It looks like I let the kiddos loose in the garden, doesn’t it? Maybe they were playing in the garden and became hungry and settled upon a yummy looking honeydew and just started eating away. Well, I know that it was not the kiddos as we have a tall fence around the garden and the kiddos need my help to get in and out. We added the fence to keep the bunnies out but I think that the squirrels have found a way in! Grrrrrr! I have caught them inside the fence before but I did not know that they would really eat anything but now I have proof that they would. I started noticing a few weeks ago that part of our vines were missing off the honeydew (see how some of the leaves are brown in the picture. . .stinky squirrels) and a lot of the little watermelons were disappearing. I was trying to be okay with it because was still had fruit that was growing and getting pretty large. Today I became not okay with it because this stinky squirrel ate a hole out of the melon. It was really fresh when I found it so I must of just missed him. Who knew that one would have to worry about squirrels climbing the backyard fence to jump over the garden fence and land safely in the garden to chew down a bunch of honeydew vines and grab a taste of a honeydew while he was at it. Grrrrrr!

The Sunflowers have started to bloom this week. Our Sabbath morning started with seeing our first Sunflower fully open which was a sweet gift! Sister did laps around the downstairs screaming and dancing along the way. She was so excited!!! These seem to be a smaller variety but no matter they are bringing our household much joy! I love the process of watching them unfold and I love that they are all in process. They seem to be so much like us. . .we are all in process and we are all in different parts of the process.

The garden still amazes me! I mean food actually grows out there! It really does blow my mind sometimes! Saturday morning I went out to pick a few things and just check on the garden in general to see how everything was doing. 5 cucumbers, a pile of beans, several jalapenos, squash, okra and zucchini all went into the bucket to come back into the house. Food growing in my yard! Wild! Yes, it is work but it is still neat and exciting! I went back out to look around the garden one last time and I spied the baby watermelon! Watermelon growing in my yard! Amazing! I mean yes, I planted it but you always think, at least I always think, will it really grow!? There are so many things that have to work together to create little veggies and fruits that grow into big veggies and fruits. Who knows if they will make it to full size (maybe the large problem is that I am a negative thinker) but the baby watermelon was such a fun surprise! I went out again this evening to water and I found a honey dew growing as well! They are so cute when they are small! God is amazing in the way that He creates and grows things! Definitely amazing!

I spent rest time yesterday outside in the front yard. We recently had our bushes torn out as they were growing very old and tired and I also was growing tired of them so out they went. I replaced the bushes a few weeks ago with a the smaller Firepower Nandina and I am really excited about that choice. It took me forever to decide but I think that overall we are happy with them. We also have a TON (understatement) of monkey grass in the front beds which was fine with the larger bushes but now that we have the small bushes it needed to come out. I have definitely been putting this job off but after finding some thyme on clearance (I cannot remember the name of it but it will have white blooms in the spring and fall) at Home Depot I knew that it was time to dived and conquer the monkey grass. I finished one side but still have more monkey grass to pull out on the other side. I think that I could of finished but a bee sting slowed me down. I have not been stung by a bee since I was little but it still hurts even when you are older!!! Brad actually took the day off yesterday so he came to my rescue with ice and baking soda. He is my hero! It did feel good to accomplish at least part of this huge project and play landscaping for a day. Playing pretend landscaper is so much cheaper than hiring a landscaper but it is a ton of work!

I hear the word, again, often these days with the garden in full bloom. It seems as though we have an abundance of squash and there are only so many ways a person can make squash. I am still in the camp of, it is delicious! I am surprised but I am really not tired of it yet. Maybe it is because I am the one who gets to go out to the garden and chose the veggies that we have with dinner and it is still amazing to me that I could grow our food. I do love it! The kids are in the camp of, for real mom, I mean we have had this a million times! Hubby is in the camp of, again, but hey, it is free and good for us! Ahh, just wait until the okra is going full force! It could be worse I tell them! I am the only okra lover here but that is okay! I will sneak it into their meals somehow! They will be thankful for the squash yet again! The garden is well. The sugar snap peas are dying because the squash has begun to grow over top of them and it is threatening the peppers as well but I am willing to take drastic measures to keep it out of the peppers! The green and yellow beans are slowing down a good bit. The zucchini plant for some reason is a super slow producer. He is not happy about something I am just not sure what it is. The tomatoes are nice and green so I am hopeful for some sweet juicy redness soon!!! I did pull a carrot out last night as I just wanted to see how far along it was. It was super cute but they are still not ready yet. Does anyone else feel weird about sometimes eating what they grow in their gardens? There is just something about the carrot growing in the dirt that totally weirds me out! I cannot explain it! We have a whole row growing so at some point I will break down and eat one! Even sister is weirded out by it! Well, I am off to deliver more squash to the neighbors!

Yes, it is not officially here yet but the kids are out of school and the days are warmer so the feel of summer is in the air minus the humidity (it shall arrive soon though). We have been busy out in the backyard this spring working away on jobs and just getting the backyard to a place where we can really enjoy it. I think that we are headed into the years with the little ones where we will be spending much much time out there.

I had a small garden last year just to try it out and see if it seemed doable and this year I decided to go a good bit bigger. After planting about a month ago I felt super stressed out and was feeling a little done with the garden. . .I know not good to feel that way at the start of something. After a lot of work and weed control this has been the first weekend where I feel like it is at a place where I like it and can really enjoy going out there to pull just a few weeds and check on everything. For now no bugs are eating away at anything and the weeds are under control etc. It is a happy place! For now we have Carrots, Tomatoes, Cherry Tomatoes, Sweet Peas, Jalapenos, Green Peppers, Yellow Peppers, Pimentos, Squash, Zucchini, Cucumbers, Yellow Beans, Green Beans, Okra, Sweet Basil, Cantaloupe, Watermelon, Honey Dew, Sunflowers and some other flowers from seeds. Whew, we shall see what of that actually grows well but so far the squash and cucumbers, peas and green beans are all coming in. A few others have begun flowering so it is exciting!

Another purchase this spring were our rain barrels. I am super excited about these!!! It just takes a good rain for them to be overflowing so I am sure that we will add more in the future but for now I am very happy with two! They are very handy and hopefully they will save us some on the water bill when it comes to watering the garden this summer.

Last but not least yesterday Brad and his dad worked hard to install some post (set in concrete) in the backyard that we can attach hangers on for bird feeders. We have had one feeder for a very long time but we have all (even the kiddos) greatly been enjoying watching the birds come so we decided to add a few more. It has been fun to pick out some new feeders and I am hoping to plant some flowers underneath the feeders as well. We hope to add a few more plants to the backyard as well but for now it is all coming along. It has been so much fun to make our backyard our very owns space and bring a bit of restoration to it!

I found this beautiful Okra flower blooming in the garden last week! It was a wonderful surprise as the okra had not done much up until now. I picked the first of the okra this week and last night I fried some in true southern style! It was very yummy even though I ate it alone as the kiddos and hubby would not touch it.

My husbands Alma Mater sent us an invitation for the opening of their new science building and it was so cool that I had to share! What could be so cool about an invitation you ask, well it is printed on paper with wildflower seeds embedded in it! I know, so cool isn’t it! Here is a picture of the back of the invite which tells you how to plant your new wild flower seeds!

I just Googled wildflower seed paper and you can actually buy it at many different places and many places will print invitations on it as well. Hmm, maybe I am the last to know about this as well but it is still cool!

I was not sure that the day would ever come but the tomatoes are finally ripening and I am finding myself with an overwhelming amount of tomatoes! Not a bad problem at all to have just an overwhelming problem! I have given many away but I am still finding myself with so many tomatoes. I have been gathering information and trying to decide the best method to put away some tomatoes for the winter months and I think that I am going to go with freezing for now. I definitely want to can next year but it just felt like to much to run out and buy all the things that I would need to plunge into that so I settled on freezing for now. I spent a small part of nap time preparing the tomatoes and if all goes as planned we can have some tasty casseroles and soups with fresh tomatoes in the dead middle of winter. That is pretty exciting to me! I followed these directions and it was really pretty easy. A little messy but easy all the same! Give it a try and we can enjoy soup together this winter!

Oh yes, I also want to try to make some of these although by the looks of them they would not be around as long as the frozen tomatoes. Tasty!

The garden has been in full bloom we have already had many cucumbers and two squash. There are a few jalapenos waiting to be picked and the tomatoes are working on turning from green to red! The past two weeks I have been taking care of a friends garden while she is away and since she started her garden before mine she has already had a lot of tomatoes ripen and they have been delicious. Here is a look at a tasty salad from the other night (there are not many cucumbers because I kept picking them out to eat), there is nothing like garden fresh!

I promise to post soon with quilt pictures as I finally finished the Amy Butler Brick Path Quilt