Ahhh Sun

Oh, it felt like spring was here these last few days. It's been a warm winter. It's been quite rainy like normal...just a part of living in the beautiful place we live. Yesterday, we gardened. I dug up raspberry plants that I'll replant after tilling the spot they've been in. They've been terribly choked with grass, and we have a new plan. Which is to give them a fresh start and cover them with mulch. My husband actually tilled the garden. So, if we don't get a deluge all Spring, we may be able to plant early this year. The girls had so much fun running around barefoot in the grass.

Notice her feet!

I also worked in my little greenhouse. I cleaned up the weeds and the old starts I never used that I won't be using. I prepared the ground for planting. I can actually plant Arugula any time. I can plant that in the ground. And, my husband made me a warming table for starts. So, I'll plants lettuces and other earlies in that soon. My greenhouse is a cold greenhouse, with greenhouse film, so I'm still under the constraints of the weather. Yet, it's looking like this year the weather will cooperate and it might be a little warm. Last year was terribly cold. The year before that was quite cold. So, yay! This will be my first year to use my greenhouse that wasn't colder than average.

Friday, after doing school, I finished pruning my fruit trees. And they got sprayed. So, here's hoping for some fruit. I had to prune them back quite a chunk this year, so it might be till next year for us to really get fruit. It's been a long time trying to figure out fruit trees. Two seasons ago, my husband actually made me some drip irrigation for them. Now, this year, I found this pruning video, so pruning wouldn't be too mysterious.

The other exciting thing that happened on Friday was a calf being born. We actually did not see it born. But, there it was in our field! We like it when births happen like that.

Thursday, after school, the family headed over to the property my husband is leasing to run cattle on. I took some pictures. My husband wants before and after pictures for the work he is doing, although, I must say, my before pictures were quite beautiful, what with the golden sunset light that was falling there. It might be hard to make after tending the ground look more picturesque.

Gardening

I introduced my little man to gardening today. He seemed to like it.

More good times to come! :)

Goings On

Pregnancy

I have less than two weeks to go. I have a planned C-Section scheduled for the 15th of August. This part of my pregnancy has actually been easier for me, although my belly is certainly getting quite uncomfortable. Yet, pain from varicose veins doesn't plague me anymore, nor nausea, and my emotional life has been settling out. So, here I am at home, nesting, getting ready for baby...as ready as I'll ever be. This baby is my fourth (husband's fifth) and is our first boy. We're pretty excited (not that we wouldn't be if he was supposed to be a she). It's been fun decorating his room in BOY Stuff. OMG!

My One Kidney Girl

The other big thing that has been going on is testing for my one kidney girl. My middle daughter had an almost completely blocked kidney from the get go (18 week ultrasound). It was like an over inflated balloon and they removed it when she was 10-11 months old. Here, recently, she had a couple of kidney infections in her remaining kidney. Oh, no! So, we had issues with anti-biotics, getting an appointment soon enough with her Urologist, getting an out of network referral to a Pediatric Urologist (there are only two in our city), following up with her primary Urologist on anti-biotic issues, getting a Nuclear Renal Scan and a VCUG (the Kidney Reflux test) done, and soon to go and meet with the Pediatric Urologist (on the 10th of August - 5 days before baby is to arrive).

At the same time, I was questioning my Mom about whether she had any more Kidney infections (she had one once when I was on a trip with her), and come to find out she's had lots of them and that she had once seen a Urologist for them and he wanted her to take preventative anti-biotics, but she got an infection anyhow, and because she felt it was bad advice and a pain to get into him, she never went back to the Urologist, but rather to her general practioner. So, my Mom and I (my Mom is almost 70) are e-mailing back and forth about the necessity of getting the proper tests and her being followed by an actual specialist. I'm not sure I'm convincing her. It's hard, my Mom is very passive and I don't think she likes to have to be assertive with medical caregivers. I think that's why she's comfortable with doing whatever her general practioner says and no more. Ugggh. Well, we'll see. She can make her own choices, I know.

Summer

That's most of what's going on right now. Learning activities are taking a backseat this summer, although we've done a few here and there and the girls have still been participating in the Art and Ballet over the summer. It's been a cool summer. Our garden hasn't done well. I suppose that's OK. That's kind of what happens anyhow on the years when I'm pregnant. I have been enjoying all the light and warm (but not too hot) weather. It's been enjoyable.

Spring Like

It was finally Spring like today. More rain is coming next week, but at least with this stretch of rain, the temperatures are supposed to be in the upper 50's not lower 40's or lower. We had a little snow several days ago. But, none stick, so I didn't take a picture.

I asked my husband to dig up a couple of really bothersome bushes for me. He suggested doing it with his tractor, which I was a little concerned about (concerned the tractor would tear up the yard). But, surprisingly, especially considering how soggy it has been, the tractor barely left a trace on the shape of the yard. And, it was amazing how an hours plus worth of work (plus a lot if it were me) could be done in mere seconds with the tractor. It was like someone was merely scooting a little sand around in a sandbox with a little hand shovel. Flowers are planned for the location of the old, prickly, and ugly bushes.





Jon also finished putting doors on my greenhouse and now I finally have a fully functional and easily accessible greenhouse. Here is my blog entry from last year. Just picture the same greenhouse, a little longer, with wood doors on both ends. Unfortuneately, I didn't get any pictures for you today, but I will. My starts really aren't too amazing yet. Only a few have even germinated.

And, Jon and I finished pruning and putting up Marionberries (Oregon domestic variety of blackberries) and Raspberries. Also, Jon brought up compost to the garden. It will be our best garden year ever! I'm even hoping to get my first harvest of Kiwi. I've had them four years now.

Natural Gardening

Natural Slug Treatments

• FLOWER POT - Prop a flower pot upside down with a stick to allow the slugs to get in. Check the pot toward the end of the day and remove the slugs.
  
• BEER - Place old plastic containers in the soil around damaged plants and fill with beer. Dump in the morning. Repeat every evening.
  
• COFFEE GROUNDS - Surround the damaged plants with coffee grounds. Slugs won't want to cross and you'll fertilize your soil.
  
• VINEGAR - Spray vinegar on slugs that aren't on your plants. It will kill them, just don't spray on your plants, it will kill those too.
  
• Toads, rove beetles, lightning bugs, and ducks all eat slugs or their eggs.. I'm fresh out of the first three in the Northwest and somehow I think putting a duck in the garden would be a detriment to my garden, not just the slugs.
  

 

Natural Grasshopper Treatments

• Chickens will eat grasshoppers if they have access to them. My problem is that our chickens don't have access to our garden or my greenhouse.
  
• Sink glass jars into the soil. Fill to the halfway point wit a mixture of 10 parts water to 1 part of molasses. The hoppers are drawn to the sweet smell of the molasses, they dive in and drown. Clean traps as needed.
  
• Black Strap Molasses: combine 4 ounces of this with one quart of water. Spray directly on hoppers. This will clog their pores so they cannot breath resulting in their death.
  
• The other encouraging thing I read is that there are worms that eat grasshopper eggs and when grasshopper populations go up, then the worm populations go up and then eventually grasshopper egg populations go down.
  

Also, just a note in years past, we've dealt with other problems.

We've dealt with flea beetles on our tomatoes. I was happy to treat my tomatoes with a concoction made of garlic, hot peppers, onions that I sprayed on my fledgling tomatoes. It worked. It kept them off enough for the tomatoes to develop. And, funny thing is we haven't had a problem with those since.

Last year we had corn borer worms in our corn. We just cut off the ends of the corn and we put that end of the corn in our burn pile. It was a pain, but we didn't have a repeat with the corn this year.

It's cyclical and rather than killing off all bugs and creating super bugs and risking potentially harmful residues, I'd rather take the extra steps.

Oh...and...I'll just have to learn that things don't have to be perfect.