Garden upgrade

Last year, in addition to a chicken coop and dual part compost bin, George built a second raised bed for gardening. we planted it with five corn kernels, dry beans and a yellow pear tomato plant, along with a row of sunflowers.
The tomato plant went gonzo, and took over almost the entire bed, and three of the corn stalks grew. the beans were not particularly successful really, and in general, the sunflowers were the most prolific of the bed.
In the other bed, I didn't plant any squash, but some volunteers came up, and i was excited about them, and for the first year, I planted zinnias (and some marigolds) and the flowers were stunning. The silly squashes turned out to be gourds, and even after two plantings, no green beans came up. so our "food" garden was mostly inedible, with exception of the basil... which we didn't grow enough of-- our pesto store went away almost by christmas, and that is about six months short of what we need.

So this year, I'm going to try and get FOOD out of this garden. Not like we don't have tons rolling in from Monroe Farms (thank goodness) but it is nice to pull some salad greens from outside (I've heard) and I would like to learn how to grow some greens mostly.

the boys spend a lot of time harvesting worms for the chickens. can this negatively affect my soil? I hope not.

We're going to redo the timber around the big one now that it's literally falling apart, so i'm off to find some beetle kill wood. pictures to follow of the progress. so far, already peas, spinach, butterhead lettuce and some mesclun growing... even through our mid may snow.

see?

Already I'm more present here! :) and I'm recovering from school too, as the weeks go on.

An update: The boys got spaces in the school I wanted for them. I don't know exactly how, some miracle, some good chance- with Milo being younger and that being the opening class. I feel so glad to know and am now working on how we'll become a family with two kids in school all day. It has snuck up on me (and early b/c of Milo's program that is only offered 8-2:50) and I try to imagine us having so much less choice about what we do when we wake up. I don't say this lightly, and I know that many families don't have the luxury of what we've had these past years here. But today the boys were playing making an ocean on the window sill and I thought about how hard it is to make sure that they have time to decide what to do next.

this documentary came out last week here, and I think it may be talking about this same topic at a much larger level. http://www.racetonowhere.com/trailer I didn't get to see it yet.

we have a snow covered yard today, in mid may! And there are crazy things afoot. Today the comcast person comes to install cable to our new television. ! yes, we have spent our last ten or more years without television.
but cable + TV = less money than tickets to South Africa
and both George and I enjoy visual media, it's just not a very high priority.
We also have enjoyed avoiding so much commercialism and violence (which are in large amounts on tv and cable), for ourselves and our boys.
Yet. I'm reading this book called "Raising Financially Fit Kids" which talks about teaching our children how to be responsible with money, and that is through practice and experience in making decisions and living with the consequences.
These are the same things we do as parents in all areas of life, help our children find out in the gentlest ways possible that certain things aren't great ideas.
I feel like it's about time to model the kinds of behavior we think is healthy with the TV too. Choosing not to watch TV when there isn't one isn't a very active choice, but having it, and still opting to read, play outside, ride our bikes, work on our projects, use our computers for other things, and generally carry on instead of watching it seems to be a bit more active modeling.
We all have different tolerance levels for screen time, and different values for what it's for and I have no beef with television watching any more than I have a beef with vegetarianism (to use a terrible metaphor!). It's just what makes us interesting and different-to have different focus and intent with our lives and the way we raise our kids.

new tactic

I like almost everything that google does, except that for crazies like me who have more than one address, i cannot be in any programs for the one, if i have the other open.
This has caused a big problem with this blog, since it is in the OTHER account that doesnt have my email, calendar, and reader... and means that I barely ever get here!

so anywho. that's my story and anyway, We survived!

I passed comps, and my Place exam (for teacher licensure) and managed to almost miss signing up for graduation, except for a well timed reminder to "opt in" to the graduation ceremony on the very final day. That would have been something, huh? to do everything else, but not go into a specific page and press the "yes" button for actual attendance to the ceremony!

Today it's may 12 and we're preparing for snow (!) so i cut down almost all of my glorious irises and now they are looking like a decadent arrangement in the living room.

What to do about my favorite lilac bushes? I only got one or two blooms to stand next to and huff over and over, trying to bring that scent inside of me. Lilacs are so heavenly.