It's a really busy week again this week! Here is a few pictures from around the house.

This sweet sight is hanging in the laundry room right now.  Rachel is getting her cloth diapers ready for  the baby. 

I planted these tulips the year we moved into the house and they have never failed to amaze me. If you look closely you can see the Carolina Jessamine that Rachel and Adrian planted three years ago flourishing.

Our less than model homeschool methods had an unusual moment of peace, love, and joy. Abigail found that she likes to color and especially loves the word "blue." This is not usually the picture of how we homeschool so I thought I'd take a picture to capture the moment.

Somehow, I think we knew this day was coming. When we moved into this house we set to work planting trees and had a nice yard. A few years ago Georgia Power came through and said that we had too many that were too close to the power lines and had to cut a lot of them down. They told us then that more of our trees were in danger of being cut down, potentially ALL of them in the front and side yard. In mid November the trucks came. The trees haven't been cut down yet but this is what our house looks like now. The view out my bedroom window and Rachel's kitchen window is big trucks, tractors,  men walking around and the occasional crane.

Apples Are Ready

With all of the extreme heat and early rain this year, everything in our yard matured early, including the apples. This morning was the first of hopefully many installments of yummy apple dishes. We are planning to make apple jelly very soon.

Here is a picture of what my front flower bed looked like for a while. My mom had planted a lot of really pretty flowers last fall and with what was already planted everything was growing beautifully. Then something just popped up out of no where. We assumed it was a squash plant so we left it alone to see what would happen. Before I knew it, it had completely covered the flower bed choking out everything in its path. When I finally pulled it out the vine was about ten feet long. What was it? We still don't know. The bloom looked just like squash but a green oblong thing the size of my hand started growing. It looked a little like the beginning of a watermelon and that would make since with stray seeds getting spit random places in the summertime. We know it wasn't watermelon because the vines were too tall and leaves too big. Either way, it is now gone and my snapdragons, pansies and wandering dew are in pitiful shape! But don't worry the canna lilies are busy trying to take over and the  blueberry bush is still thriving. (one full gallon of blueberries so far)

What I want to know now is how to pick blueberries when I have seen these! This one was dead but the other one was alive. Now every time when I walk in the flower bed, I get the heevy jeevies.

More on Gardening

This is the first year that Rachel and Adrian have planted a garden so I've enjoyed watching their learning process. Some things I think they've learned...

• don't plant the rows so close together

• the garden doesn't have to be soooo big

• watering costs money

• And one of my favorites.... You might need to train your help. For Example:

I had sent Mary and Lydia to help Rachel weed, when they came back inside within just a few minutes. They said she made them leave the garden when she realized they didn't know the difference between weeds and green bean plants. Another example: I heard Rachel say, "Here Lydia, I'll stand in the middle of the squash and toss it out to you."  Lydia's response, "Huh?" (Plop, the squash lands on the ground!)

Learning to Cook

Lydia was the best blueberry picker of the family. She stayed with Papa until the job was completely done.

This is the season of Sarah and Mary learning to cook. Because Rachel has always loved to be in the kitchen, the younger girls haven't had the experience cooking that they should have had. Since I'm tired a lot, Sarah has been a huge help. We spent several days at my moms freezing vegetables and Sarah got the full effect of that, especially since I kept laying down on the job. We put up squash, field peas, peaches, and blueberries.

When the girls can successfully fry chicken I consider them well rounded cooks. We don't usually don't fry a lot of food, but in the Summer there is usually so much squash and okra that we do eat some of it fried. (I also like to freeze it for casseroles too.) My mom had some beautiful eggplant that Sarah fried up that were the best I've ever tasted! What fun it is to see your little girls gobble up eggplant, squash and zucchini! After learning to eat it fried, they usually can eat it pretty well in "cheese" casseroles. So even though Sarah hasn't fried chicken yet... she is becoming a great cook.

Grandma and Papa's dog, Bo got tired of picking before anybody else did.

Finally

Well I was beginning to think we wouldn't have a garden this year, but it has finally been planted. The scene was quite different from years gone by. Don't get me wrong, I did a lot of watching and supervising while Ray and the girls did all of the work, so not much change there. But this year we only had the two little girls in the garden with us. Mary even made the comment, "I'm not sure I know how to use the hoe, the big girls always get to use them."

Another difference is the size of the garden. We usually have it twice the size as this year, but with us starting late and the fact that I probably won't feel like canning much in the late summer, Ray kept it smaller. (If you can say twenty six tomato plants is smaller.) It was nice to sit out and watch Mary and Lydia get muddy and ooh and ahh over how wonderful everything would be.

Family Yard Work

After working in the yard for several hours in my flower beds and planting a new dogwood, Mary was very proud of how pretty everything looked. She said, "I bet all the landscapers who drive by here are going to be jealous."
Lydia shot back, "Pshh, Better Homes and Gardens are going to want to take pictures!"
Hannah's response? "I hope not, they'll want me and Sarah to clean our room!"

They even scrubbed the little yard girl and boy.

Lydia wanted to shovel all day!

We moved the coneflowers out of the front flower bed where they were trying to take over to a less conspicuous place in the back.

I don't know what is scarier with the weed wacker - Rachel or Hannah.

Recording the First Fruits Every Year

Taking garden pictures has got to be one of the silliest traditions we have. When the corn gets ready, any normal family would go pull corn. Not us. We have to wait until everyone is home so the girls can get on their most ridiculus farm outfits and take lots of crazy pictures. The garden this year was left unattended for too long early in the summer so it hasn't produced much of anything, but corn. I was able to get enough to cream about 20 quarts and put up about 25 ears on the cob. I hope to make apple jelly made in a few weeks. But for the rest of the garden, all that it was really good for was picture taking. But that's okay, we know that God is the great Provider and He knows what we need when we need it. Right now we needed lots of silly pictures.

The Garden is Done

The Lord truly blessed our garden this year and we were thrilled to have the cabinets overflowing with goodness.

Raspberries Are Ready

My sweet neighbors fed the vines of their raspberry bushes under their fence for us last year. This year we were doubly blessed by an abundant crop. Mary and I were picking and eating as fast as we could this morning. We have the hope of tomorrow's crop being even bigger because we left so many that weren't quite full and soft. God is so good to our family every day; He's given us great friends AND sweet fruit. Mary can't wait for raspberry pie.

The Corn Patch

There is a bluegrass song about a boy who won't hoe corn. The idea is that if he's too lazy to work for food then he isn't worth the time of day to the farmer and his daughter. We like that idea for our girls and will try to make sure they marry hard workers. Part of being a godly wife is also working hard for your family. Our corn patch is a training ground for a hard working wife. The girls spent all day yesterday pulling, shucking, silking, washing, creaming and bagging corn. We even had the opportunity to talk about how a person's true character comes out on a day like that. There is a lot of hard work to be done and no one can stop until it is finished. We creamed 140 ears of corn and will freeze the rest on the cob. Hopefully, when they enjoy eating it they will appreciate all the work. When they become wives maybe they will appreciate what they were taught as girls - to work hard until the work is done.
The garden is a wonderful training ground. This year Ray has spent a lot of time and money watering because of the drought yet we realize that ultimately we are dependant on God for the fruitful seasons. Our tomatoes have only made just enough for us to have sandwiches out of, but my mom's garden produced enough for us to have a great batch of spaghetti sauce. A few weeks ago the girls and I froze tomatoes for her and brought home enough for us. God provided all those tomatoes and I stayed up late last night and canned the sauce. (Staying up too late to do your work isn't a lesson I'm ready for the girls to learn.) We often think that it may not save much money growing a garden but the lessons it yields are invaluable. The food tastes great too.