Egg watch continues.....Kindergardens Week 14

We're back into the swing of things here and feeling a little better than last week.  Thank you again everyone, your kind words meant a lot to me!

On to Kindergardens, check out Kim over at The Inadvertent Farmer, she has 3 brand-y new donkeys!  So cute, I want one but only having an acre of land kind of puts a kibosh on large farm animals. *Pouts* Someday I will convince the Hubs to buy 100 acres in Montana...Someday.

Enough with the day dreams.....

We are officially on egg watch. There were none tonight but the gals will be 22 weeks old next Friday.  Can you believe it?  It feels like just yesterday we brought those six little sweethearts home!  They have grown into such sweet little chickens and Little Bird is quite the chicken whisperer!  She is not afraid of them at all!  Little Bug on the other hand is still not too sure she likes them to be too close to her.  Maybe in time she will get use to it!  I think we are going to get meat birds next, we have been doing our research to find out which bird is the best meat bird.  If anyone has suggestions we are open to them!  

1 day old

21 weeks

We puttered around the gardens this week just to find a ton of tomatoes were hanging out.....

The corn was, well, being corn.  Growing beautiful tassels and we found new little ears getting ready to grow!

Please don't mind the unpainted chicken coop, it's on my to do list once this humidity is gone.

The watermelon decided to use the corn as a trellis!

The eggplants are just starting.  Hopefully we will get a few!

And all Little Bug wanted to do is pick the flowers......

Can you blame her?  They look beautiful!   

How is your garden growing this week?

Inspired by Pinterest.......

I love decorating my home with yardsale/second hand/craigslist/ebay finds mainly because you can find some great stuff for great prices!  But I also love the history of used things.  You would be surprised to know that three quarters of the stuff I decorate my home with is second hand!  Since the Hubs and I agreed to be more frugal with our money this means that the expensive decorating catalogs are just not feasible anymore.  So I am trying to recreate some of the expensive stuff I find in catalogs.  The problem is I just sometimes lack the creativity to be, well, creative.  In all reality I don't consider myself to be very crafty at all!  But a change is in the air!  Look at what I made last week!

Yay!  I "love" it!  Haha! Sorry for the bad pun and crappy cell phone picture!  So, so easy to make, it only took me about two hours!  I will put up a tutorial along with the cost savings later this week!  I saw something similar on Pinterest except they covered canvases with scrapbooking paper so I thought why not these letters I found at Hobby Lobby! Voila! And I saved a TON of money!

I love Pinterest and how you can just "pin" images and links to your board so you can remember exactly where your inspiration came from.  Beware it is a time suck and once you start you may not stop!  A limit of one hour has turned into a half day of pinning for me.  Don't say I did not warn you!

Here is some of my inspirations!

I LOVE the way this looks!  It would make such a unique anniversary gift! 

http://funkybear.wordpress.com/

 My grandfather use to do this same thing on the ceiling in his garage with bolts, screws and nails!  What a great way to organize little odds and ends and recycle those baby food jars!

goodhousekeeping.com

I do plan on doing this in my new family room!  Just trying to figure out the layout!!

http://www.remodelaholic.com/

This is really cool looking and super easy to do yourself!  I plan on doing this too for the girls playroom which is seriously lacking wall art!!

http://manmadediy.com/chris/posts/1180-diy-idea-rainbow-melted-crayon-art

Will I ever get to all of these projects I pin?  Probably not.  But I love how I will never forget something that inspired me and where it came from!

I also like the fact that I can pin different room decorating ideas, books I like, recipes, places and so much more for later use.  No more binders, magazines or images to store and organize only to find that six months later you cannot remember why you saved it or where it came from.   

If you love Pinterest too please feel free to follow me by clicking the link to the right, I promise to do the same!  And if you are not on Pinterest there are two ways to join.  Either have someone already on Pinterest send you an invitation.  If you email me at mae1352003.at.gmail.dot.com I will happily send you an invite. Please just request invites to Pinterest, I don't need drugs for erectile dysfunction as I do not have the right equipment and I know I did not win the foreign lotto, thanks! Or you can request an invitation directly from Pinterest which normally takes about a week or so! 

Okay so I am off to become inspired and with the help of Pinterest the creative juices are flowing.....Happy pinning!

Basement project....

The kids are away.......The Hubs is working.......I am ALL ALONE!! (dun,dun,duuuunnnn)

Well I had planned on organizing my coat closet and maybe a kitchen cabinet or two, no here I sit blogging, reading other blogs (I need closet organization ideas), on Pinterest and facebook.  Seriously Pinterest is a huge time suck for me but I do love having all of my inspiration in one place rather than saving a billion magazines just because I liked the vase on page 132 in the lower left hand corner!  I am so off the subject now....Anyway.

Tomorrow my great friend Jay, who seriously has been a tremendous help with getting the basement done, is coming over tomorrow to finish the drywall and spackling!  My heart just skipped a beat writing that!  We are 8 months into this project and I am so ready for it to be DONE!!  But when you work on projects yourself, work full time and take care of your family there is very little time left in the day for projects!  This is why we hired Jay to help us out just getting it to the point where we can paint.  Plus his price was right for our budget (which is not a whole heck of a lot to begin with!)

Now my big dilemma is paint.  I hate picking out paint.  I never want to commit to just one color.  What if it does not look right, what if it makes the space look to small or too dark?  I tend to go with neutral colors in the spaces where things get changed a lot, like the living room.  But this time I want to be a little bold, a little daring and go with a color called Lyndhurst Shady Grove by Valspar.  Okay so it's not bold like red but it is out of my comfort zone.  Hopefully in the next week or so we will have the basement painted and then we will be ready to put down the flooring.  I am so excited and cannot wait to share the renovation with you soon!

And for now I will keep my fingers crossed that this project will come to an end soon but I won't get my hopes up too much!

Keeping the faith......

Almost every Thursday I write about how my garden is progressing for Kindergardens. It is doing well although I have not been out there really at all this week, this week I need a break. 

I have not been blogging regularly and there is a reason for it.....

My husband and I have been trying to have another child for about 8 months now with no luck.  I have a condition called Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), which basically does not allow me to ovulate each month.  Here is a link if you are interested in finding out more about this condition from the Mayo Clinic.  There is no cure for PCOS and it is not known why women get it.  I have struggled with infertility since trying to conceive Little Bird. 

We have spend the past month running around like maniacs.  I found out that this cycle, which was our first, did not work.  I have been trying to keep it together but as you can imagine it has been hard to do.  I have been through so many let downs, tests, ultrasounds, shots, medications that we still don't quite get how this did not happen. I feel so inadequate. I am very angry and upset right now and still trying to wrap my head around it all.  I have been trying to come to grips with the fact that it is God's will and not for me to understand at this point.  I know that it will come in time and blah, blah, blah, I am tired of hearing that. Normally I am not like this, I am more of a put on your big girl panties, get the hell over it and do what you have to do but I just feel so differently about this.  Pity party anyone? It's at my house tonight around 5.....BYOB

Really I have everything in the world to be thankful for.  I have a husband who loves me, three beautiful little girls and wonderful group of friends.  I cherish everyday with them.  God has certainly given me some blessing, I know!

So onward.....I am waiting to find out when we start round 2.  I am trying to mentally prepare myself for either scenario.  I know that God will guide us but right now it is hard to keep my faith up. 

And since no blog is interesting without some pictures.........Here are some people I am thankful for!

Little Bug



Peanut



Little Bird



The Hubs



Two for the price of one veggies

No there isn't a sale at the local farmers market!  But maybe someone should tell them they are just giving away some of the best parts of the plants! In my last post someone commented on not knowing that radish leaves were edible.  That got me thinking about what other types of vegetables have a "two for the price of one" deal.  


I love beet tops and radish leaves with a little olive oil and garlic.  Very tasty!  If you have never tried you most definitely should.  For the radishes use the smaller leaves, the larger ones have this prickly coating and it feels like you are eating fiber glass.  Yuck! 


Here is the table I found in the April 2002 issue of Vegetable Production & Marketing News.  I don't know that I will try everything on the list but it is always good to know!

Vegetable	Common Edible Parts	Other Edible Parts
Beans, snap	pod with seeds	leaves
Beans, lima	seeds	pods, leaves
Beets	root	leaves
Broccoli	flower	leaves, flower stem
Carrot	root	leaves
Cauliflower	immature flower	flower stem, leaves
Celery	leaf stems	leaves, seeds
Corn, sweet	seeds	young ears, unfurled tassel, young leaves
Cucumber	fruit with seeds	stem tips and young leaves
Eggplant	fruit with seeds	leaves edible but not flavorful
Kohlrabi	swollen stem	leaves
Okra	pods with seeds	leaves
Onions	root	young leaves
Parsley	tops	roots
Peas, English	seeds	pods, leaves
Peas, Southern	seeds, pods	young leaves
Pepper	pods	leaves after cooking, immature seeds
Potatoes, Sweet	roots	leaves and stem shoots
Radish	roots	leaves
Squash	fruit with seeds	seeds, flowers, young leaves
Tomato	fruits with seeds	leaves contain alkaloids
Watermelon	fruit -- interior pulp and seeds	rind of fruit

Do you have a favorite "two for" vegetable?  If so please share, along with a recipe!

Kindergarden Weeks 10 & 11

First I apologize, I am so busy right now I forgot about last week, and I am finishing this post up at work.....Yes I am on my lunch!  That's my excuse and I am sticking to it! I promise next week I will be back to my regular irregular schedule.  I think it is pretty obvious time management is not my thing!
Oops! Sorry no pictures.  I did not bring my memory stick to work. I would forget my head if it wasn't attached somedays!

It has been hot and sticky July weather here but TONS of growing and flowering has been going on in the garden!  I seriously have not been this excited in a LONG time!

My zucchini and yellow squash have these beautiful orange flowers on them!  You can pick the male flowers off and deep fry them or cook them in a butter sauce or just add them to a salad, they are delicious!  If you don't know the difference the male flowers have a long straight stamens (they kind of remind me of the male anatomy).  The female look like a few curled up little zucchinis (and yes they do remind me of female anatomy) there is an ovary behind it and will produce fruit if pollinated.  Do not pick the female flowers, they produce the fruit!  If you want to try some zucchini flowers use the male flowers!

I have a bunch of tomatoes and a ton of little yellow flowers!  Those plants are almost 5 feet tall!  I have three different varieties, Amish Paste, Black Krim and a type of cherry tomato!  I remember growing up my grandfather teaching me how to grow tomatoes.  I was responsible for watering them every morning!  It's such a great memory and I hope someday when my girls grow up they remember this valuable lesson we have taught them!  

I take back what I said two weeks ago because my corn seemed to shoot right up! "Knee high by July" is the old adage!  We are right on course, hopefully we will start seeing some tassels soon! 

We finally got the herb bed filled with dark loamy soil and I am trying to figure out what I want to put in there. 
I keep checking the radishes but I think they have been overcrowded and are not going to grow anymore. So I started looking online to see how to prepare the leaves.  I did not know you could eat the leaves.  And did you know that if you leave radishes in the ground they sprout these little flowers?  Neither did I. I got these beautiful little flowers on top.

And no my chickens have not started laying yet.  On August 12th they will be 22 weeks old, I am keeping my fingers crossed!! 

Ok so I promise to make the time to blog. Have a great week!  I can't wait to see what everyone is growing!  To check out the Kindergardens series head over to The Inadvertant Farmer! 

A birthday note to my Little Bird......

Little Bird,

You are turning 5.  I just know this will be a great year for you!  You begin Kindergarten in September and will make a bunch of new little friends.  You will have homework and learn lots of really wonderful things like the weather, the alphabet, numbers and how to read......I know school will be no trouble for you because you are a very bright little girl!

You are also charming, sweet, beautiful and caring!  I love that you have spunk (yes, spunk), you are not afraid to try new things and give your Mama a heart attack every chance you get!  I absolutely love this about you and encourage you to keep trying new things even if it means giving your Mama a heart attack!  If you want to be a skydiving-race car driving-dare devil-princess then by all means, I am sure by the time you are old enough to do this I will have gotten over it......Probably not.

Our lives forever changed when you arrived!  You are an amazing, precious little gift and we could not imagine our life without you.  Always remember that.....

I hope you enjoy your birthday my dear sweet princess.  We love you no matter what!  You are an important member of this family!  Your family is the most precious thing in the world, without them you are nothing.  I hope you enjoy your very special day!

Love,
Mama