Hot: Boiling

I contribute to a blog called Mission 24 (see the blog list). Twice a week we are given a word and asked to take a picture of what it means to us. Today's word was HOT! I just love this picture so I had to share it.


I took this in my kitchen with our wonderful red sauce pot. (which had to be scoured) I put some water in and let it boil. I originally was going for the steam out of the pot but the bubbles looked so cool when I caught them in the camera. In PS I cropped just a little, and boosted the color by saturating it. The red pot just wasn't red enough.

And now for the hard part

Well, the easy part is over now. I have everything planted. Yesterday afternoon I dug a trench for my asparagus and planted the asparagus. Well, this morning when I woke up something made me look up how to plant asparagus and found that I had planted them upside down! So first thing this morning I dug my asparagus back up and and replanted them the right way. Here's a picture of my new trenches. You can't tell from the picture, but those trenches are about 6 inches deep, 4-5 inches wide and about 9 feet long. And I dug them in only 1 hour! After planting the asparagus the right way, It was time to plant my other plants.

Here you can see my bell pepper plants and cayenne peppers. We have 1 purple pepper, 1 red pepper, 1 golden pepper, 3 green peppers, 3 yellow peppers and 3 cayenne peppers. These plants were planted right next to my onions which are still doing very well. As you may or may not be able to tell, the areas between my onions has been freshly hoed. There are several very small plants growing between the plants. I noticed this morning that just raking my fingers through the soil was enough to pull them. So when Crys and I were out this morning running errands we picked up a metal rake and a combination hoe with two prongs on the end. It works very well and you can see my freshly furrowed rows!

I also planted some green beans, cucumbers, squash and tomato plants. You can't see the squash, green beans or cucumbers but I did take a picture of my tomato plants. Below is a picture of my tomato plants and a side view of the pepper plants. Now that the easy part is done, I get to do the hard part, constantly weeding, watering and praying that my plants actually bloom and my hard work actually pans out. Here's to hoping and praying!

Our New Song

At our wedding we used 'Little Wonders' by Rob Thomas as our song. At the time it was the perfect song describe our relationship. But recently we discovered that our relationship has changed a lot! And this song "Lucky" by Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat is a beautiful song that we feel really describes our relationship after a year of marriage.

"LUCKY"

Do you hear me,
I'm talking to you
Across the water across the deep blue ocean
Under the open sky oh my, baby I'm trying
Boy I hear you in my dreams
I feel your whisper across the sea
I keep you with me in my heart
You make it easier when life gets hard

I'm lucky I'm in love with my best friend
Lucky to have been where I have been
Lucky to be coming home again
Oooohhhhoohhhhohhooohhooohhooohoooh

They don't know how long it takes
Waiting for a love like this
Every time we say goodbye
I wish we had one more kiss
I'll wait for you I promise you, I will

I'm lucky I'm in love with my best friend
Lucky to have been where I have been
Lucky to be coming home again
I'm lucky we're in love in every way
Lucky to have stayed where we have stayed
Lucky to be coming home someday

And so I'm sailing through the sea
To an island where we'll meet
You'll hear the music, fell the air
I'll put a flower in your hair
Though the breezes through trees
Move so pretty you're all I see
As the world keeps spinning round
You hold me right here right now

I'm lucky I'm in love with my best friend
Lucky to have been where I have been
Lucky to be coming home again
I'm lucky we're in love in every way
Lucky to have stayed where we have stayed
Lucky to be coming home someday

Ooohh ooooh oooh oooh ooh ooh ooh ooh
Ooooh ooooh oooh oooh ooh ooh ooh ooh

What a Difference a week makes!

It's the happy gardener again. I actually have not been able to work on the garden at all this week since it has been raining every other day this week and it has been very cool and downright cold at times. We actually had snow on Monday night! But today when I was weeding the garden I noticed that the soil was actually very warm so I decided to go ahead and do some planting. I planted 2 rows of carrots, 2-3 rows of peas, 2 rows of snow peas and 2 rows of lettuce. Hopefully in a few weeks I'll be able to post some pictures of my other veggies and show you all my ever growing garden.

I seem to have proven myself a good onion grower though! By my count 99% of the onion bulbs I planted back in March have already sprouted! One of them was even growing underneath one of my stepping stones! I moved the stone and it had sprouted and was growing underneath it but it was white instead of green like the rest. I moved the stone so that it could get the sunlight it needs. If you look in the picture to the left, right in front of the stepping stone, you can see the white onion sprout that was growing underneath it! Some of the sprouts have gotten quite tall already! Enjoy the pics.

Crys and I were able to go to the wedding of one of my employees today. We had a really good time and even got to dance together. It was a great way to spend a Saturday.

the Happy Gardener

I think Crys is rubbing off on me. I'm becoming a sentimental sap and getting all giddy over things that I never would have in years past. The thing I am probably most proud of currently is my garden. Two Friday's ago, Crys' dad came over to help with the tilling of the garden with his power tiller. We had a fun time with it especially when he cut clean through our cable line! :) The following day on Saturday I spent my entire morning lining the garden with red bricks that you see here.




Once I was done with lining the garden I still had over 20 bricks left scattered throughout the yard that had to be stacked up so they didn't kill the lawn. So I spent a good hour or so moving all of those over to our patio. They weighed about 20lbs a piece and since I'm big, fat and out of shape, it really wore me out. :) I then raked the garden since it was still full of rocks, roots, broken garden spades, batteries, toy cars, you name it and I've found it in our garden. I took a break for a few hours and came back out around 5 pm and spent about 2 hours planting 9 rows of onions: 3 rows of red, 3 rows of white and 3 rows of yellow.


I'm sure there have been a few days that didn't fit this mold since then, but it seems like it has literally rained every 2nd day since that Saturday. For sure it has rained every day that I've wanted to work in the garden. And it's not just a light sprinkle. It's a good solid rain, and in the case of last Thursday, we had really severe thunderstorms and tornado warnings. I've actually been pretty worried about my poor little onion plants. Today, before General conference, I was cleaning the house and spent some time in the garden. This is the first chance I've had to weed in the garden since day 1 and grass was trying to take over my precious garden. So I spent a good 30 minutes uprooting grass and other various weeds and I was ecstatic to see almost all of my onions have already taken root and started sending up shoots! I have included some pictures and I hope you can see them ok. That's my finger next to it for comparison. That's about the average size of the plants with some much smaller, and 2 much bigger! I will be planting more veggies as it warms up and will keep you all posted. Here are two more pictures of my yummy onions!

Spring Break

I'm not sure what is worse, the pain, the lack of sleep or that fact that it was all well worth it. Monday night Janelle, Breana, Gibby, Molly, Joey, Sam and Julie all came into town. And they all stayed at Mom and Dad's house, I stayed with them too. I was there to help chase kids and all the fun that goes with it.
Tuesday started very early and we headed to Churchill Downs for a tour with the home school group. On this trip it was just Mom, Me, Eli, Brandon, Gibby, and Molly. The reason we went so early was because we were able to see the horses train. Some of them might actually be racers in this years Kentucky Derby. These were just amazing horses. After seeing the horses they had a music class for the kids and then we went through the exhibits. Towards the end of the trip my camera memory card decided to eat 30 of my pictures. Urggggg. And then it died on me, totally kaput. After a nap and some dinner we all headed out to bowling alley. While the family bowled (an activity I can't do) I went on a hunt for a new Compact Flash memory card. It took 5 stores and almost 2 hours but I eventually found one. I made it back to the bowling alley before the game was finished so I got a few photos.
Wednesday was another day filled with activity. We went down to the Louisville Science Center. Holy Smacks was it busy!! Lots and lots to do and the kids loved it!!! It was three and a half floors of things to do and see. We had lunch, watched a rocket launch, dressed up like fish, walked passed two HUGE polar bears, built and archway and crawled through a cave. Not to mention all the other activities in between. The downside was it was very loud most of the time. It's in an old building downtown that has been renovated into the science center. But as an older building it was not very sound conscious and put a ton of activities in there and several hundred people. It gets loud quick. Still the kids loved it and didn't want to go at the end of the 3 hours we were there. But we had to leave otherwise we could have hit rush hour traffic.
That afternoon was spent taking pictures of the kids in their Easter outfits. So they would have new photos to send overseas. We got some fun shots of them all together and Miss Molly just loves to model for me. While I was doing photos dad was busy grilling hot dogs and chicken for everyone. Yummy!!! And Fred made an appearance to see everyone. Out night was filled with games, laughter, movies, and lots of children running around.
Today was a fairly calm day. For me. I spent a lot of time working with photos, printing, and backing up files. While Mom and Bre took the kids to a movie Janelle and I did a photo shoot of Julie. She is such a little cutie.
Bre and the kids just left, so here I sit with Mom, and Janelle watching a movie. Eli and Brandon are playing video games and Julie is asleep. It sounds almost silent compared to the last two days. Oh it different. Part of me misses it and part of me not so much, I'm glad for the quite but I do miss the family.