gardening

Changing of the Seasons

September 29, 2012 By Amy 4 Comments

So, it’s officially Fall up here in New England.

The leaves are starting to turn crisp and fall, swirling down to the ground among cheers and giggles from our children playing at the park.

Cool mornings and a sunny afternoon have been gracing most of our week, but the chilly and grey days like today speak a warning and a promise of the winter to come.

Abbey’s class is mixing and painting with fall colors at preschool, and Joe is discovering the joy of crunching leaves in his hands and under his feet.

This reminds me of the joy of the Holiday season, but also reminds me to be even more aware of my mood, as grey days tend to make me sleepy and a little sad. Time to turn on the “happy light” and get some artificial UVA and UVB, and to make sure that the kids get their multivitamin in the morning and at night.

Bedtime moves to 7:00 PM, and there’s less and less light during the day, so nap time moves earlier, and early afternoon playtime is essential!

We’re looking forward to a crisp and cool fall, hubs’ return home, a fun-filled Halloween, friend-filled Thanksgiving, and a white Advent season and a trip to Texas for Christmas!

Thinking about the fall weather makes me want to make coffee time earlier today ha

How is Fall in your neck of the woods?

Do you have any Fall crafts planned, or Fall time activities that you love to do? Share in the comments below!

Filed Under: 2012, Abbey, children, family, gardening, Holidays, Joseph, natural learning, outdoors, two children

Mamatography

August 4, 2012 By Amy 1 Comment

This week, we attended a friend’s 3rd birthday, Abbey and her friends were super imaginative at the park, planting a garden in the mud after a rainstorm (messy but fun!), and we also spent time with daddy and with friends, and I completed Joseph’s blackout curtains. I also started planning for designing a craft booth for Silly Bear Handmade in preparation for beginning to show my work at craft fairs. More about that soon. It’s seriously a whole additional craft to design and layout a booth in a pleasing way! I had no idea that planning a craft showing would be so intense but the ideas out there are stunning.

Anyway, back to my week: The fairy outfit was my very first multicolor embroidering project on my SE400 and I’m LOVING my new embroidery machine. The possibilities (as long as they fit in the 4×6 embroidery frame!) are endless. Abbey had an awesome time modeling the outfit for me to take pictures and share. . . Lily LOVED her present, and we had fun at the party, too!

Now, this did add some work to my plate, however, because I had to add to my sewing/crafting list “make Abbey a matching fairy outfit” because she loves that fairy embroidery SO much. So do I. The rainbow metallic wings are stunning. I’m truly thrilled with what my machine can do! Love!

Here are some pictures from the rest of our week!

The kids have so much fun playing at the park with their friends. We’re out there every afternoon and most mornings. It’s so amazing to watch them grow and change! Motherhood is such a blessing!

That was our week. How was YOURS!?

Filed Under: Abbey, blessings, creating for the family, family, gardening, Joseph, mamatography, natural parenting, Parenting, photography, toddler

How Did Our Garden Grow? (plus Linky!)

November 4, 2011 By Amy 7 Comments

This post includes an invitation to share your gardening experiences from the 2011 growing season via a Linky tool. Please scroll to the bottom and link up!, as well as leave a comment about your experience. Can’t wait to read all of your experiences and get some discussion started about gardening!

Earlier this fall, I wrote about our first experience gardening for produce. So, how did our garden grow? Lemme give you the scoop.

I think it grew well, for our first produce garden!

We had 7 melon plants that grew, flowered, and fruited!

Among these plants, we had 7 cantaloupes that grew to at least 5″ in diameter, and 3 watermelons.

I used fresh basil from my basil plants on many occasions throughout the summer, and loved it!

The worst part of our gardening experience this summer was when we had 9 days of rain, and despite my best efforts to keep the cantaloupes dry, they all (yes, ALL of them!) rotted out that week.

Our “Big Mama Watermelon” also rotted out. I wasn’t positive when to harvest her. . . I kept thumping the melon, wondering if I was hearing a hollow sound or not. . . and then one afternoon, in late October, I decided that I didn’t care how she sounded when I hit her – it was time to crack ‘er open. And then she was rotten I guess I waited too long.

She smelled delicious, though – just looked awful. Apparently, she rotted out through a small hole no bigger than a dime. What sour luck!

But the best part of our gardening experience this season was the harvest of our “miracle cukes” – Abbey desperately wanted to plant veggies, but it wasn’t warm enough in April, prior to Joseph’s birth, to do so. And then come June, when I was ready to plant, we couldn’t find any veggie plants, so we threw out seed. Abbey was really relentless about planting veggies. I was nervous that they wouldn’t even sprout, but lo and behold, everything grew, everything flowered, and we had four cucumbers to harvest by the end of the season! The first one we ate was delicious. I can’t wait to use our large ones in a salad and in sandwiches next week!

Did you garden with your family this season?

How was your experience?

I’d love to get some discussion going on the topic of gardening for produce/sustainable living. I’m definitely on the beginning end of this part of a natural lifestyle, but I hope to learn more next season!
Please share your gardening experiences by leaving a comment and/or linking to your blog post regarding gardening. Link up below!

Filed Under: Abbey, gardening, Joseph, natural parenting, preschooler

How Does Your Garden Grow!?

September 3, 2011 By Amy Leave a Comment

So, this year, I resolved to do some gardening – both for the beautification of our front porch and yard, and for some (hopefully) edible produce!

In April, it was still freezing out! But Abbey helped me sow some seeds in a Jiffy planter.

You can see how incredibly excited she was about the result of that activity (heavy sarcasm)

But her face is just priceless, isn’t it!?

“Mommy, when will they grow up up up!?”

Unfortunately, our Jiffy transplants (all flowers: sunflowers and zinnias) did not make it when we moved them to the garden. I watched my withered little babies disappear, dry up, rot at the stem, and suffer all sorts of other awful plant death. . . and I was sad. I had gotten my hands dirty, told Abbey all about how seeds sprout and grow into plants that eventually flower and make more seeds. . . and I still had a big ‘brown thumb’.

So, hubs threw the rest of the sunflower seeds in the front garden and lo and behold, they all sprouted! Abbey watched them grow while he was gone on patrol. Every morning, she would run to the front window.

“Mommy, Mommy! Daddy’s sunflowers! Look they’re growing up, up, up! They’re getting bigger and bigger like me!”

And she relished in watering them. . . though picking weeds around them was interesting as she had trouble at first discerning which were weeds and which were sunflowers. We lost a couple of plants that way.

We also planted flowering perennials in our front garden after tilling and cleaning up all the dead plants, roots, rocks, and gritty soil (that took forever, but Abbey was glad to help, hacking away at the dirt, and tossing rocks into pails, moving them into a secondary flower bed for storage until we repurposed them).

Every day, Abbey would ask me if we could “go outside and dig for worms” Until she learned how to loosen the soil around a plant and pick out all the weeds, digging for worms was her favorite gardening activity. She even invited friends over to join in the fun when we cleared out and remade the barrier on the back garden plot.

So much joy from dirt and a few seeds! I’ve really been enjoying gardening with my little girl this year! And coming up in a future post, I’ll do the big reveal on what actually has been GROWING in our garden (hint. . . it’s a yummy summer treat, and I hope it will be good to eat come harvest time!)

Maybe I’ll get that green thumb yet!