place where there will be bigger rocks soon. Our neighbor is getting rid of his so I figure I will put them in the back for added interest. Most of this stuff was planted last year other than the trees and a couple of the perennials. It should really take off this year.
Zzzzzzz - this is Josh after his mean old mom made him take a shower. He likes to snuggle with the towel over him on the rug after a shower. Normally he doesn't fall fast asleep! It's been a long day outside playing for this little guy.

P.S. I am so sore that I can barely move. Evidently P90X doesn't prepare you for 12 straight hours of gardening.

Mother's Guilt

There is only one thing that ever makes me really feel guilty about being a mother and that is when I resort to yelling in order to get my kids to listen. I HATE yelling and I hate when my temper gets to that point. What it is about kids that makes you feel like you are being pecked to death by a duck?

Last night in my prayers I prayed that I wouldn't yell at all today, especially because Dave and I are going to the temple tonight. That lasted until around 7:45am. Josh started whining and this was what he said.

"I don't want to put away my laundry because I have to do it every day and why do I have to do it every day? I'm tired of putting away my laundry!" This went on for about 5 minutes (he puts away laundry once a week) and I finally yelled, "Then DON'T PUT AWAY YOUR LAUNDRY! I WILL NO LONGER DO YOUR LAUNDRY AND THEN YOU CAN WALK AROUND IN DIRTY CLOTHES ALL DAY!"

Don't you love the maturity and calmness that I exhibited? I just get to that breaking point and the beast inside takes over.

I still think I deserve chocolate for Mother's Day, though.