BACK YARD RENO PART 1

You ask what have we been up to?  Well as the weather warms I have been spending my time in the back yard working hard.  I spent the 2 months of "winter" in our new home trying to plot out the best location for a garden.  For this year it is along the east side of the back yard.  This plot of dirt originally had cedars running along the fence; they were only a few years old so this made them prime targets for successful transplant to someone else yard. Thanks to Freecycle and Craigs List they were all gone in about 2 weeks; all 64 of them. We kept 3 that we relocated to the back of the yard to create a visual barrier. Eventually behind the cedars will be a potting bench and a compost bin.

I know some of you are thinking why remove all the cedars they were hiding that ugly chain link fence well we have other plans that will hide that fence in a few years.  This includes hopefully a new fence and some berry bushes and trees, but for now taking the Cedars out gave me a great temporary space to plant vegetables for the next few years.  

As you can see in the picture we have started planting and I still need to work on turning the rest of the dirt and adding some nice black earth to the top and so on.  I will be planting cucumbers, tomatoes, string beans, peas, kale and radishes to name a few.

More picture to come as the work progresses.

Seedlings, Supper and Terrible Twos

Seedlings

This afternoon C Monster and I planted most of our seedlings for the vegetable garden. I say most because I am recycling plastic containers, toilet paper rolls and other various containers for planters - and well ran out of planters. I bought a bag of potting soil and dragged it into the kitchen were we worked together at filing all the containers - C Monster quite enjoyed playing with dirt in the house. I did the actual seed planting because C Monster was way to excited and I am pretty sure if I would have let him handle the seeds they would of all ended up on the ground.

We planted chard, kale, onions, broccoli, cauliflower and beans. The seedlings are going to be placed on the window box in our master bedroom; until they sprout I am going to keep them in plastic bags - this causes a greenhouse effect.

Supper

Tonight for supper I think I outdid myself we had homemade soda bread; lemonade and soup. The soda bread was crazy good. As always I followed a recipe but modified the ingredients - Irish Soda Bread with Dates by Phoebe Bites.

All-purpose flour, 2 cups, plus 2 tablespoons
Whole Wheat Bread Flour, 2 cups
Granulated sugar, 1/4 cup
Baking soda, 1 teaspoon
Salt, 1 1/2 teaspoons
Unsalted butter, 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick), cold, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
Whole milk, 1 3/4 cup
Apple Cider Vinegar, 1 teaspoon
Egg, 1 extra-large
Zest of 3 Blood oranges
Cranberries dried, 1 cup
Flax seeds, 1/4 cup
Pumpkin Seeds, 1/2 cup

Terrible Twos

I try really hard to only use positive discipline - try not to say no. Today well I was not that good at it; I caught myself over and over saying no out of frustration as C Monster was driving me crazy with his shenanigans.

1. Tackles E Monster not once not twice but 5 times during their play date
2. Dumps his snack on the floor 2 seconds after I give it to him
3. Discovers if he shakes is sippy cup that contained smoothie it will splash all over the place
4. Spits at E Monster
   
5. Throws is edamame all over the kitchen
6. Throws one of the planters for my seedlings up in the air when it's full of dirt
7. Bit me
8. Pinched my nipple when I told him he could not nurse
   
9. Kicked me in the face while nursing (twice) - this is why I told him he could not nurse
10. Dumped his soup in his juice then asked for more juice
11. Raspberry style spit in my face

Despite all of those crazy annoying things C Monster did today he also:

1. Kissed me good morning
   
2. Helped me pot my seedlings
3. Ran around the house wearing a crown for most of the day
4. Helped clean up the potting mess
5. Let E Monster play with his favorite toy all morning
6. Said mine and mmm to the bread I baked
7. Sat on the potty
8. Is asking for help when needing instead of screaming in frustration
9. Kinda let me brush his teeth (only after a fight)
10. Kissed E Monster all better every time he tackled her without me asking him to
    
11. Gave me a great big hug ans kiss goodnight
    

Geoff hurry up and finish the book on discipline you are reading....

A little bit of everything

C Monster Turns 2 and I get a kiss

Last night I fell asleep in C Monster's bed; so I ended up spending the night. This morning when he woke up as always he wanted to nurse; after he was done he climbed on top of me and approached my face - I started squinting as I assumed he was going to climb on my head or something. Instead I got a good morning kiss - this was the first time I got a good morning kiss without asking for it.

Apricot Muffins

This morning felt like a muffin morning so I looked in the cupboard and decided what was old and should be baked - "Dried Apricots". After a quick search on Google I found a great recipe on All Recipes that I modified. Here are the changes to the ingredient list; the directions stayed pretty much as the original recipe.

1 cup chopped dried apricots
1 cup boiling water
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 cup ground panela
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 canola oil
1 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
4 tablespoons kamut flakes
1 egg

Rain Boots

After our lovely muffin breakfast that C Monster actually ate - Hooray. I checked the weather and we got ready to head out to music class. Since the temperature was so nice already 1 with a high of 3 I decided that I would let C Monster wear his yellow rubber boots that he loves so much. (for those of you thinking 1 degree is still cold - music class is only 5 minutes away 10 max if he stops a lot) I just wanted to mention this because well here is hopping the nice weather stays. Melt melt melt away snow.

Garden Planning

When the weather starts turning to warm it's that time again to plan your garden - and yes the Wiseman's have a vegetable garden. So I grabbed my seeds from last year; colored pencils; a notepad; my new garden bible - Rodale's All-New Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening. I was lucky enough to get all my research done while C Monster napped but when he woke up I still have the layout to draw up - I sat him down with me at the table and gave him some crayons and a few pieces of paper and asked him to draw his own vegetable garden.












So you ask what are we planting? - Tomatoes; Basil; Radishes; Bell Peppers; Beets; Hot Peppers; Broccoli; Celery; Cauliflower ; Green Beans; Chard; Collards; Kale; Mint; Parsley; Edemame; Lettuce; Spinach; Chives; Sage; Onions and Carrots.

We planted most of these successfully last year except for Broccoli; Edemame; Spinach and Onions. All of witch except Edemame I tried last year and failed - This year I read up on them and will try a few different things and fingers crossed everything will grow.

Motorcycle In Papa's Eye

A 2 year old takes down an adult with a motorcycle. Tonight when I went up to C Monster's room to check on how the bedtime routine was going I found Papa sitting on the bed holding his right eye. Here is the conversation:

Me: Are you OK?
Papa: C Monster hit me in the eye with a motorcycle.
Me: I've told you before you are bigger then him.
Papa: So.

Goodnight all it's time for me to watch Chuck.