Garden update

The view from my upstairs bedroom - I pulled out the screen just for the occasion of taking pics from up here!  Note the wetlands in the far left...

A zoomed-in shot:

Even zoomier... along the top fence, you can see beets, and some kale and carrots (which are taking soooo painfully long to get big!)... then in the bushy rows, I have double-rows of beans (each "row" has one row of green beans and one row of yellow beans), and then third bushy row has two rows of spinach and one row of romaine lettuce.  At the bottom end of the middle row, I've got some fuzzy dill!  For perspective, these rows are all around 8' long.

Cukes in the middle, potatoes on the top, kale & carrots top right, turnips bottom left, and tomato plants under the cucumbers. 

Some of my flowers... not the greatest picture.  You can see some of my strawberries in the top right.

The view (zoomed) of the bridge in our wetlands, from our bedroom window.  A few days ago, the water was much, MUCH higher!

This was taken at the peak of the flooding.  you can see where the normal shoreline is, and then how much farther the water has spread beyond that.  You can barely see the bridge - it's in the distance.  It's a fairly large area!

Here's one end of the bridge, along with a tree that really should not have been in the water...

Same bridge, other end... wait a second, why isn't the end of it on dry land?  I think the water level had risen around 18" during the storms.

This is the other end of the wetlands - and there is a whole lot more connecting these two spots.  Notice how close the water has gotten to the yards of some of the homes... 

I'll be glad when my basement stops leaking, we can get the weeping tile and foundation guys in here, and get our basement re-renovated.  Looks like we've got some deconstruction to do.  :(

Weeding

Yesterday I went outside in the blistering (to me) heat to weed my garden while the children were napping.

My beans are really doing well, as are my cucumbers and lettuce & spinach, among other things that are slowly getting to the point of "shooting up suddenly".

Some of the weeds were hiding.
Some of them were easy to pull.
Some of them were a little tougher, and required a special tool to get deeper to the root.
Some were in plain sight, ugly and mocking.

Sin is like that, isn't it?

Sometimes it's *hidden* from everyone, instead obscured by the beauty around it.  Only those who get really close can see it.  God can see it all.

Sometimes the sin is so easy to rid ourselves of that we wonder why we ever dabbled in the first place... God can easily convict us and help us to kick those habits once and for all.

Sometimes the sin is a little tougher to rid ourselves of; requiring some *extra heavy duty root-removal* by our Heavenly Father.  Those are the teaching moments that are hardest; we don't like discipline.

Sometimes our sin is in plain sight.  It mocks us and threatens to choke out the health and beauty that our Creator has bestowed us with... though in plain sight, that sin is still ugly... and it rears up sometimes in the most unexpected places.


Father, help me to be mindful of You as my Gardener.  Pick the weeds from me so that I may thrive under Your water and care.  Use whatever tools You need to get to the deepest parts of me so that I may be more fruitful for You...

I'm Clueless

So I have this big beautiful garden.

Big for a city yard, anyway.

(The wooden stakes you see above are for supporting the anti-rabbit fence I have up temporarily, until we get our front gates up.)

This is what it looked like 'before' - the darker part is what was there originally, and then we took out some sod (the lighter part).  The original plot was maybe 12' x 10', and full of lumpy clay.

I have beets and carrots (but no pictures of those),

corn...

potatoes peeking up...

strawberries basking in the sun...

kale stretching to the sky...

spinach and lettuce in neat little rows... they're hard to see, though, but they're there!

turnips with lotsa weeds interspersed...

green and yellow beans - aggressive little things!...

and raspberries, cucumbers, red and yellow cherry tomatoes, big red tomatoes, dill, chives, garlic, fennel, mint, oregano, thyme, and parsley (no pics of those either).

But do you think I know what to actually DO with all of these things?

Because really, reality dictates that much of this stuff will be ready at the same time.  And, my tummy will only be able to hold so many fresh veggies in a two-week time span...

Can anyone point me in the right direction for either freezing or otherwise preserving much of what I've got here?  Don't worry about the strawberries; those will get eaten up before they're even properly ripe, I'm sure.  And unless I'm really out of the loop, I am assuming that lettuce can't be preserved.

I figure I should start researching now... I've done this before, but it's been years and years and years...  I figure that if I can wrap my mind around preserving this stuff now, then it won't be such a shock when I go to actually do it in the late summer & fall.

Help!!

Little teeth, big backaches, and other fun stuff

I promise this won't be another belly-aching post...  ha ha...

Meaghan has popped out 4 teeth in the last 11 days.  The top two and bottom two were already out, so this would be teeth numbers 4 through 8 showing up.  What a trooper!!  This *might* partly explain her terrible sleep the first night of the retreat...

Today I saw my chiropractor and physiotherapist for the 4th time in two weeks.  This is getting a little costly, and we presently don't have coverage.  At any rate, today he took a different tactic; after he adjusted me, he put me on a traction table!!  Now *that* was interesting, but it felt strangely good.  Both *strange* and *good* are the operative words here.  Now I'm sitting with an icepack tucked into the belt of my pants and blogging.  My back hasn't felt this good in weeks.

Now... the most interesting part of my appointment; I'd been having what I can only describe as menstrual cramps, though I know for certain that that's not what they were.  I hadn't mentioned a single thing to Dr. J about it, but after he adjusted me he had me lay flat on my back because he wanted to *check something*.  He proceeded to find some specific muscles in my lower abdomen, by my hips (don't ask me which muscles they are!), and worked on them.  Ba da bing - problem solved.  How he knew, I have no idea.  But the man is a genius!  While he was working on those ones, I told him that I'd been having pain all around there, and he explained to me all the connections, etc... and was not surprised.  In-ter-esting.

The guy is a genius.

One day, during my pregnancy with Dustin, I just randomly complained of excessive stuffiness.  He told me to take off my glasses, and showed me how to massage certain sinus pressure points on my face to relieve the stuffiness.

Like I said, he's a genius.  There's a reason I keep going back!

Now, as much as I like the guy, I hope that this coming Friday's appointment will be the last "cluster" appointment, and that we can spread them out a bit again.  I'm willing to pay for his wisdom, but really... the money only lasts so long!

In other news...

I made special cookies for Joshua's teacher and bus driver; kind of like oversized Peek Freens.  They are YUM!  The recipe only unfortunately gave me 14 cookies... and I'm out of sugar.  But they're kind of big, so I'm thinking that 4 for his bus driver and one teacher will be sufficient, and 5 for his homeroom teacher.  Joshua made the sweetest cards for them tonight.  Tomorrow is his last day of school.

I also am making "traffic light pops" - made only of fruit and a teeny bit of sugar!  Watermelon for one layer, peach for the next, and kiwi for the third layer.  The good news is that since there's peach in them, I won't be tempted to eat them all.  I can't stand peaches.

My garden is up!!  When we got back from our retreat, a few little things had poked out of the ground, but now... about 90% of my beans are up, as well as my lettuce, turnips, a bunch of dill, beets, spinach, cucumbers, sunflowers, and nasturtiums, as well as a few carrots, but my potatoes are still sleeping.  I'm very excited - I can't wait to have fresh spinach salad.... yummmmm.....

Must go clean up the kitchen now.  I'm thinking of going for a walk tonight, but it's already past 10:00 and I want/need to get to bed at a reasonable hour.  Both Graeme and Joshua are sick, with Dustin and I close behind... a walk might be just what I need, but if I'm up too late... bah.

Le Jardin

Last night my dear hubby picked up a roto-tiller from Home Depot (rented it)... and we also found out that if you rent on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, that you get it for half price.

So he tilled my garden last night.

And I started planting.

I got in my turnips, potatoes, corn (bought pre-germinated plants), tomatoes, and strawberries.  And one set of bulbs (freesia), my 3 blanket flowers, my cinquefoil, and my pansies.

Today, while the littles were sleeping and Joshua was playing in our backyard with the neighbor boys, I got in the beans (green and yellow), beets, carrots, some dill, cucumbers, sunflowers, and something else that I can't remember.  (It's late and I'm tired.  My brain is shutting off.)

Tonight after worship team, I went for my run (interval training tonight - it was FUN and I was disappointed when it was over, and I even did one more interval than was prescribed) and then hung the big halogen lamp on the fence and dug in the rest of my bedding plants, another set of bulbs (anemones).  I kept a section of my garden apart for bedding plants & flowers... it's going to be so pretty.  I am tickled that I *finally* have a proper space to do a garden AND some flower beds.  Joshua seems to be pretty keen on it, too!

Must go to sleep.... Meaghan is working on tooth #5 and I'm sure it'll pop in tonight or tomorrow.  Tomorrow I am dropping the kids off at church for a couple hours and then coming home to steamclean our carpets.  Tomorrow is also my 3-mile run day, plus a bit of strength training.

I am blessed.  Today was a fantastic day.  Yesterday was, too... God is good.  Dustin decided to ride his bike with me to Save-On Foods - it's over a km each way, and he was fantastic!!  I walked with Meaghan in the chariot, and Dustin rode... absolutely no complaints either way, so he received a couple of salt-water taffies as a treat.  (No, I don't always reward my children with food, but this was an easy one since I was right by the bulk bins and it cost me all of 15 cents...)  Today he asked if we could go to Save-On again.  :)  What a cutie!

Did I mention I am blessed.  My heart is about to burst.  God is really really good.