Yard work

Having a large yard has it's benefits and drawbacks.  The amount of leaves that fall from the many trees is amazing.  I raked the part of the yard about three times and there are still leaves on the ground.  I'm grateful for all the leaves to put into my compost pile and for my kids to play in.  Raking is a good workout as well.

This was Robyn's idea of "helping"

Spring, how I love you!

I love spring!  The invitation to warm weather is intriguing and puts me in the most beautiful of moods. I love where we live!  I can step out my back door and hear roosters crowing, horses neighing, and wind blowing through the trees.

We are now working as quickly as possible to prepare our yard for my dream garden.  If you like yard work and want to help we would love to see you on our door step!  This year we will be preparing much of the soil to be able to plant more next year. 

To help our soil, we are raising 24 chickens, 5 ducks and soon we will have 3 guinea hens.  Next year I'm hoping for a couple of goats as well.  Here are some pictures of our 4 weeek old chickens enjoying bugs under our burried trampoline. There is also a picture of our 4 day old ducks.  Aren't they cute?

Putting the garden to sleep

At the end of the gardening season, we pull all the dead plants out and cover the beds with leaves. This year we got to the leaves before the landscapers did and had the kids and their friends help us gather the leaves from the front. As you can tell the kids had fun as well using the boxes as sleds and playing in the water! As you can see we had a great tomato crop this year. The last picture is what we picked AFTER the first frost.

Emma and her friend Savannah "sleding"


The kids playing in the water

Our left over tomatoes and Gwen's head

Our Garden, New Classification: The Jungle

So, we re-named our backyard garden to The Jungle. Last year we planted many plants and only a few survived. This year I planted much more thinking that half would die. Nothing died and now we have a jungle in our backyard. Everything did so well that I can't mow the lawn. I contribute, the jungle, to composting and Aiden's nightly prayers in which he asks for the garden to grow "really big". Here are some pictures Robyn so proudly took of our jungle.

Watching our garden grow

So here are some pictures of the progression of our garden. As you can see our tomatoes went wild this year. Yes! I love fresh tomatoes!

Gwen, Aiden and Robyn near the tomatoes

Aiden and Robyn in front of the pumpkins

Here they are in front of the sunflowers

Gwen with the tomatoes

Our Garden

Here are some pictures of our postage stamp sized yard at the begining of the gardening season. This year I added 3 grape vines, 3 raspberrie bushes and 16 tomato plants. I just want you to see some before, inbetween and after the garden has grown...

In the back yard:

In the front yard: