A Very Busy Day

   Good morning everyone!

   I had a very productive Monday---how about you?

   AS many of you know, my family was sick over the weekend, and that caused a lot of stress in the household, and lots of mamma time was needed. A couple things that happened over the weekend reminded me just how important I am in their young lives.
   In the past when I have sat down, it is only to get up again in a couple minutes, so I have learned to just keep moving.

just imagine two of these!

   However, when you have one toddler holding onto a pant leg with both hands, crying her eyes out (even though you just really had one too many cups of coffee, and needed to go RIGHT NOW), and the other is literally sitting on your foot so you have to drag her everywhere anytime you need to move more than an inch or two.......

   When you serve something as simple as chicken noodle soup and applesauce for lunch, only to get the glorious experience of chain reaction gagging and then.....well, you guessed it.........by all THREE children around the dinner table.....(no I will NOT eat either of those foods for a while--like maybe, my lifetime??)
   When you do finally sit down at the end of the day and immediately find everyone AND the cat in your lap while your husband looks in vain for ANY spot on the couch, because he is sick too and just wants some love......
   Well, those are the kind of days you know you are never going to look back on with fond memories.

But you do realize just how important you are in all of those lives you are blessed to be a part of.

  Thankfully those stressful days are past and today I had toddlers running around chasing one another, chasing the cat, chasing the stray moth that made it in past the screen, along with the cat, etc. We ate a happy lunch and everyone smiled and laughed through the day. Today both learned that if they burp they need to say "scooose me".....which of course led to them trying to burp all day long (and causing some momentary worry in Mom when she would hear a particularly yucky one since the last yuckies are very recently in the past).

   However, today, I am thankful when I say I got more than a few things done. 

   I got my twine grid for the peas  up and the peas planted. I got all the borage and six tomato plants plus six basil plants into the ground. We purchased all our asparagus and rhubarb plants today, which makes me happy, because they are two year roots, meaning we should be able to pick starting next Spring. I talked with the man who is going to be tilling up the main garden here at the Welcoming House, and we got the plot staked out for this week when he comes over. While we are following the Back to Eden plan, we do not want to wait a whole year for the land to sit, so we are tilling it right now and immediately covering with a thick layer of wood chips.

   We will be doing something similar to the postage stamp dwarf orchard in another couple of weeks, but one thing at a time. I checked on and weeded my strawberries--looks like only a couple survived the crazy up and down temps of winter, so I will need to replant those. I may just go ahead and not replant until this fall when we build our keyhole garden in the front yard. I plan on combining herbs and strawberries in there to see how well it will do.
   Which of the ideas I shared at the end of the last week did you like the best? I love my raised beds, because I can plant so much earlier, and they drain really well. I also like the idea of no-tilling as well, and am really looking forward to incorporating more of that this coming year. I have to tell you, the soil in my beds from the no tilling, and then covering with wood chips, is amazingly lovely. I kept running it through my fingers and just marveling. I cant wait for a few years down the road when we really get to see the results of this developing.

   I also wanted to tell you, if you happen to live in an area where there is a Menards, you really should RUN not walk over there before the 6th of May. As I have shared with you before, I can A LOT and they have just killer deals on canning jars right now. I think the average was about $2 off per case, but some were as much as $4 off. I use a lot of jars, and with our canning growing more and more each year, as well as our dry storage, it just makes sense to really hit the sales when you can. Also, their lids were $1.29 to $1.99, which for our area is just super cheap. My husband and I could not believe what we walked out of there with for $50, and plan on making another trip before the sale ends on the 6th. If you can, dehydrate, or use food storage, folks, this is one sale you just plain don't want to miss.
   I will be back again tomorrow with more planting advice. Thanks to all of you for hanging in there with me as we walked through all that sickness and I pray you are all happy and healthy as you are reading this!

   Many blessings to you and yours,

Heather