Update From North Carolina

Wow! 2015 has already been full of adventures for our family and we are approaching the half way point of the year!

First and foremost, so sorry for the prolonged absence!

Here is a little bit about what we have been up to...

Right before Christmas, Ron accepted a new job in North Carolina. Just days into 2015, Ron left Wisconsin to start work and this left us, girls back home to sell our house. The house sold fairly quickly, within 3 months from listing to closing. This meant we had a whole house to pack up, a new house, school, and church to find. Oh, and then there was the moving us and everything we own 1000 plus miles away.

Ron found a church right away in the area and they have already been a huge blessing to our whole family.

We found a great home and neighborhood on a little over an acre of land in Eastern North Carolina. It has great sunlight and mature trees! We even have raspberry bushes.

There have been many new adjustments for us all, but we were definitely not prepared to start a garden immediately. After all, I still had to find all the gardening tools in our moving mess.

"Up north" we would not plant until after Mother's Day or even Memorial Day. But down here I was told to wait to plant after Good Friday! That is a huge increase in our growing season and means I have to get moving!

Sadly, we were grossly disorganized with moving, starting a new school and just trying to get around town. Planting has been slow going but is happening and we will keep you posted on the progress!

Here are a few pictures from the beautiful blooms in our yard.

Upcoming Post:  Starting a garden plot.

Making Birthdays Special

 Birthdays! No matter what your age, you have to love how special they can make you feel. At our house, we do several birthday traditions every year that create not only good feelings, but memories too. And the good news is we've found it doesn't cost much at all to make someone smile.

Fairies aren't just for teeth.
We have a birthday fairy to come to visit the night prior to the birthday. She leaves a trail of confetti to the birthday presents, decorates the bedroom door of the birthday girl or boy and leaves balloons. 

Wear a happy hat.
Birthday hats are a fun way to add a little silliness to the day. We have been using the same pack of a few years now. I just place them out next to the birthday presents.

Fancy-up a special meal.
Growing up, I remember my Mom always letting us use a special plate at the time of our birthday dinner. The plate is Waechtersbach's You're Special Today plate. And it really did make me feel special. Just last year I was able to find this plate at a rummage sale for a great deal!

Be in the moment.
There is always talk of what time my girls were born and where. A fun way to celebrate their moment of birth is to set a timer set to go off at the time of birth. You could celebrate with hugs and comment on how much bigger they feel.

Have your day, your way.
In our house, another way we celebrate birthdays is to pick what you want for dinner. The meal could be homemade or a modest restaurant. We have done dinner's out to Baked Macaroni and Cheese for dinner. 

My girls celebrating their birthdays together. Only 4 calendar days apart.

Just simple routine things, like opening up presents around the same time of the day, every year, can make your next birthday run a little smoother and create traditions. We always let the kids open up there presents first thing in the morning, while they are still in their pajamas. Usually we get up about 15 minutes earlier but the kids (and adults) love it.

Happy Birthday to you!

Dying Easter Eggs With Food Coloring

Spring is finally here and Easter is coming! And that means it's time to dye the eggs! This is a fun activity for the whole family, although, be sure to provide some guidance with the little ones around the dye.

Fun Fact:
The egg symbolizes new life and our rebirth in the spring time, just like through the sacrifice of Jesus giving us a new life through God's forgiveness of all our sins. But why dye the egg? In history eggs would be dyed red to represent the blood Christ shed for us. The egg can also represent the tomb where Jesus was laid after his crucifixion. The hard shell can be removed like the sealed tomb was opened on Easter morning.

The following is a traditional account of how my family dyes Easter eggs. 

Egg Dye Made With Food Coloring
(This recipe yields one cup of colored dye.)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon white vinegar
liquid food coloring
hard-boiled eggs

In a small cup (we have always used coffee mugs), mix together water at room temperature, vinegar and several drops of food coloring. I used about 20 drops of color in each mug, but you can adjust this however you like for a deeper or lighter color.

Prepare several different colors in this way.

Carefully place one egg in each cup of food coloring. After a few seconds, roll the egg to ensure the it's completely covered with dye equally on all sides. Watch the eggs, then carefully remove them when they reach the desired shade. Use a spoon to remove the egg and place it in an egg carton or on a paper towel to dry.

For extra decoration:
Decorate the eggs with crayons prior to dying.
Decorate the eggs with small stickers.

Late Summer Harvest

It’s late August and back-to-school time is upon us, so we decided to escape the pressures of shopping and head out to the garden to see what’s ready for picking.

The kids learned a lot about gardening and responsibility this summer, so it made us really happy to see them enjoy the fruits of their labor (and ours)!

Looks like the Sugar Daddy snap peas are coming to an end for the season. And yes… we up-cycled an old mattress frame as our trellis. It was free and worked great!

Picking snap beans is a lot easier when you have four sets of hands. This is our second harvest through these plants and we hope to get several more. There’s plenty of blossoms and young beans out there.

“Hey dad… beat this one!”

We were happy with how well our sweet corn variety turned out. This particular variety seemed to have two suckers on some plants. This is common in sweet corn and won’t affect the plant’s yield.

According to Iowa State University, suckers are common on some sweet corn varieties and should be left alone. Another recent study showed that with the right fertilization, these little guys actually benefit the yield, but if removed, can negatively impact yield.

Crazy huh? So put down those knives!

Also, stay tuned for an upcoming post on the benefits of Compost Tea to maximize the yield potential of your crop.

We also learned that standard sweet corn cultivars may lose 50 percent of their sugar within 12 hours of harvest if not refrigerated. So get those guys from field to fridge as quickly as you can.




Unhusked sweet corn can be stored in the refrigerator at 32° F for 4 to 8 days. New high sugar varieties are slower to convert sugar to starch and may be harvested over a longer period of time. The high sugar types also have a longer storage life. Sweet corn may be canned or frozen for year-round use.

This information and more (such as growing baby corn for salads) is available in this free PDF Iowa State University Horticulture Guide – Home Gardening Sweet Corn. We love the simplicity of the research they shared. After all, these guys know their corn!

And finally… our youngest was thrilled that our watermelon plants are coming along nicely as well. This is just one of the 15 melons we have so far. Grow baby, grow!

The kids have been naming each melon, but I think we’ll need to come up with something better for this one. “Fatty-bo-batty” simply won’t due.

As we left the garden, we made one last check to ensure that the electric fence was re-hooked up properly… oh, no need. Rufus our guard dog was having a heart-to-heart with his big watermelon-eating brother Chester.