Dreaming of A Garden

 This last Saturday the weather was really nice and warm.  My sister came out with the twins for the weekend.  We managed to steal a couple of hours and do some work on my garden.  I've got big plans for my garden. 

You see, we have 31 acres. When we first moved out here, I wanted to landscape everything.  I wanted to cut down a lot of trees, redo all the flower beds, put in new flowers, brush hog the entire place, etc.  It took me about 2 years to realize a few things.  First, we live basically in a forest, which includes all sorts of animals and plants.  Cutting back everything would destroy the very reason we wanted to move out here:  nature.  Second, we don't have the equipment to landscape all of this place.  Third, we don't have the time to landscape all of this place.  My conclusion was to focus on small areas.  Instead of doing little bits here and there and never making a dent in anything, I would focus on one area, fix it up, and move on to the next.  I also made peace with the wilderness.  I don't like it being right outside my window (as is the case behind my house), but I realize that for now keeping it under control is the most I can do. 

Since it's the dead of winter, I spend my time indoors dreaming about all the flowers and vegetables I'm going to grow.  I try not to think about all the plants I've managed to kill over the years.  I've read a few gardening magazines and gotten some books out of the library.  I scroll through the UofA Agriculture website.  I get my soil tested (will soon anyways).  And I plan my garden.

This one section of yard outside my house has been a slow project.  It's been hard to figure out what to do with it.  When we bought this place, it had a 6-ft fence around it to keep in the chickens (which didn't work), along with loads of trees and unkempt bushes.  There were some vague flower beds, but everything was planted randomly.  This area is right off a nice big deck that we have, so getting this area looking nice is a priority for me. 

We tore down most of the fence and cut down two trees in 2009, which brought in a lot of sunshine and opened things up a lot.  I dug up a lot of shrubs and forsythia plants.  Forsythias are really pretty and very easy to maintain.  Since they flower on the previous year's growth, if you don't touch them at all they will flower like crazy.  Unfortunately, not pruning them means they look pretty wild and unkempt.  I have enough things that look like that, so I dug them all up.  Last year I tried to plant some gladiolas and dahlias.  They all came up, but the gladiolas never flowered and the dahlias never filled out.  This was probably due to the water issue.  While this garden area is right next to my house, the outside tap is on the other side of the house.  I was trying to water with a garden pail, but I had a newborn and I just wasn't that consistent.  To solve this problem, we got a longer garden hose and I also have a garden sprayer.  Eventually I would like to do a natural irrigation system using rainwater, but I realize that part might be a little further down the road.

Last September a friend of mine gave me some gorgeous iris bulbs and several other variety of flowers, including some blue balloons:

 

Obviously these are not my actual flowers, but a picture I got off the web.  Hopefully they will fill out the flower beds in the next couple of years.  I also want some of these:

Baptisia australis.

For now, though, in the dead of winter, my garden looks like this:

 We're going to tear down the rest of the wooden fence and cut down a maple tree to give the garden more sunlight. The rock flower beds and the bed against the fence will mainly have flowers; all the flowers my friend gave me, along with the gladiolas and dahlias (hopefully), and I'll also add in some four o'clocks, scarlet runner beans, and zinnias.  To replace the wooden fence, we're going to build a fence that will hopefully one day look like this one:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/pioneerwoman/5318626524/  Sorry that I can't post the picture.  It will use our natural resources (read: free) and will hopefully blend in with the surroundings well.

In the meantime, my sister came out and helped me work on building some vegetable beds.  While we have a few vegetable beds further out that we share with my sister-in-law and her family, I wanted some closer at hand.  Then I can grow some kind of crazy vegetable that no one will ever eat besides me and not worry about taking up space in the community garden. 

I forgot to take a before picture of what this looked like, but it had a dog house/chicken coop and a shelf that ran right under the blue paint.  We tore it all down and cleared it out, then I gathered rocks from the creek while my sister built a bed out of them.  She did an awesome job, if you ask me.  Now we have to dig out the soil and fill it with a layer of rock, leaves, and creek loam and then put the soil back in.  I seem to know what I'm talking about, but I won't be surprised if it doesn't grow a darn thing.  We're using rocks because they're free and make pretty beds, plus if I haul a few of them around I might actually lose the rest of the baby weight.  Christian and I have one more vegetable bed to build around the Redbud tree, and that should be it. 

I can't wait for green leaves and warmer weather so I can dig in the garden and plant all sorts of things that I will probably end up killing.  It has to be one of life's greatest joys (the planting, not the killing).

Sweet, Silly Boy

There are a few stories about Silas that I'd like to write down so that I can remember them in years to come.  They illustrate his personality and current interests well.

The other day I was trying to take a nap while Eli was also napping.  I'd given Silas strict instructions not to disturb me unless it was an emergency.  A few minutes later, my door opens a couple of inches and I can hear Silas walking away.  I call to him, and he tells me he needs to go to the bathroom and I'll need to wipe his bottom.  Moments later I hear him call me, "Mommy, I'm done!"  I go in there and clean him up.  While I'm washing my hands, he comes up to me and says, "Mommy, you're tired aren't you?"

 "Yes, I am.  Eli was sick in the night and kept me up."

 "Well, I'm really sorry I had to wake you up."  This got him lots of brownie points. 

He can be very thoughtful sometimes.  He'll often get me things he knows I need without my asking.  The other day Christian was feeding Eli some baby food and it spilled.  Before either of us said or did anything, Silas had gone to the kitchen and gotten a towel to clean it up with.

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Silas loves the story of Robin Hood.  We've read some of the kids' books and he's watched a cartoon from the library.  During bath time, we usually play Robin Hood and have to rescue Maid Marian from captivity in the castle.  Today I was holding Eli when Silas comes up and says, "He's the Sheriff of NottingME." 

"NottingME?  Don't you mean the Sheriff of Nottingham," I ask.

"No, the Sheriff of NottingME, not NottingHIM."  I realized because of the emphasis on the beginning of Nottingham, he didn't understand how it was really pronounced.   This one gave me a real chuckle.

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We live on a dirt road, and it has snowed a lot lately.  This combination means that our car and truck are dirty, dirty, dirty.  I haven't had time to wash them lately, and frankly it's not in the forefront of my mind.  Silas is learning to read and write.  He's picking up a lot of words and he constantly reads the stop signs on our car rides into town.  This evening when we arrived at church for AWANAs, Silas was waiting by the truck while I unloaded Eli and our bags.  I looked over to see what he was doing.  He was writing 'STOP' in the dirt on the truck.  I just laughed and shook my head.  At least I know I'm not failing at his lessons.

V-V-Volcano

Since Christian has been home taking care of us (and being snowed in), he helped Silas with a craft for the letter 'V.'

We've done a volcano before, but as we're doing the letter V we thought we would do another one.  This wasn't nearly as exciting, but it was still fun.  Christian made it smoke by putting a candle inside it. 

Eli's 7-Month Update

Eli is now 7-1/2 months old and changing quite a bit.  I love getting to know him better, but he is also the most challenging child I've ever known. 



He's sitting up really well now, and I've found him pushing up on all fours several times.  He is almost ready to crawl, but hasn't quite got the coordination down yet. 

As for speech, I think he might be a little bit behind.  Only time will tell really, but he is only just now starting to make the mum-mum and bu-bu sounds when he is supposed to be stringing them together in syllables.  Other than crying, Eli is actually a really quiet child.  I'm not worried about it though because both my half-brother and I were late talkers (and we're perfectly fine, right?).

Sleep is, as always, a problem.  We finally got him semi-sleeping through the night early last December when he got sick.  With his high fever, I decided to nurse him whenever he wanted.  The illness stuck around for nearly 3 weeks and by the time it was over, all our hard work for an 8-hour night had vanished.  Not only was he not sleeping through the night, but he was waking up several times and would not be consoled back to sleep.  I finally called the pediatrician's office, who advised me to limit his naps during the day.  So for a whole week, Eli only had two 30-minute naps during the day.  It was difficult, but it worked.  He started sleeping harder at night and we were stretching out the times longer and longer.  Then he got the stomach flu. We'll see how this affects his nighttime sleep.

For all the trouble, though, how could you not love this face?  He is adorable and happy during the day.  He has this little half smile, where he lifts up the left side of his mouth, which I love.  And he has become a Momma's boy, much more than Silas ever was at this age.  He lights up when he sees me and cries when I leave the room.

I'm not sure what the future holds as far as sleep goes, but I know we'll get through it.  I can't wait to watch him grow into a little man, as wonderful as this one:

As wonderful as this one can be, I should say.

Stomach Virus

Another illness has hit our house.  Eli started vomiting on Tuesday afternoon and before the next morning Silas and I had both gotten it.  Somehow Christian managed to escape it (so far).

Eli in the midst of the worst of it.  We didn't even have clothes on him because we kept having to change him, so we just wrapped him in some blankets and kept a towel close by.

Silas asleep on a pallet in the sitting room.  He handled it really well and seemed to miss the worst of it.

Eli asleep in Daddy's arms.

For some reason, I love pictures of sick babies.  They're so sad and fragile.

Bath Time Buddies

Now that Eli is an expert sitter, I let him join Silas in his bath on occasion. 

Eli likes to pretend to be the monster, eating Silas' men whenever his little hands can catch them.



Baby brother looking up adoringly at big brother.

Bath time and bed time have changed a lot now that Eli is around, but most of it is for the better.

And How Well Do You Wake Up In The Morning?

This is how I most often feel in the morning.  Eyes don't open all that well, it takes me a little while to get moving, but a small smile might be lurking under there somewhere.

That's better!