Are there vegetables coming out of my ears?

Yesterday's Harvest:

Before lunch:



After lunch:


Lots of vegetables is a good thing. Lots of vegetables is a good thing. Lots of vegetables is a good thing.

Calling for Submissions

The Homesteading Carnival will be hosted right here on Monday. Please use the Blog Carnival form to submit your posts. Not familiar with this carnival? Here is the carnival description:

A carnival full of homesteading articles... from your kitchen with yummy recipes, your sewing room with homemaking ideas to planting your garden, raising farm animals, and raising a family on the homestead. Please join us on the homestead and submit something from yours!

Hope to see your post listed here on Monday!

Getting Paid to Buy Diapers

For those of you purchasing diapers and who have a Rite Aid near, now is the time to do a little stocking up.

Rite Aid currently if offering a Buy $25 get $10 Rite Aid gift certificate or buy $50 get $25 gift certificate on select Kimberely-Clark, Bayer, Schick and Unilever products. The Huggies, Pull Up and Goodnites brands are included among those items.

There also is a buy 5 get a certificate for one free on the above mentioned brands (until July 25.) And this week Mega packs of Pull Ups are on sale for $14.99 with a $2 rebate (limit 1.) Jumbo packs of Goodnites are on sale for $10.99. So how this all plays out for you will vary on what you need to buy, but here is the transaction that I am making.

Yesterday I bought 2 Mega packs at $14.99 and two Jumbo packs at $10.99 = $51.96

I had two $1 coupons bringing the total on the diapers to $49.96.

I also had a $20.98 rebate check from the previous month making my cash out of pocket for the diapers $28.98.

I will get a $25 gift certificate and $2 rebate. Now I've spent $1.98 on those diapers. I will also receive $0.75 per pack rebate from Caregivers Marketplace, turning my cost into a $1.97 profit. And because I purchased another pack of diapers during the buy 5 get one free promotion period, I will also get a certificate for a free pack of diapers. Not too shabby for buying four packs of diapers this week!

I love when great deals like this come along on things I need. I also love that stocking up when there is a great deal means I don't have to go buy the items for awhile.

Can you find the kids in the garden?

The wet rainy spring was hard on much of the garden. My tomatoes are just starting to bounce back from a near drowning experience. Though we did pick some yesterday, the first planting of corn looks pretty anemic. Instead of dwelling on the difficult areas of the garden, let me show off one area that is doing very well.

The newest garden spot is on a hillside next to my parent's house. There are watermelon, grapes and cabbage that can not be seen in the picture. The strawberries are at the top of the hill. You can just see the corner of the patch in the lower left hand corner. In the foreground are the cucumbers. My seven year old is standing behind the zucchini. The three year old is between the zucchini and the winter squash. If your eyes are good, you may be able to see the five year old behind the squash. He is standing in front of the asparagus. Then at the bottom of the hill (right side of the picture) are the pumpkins.

I am so thrilled with our hillside garden. We've been getting lots of cucumbers and zucchini. The rest of the plants are flourishing too. The past couple of years we have had so many problems with squash bugs and vine borers. I am not sure if it is the new location, the companion planting of radishes and marigolds, or my increased diligence in hunting and destroying the bugs' eggs (probably a combination of all of the above,) but the pests have really not been a problem this year, so far. I've found a few squash bug egg clusters to squish. I thought I saw a vine borer moth about a week ago, but so far have not seen eggs or damage from the little beasts. I am thoroughly enjoying this part of the garden.

Anyone have a cow costume?

Last night night my husband asked me if I'd dress up like a cow to get a free meal. I thought for a moment and then told him that getting together a cow costume would cost more than the meal it self.

I thought I'd gotten myself out of dressing up like a cow. I was mistaken.

This Friday Chick-fil-A is giving a free meal to anyone dressed like a cow in honor of their 5th annual cow appreciation day. Don't have a cow costume? They'll help you get started. See Cow Appreciation Day for more details, and a costume starter kit.

Since my husband also twittered today that he is making the whole family do this, I better start printing off the starter kits.

Pardon My Updates

Canning season is upon us, and it prompted me to do a little re-organization of the blog. I went through this morning and gave all the canning and preserving posts that label. For those of you reading in a reader, apologies for all the updates. For those of you looking for canning information and recipes, now it is all under one label; canning and preserving.

Easy Pickled Beets

The beets are just about done in my garden. Due to my lack of timely thinning I have many baby beets to harvest. I also have a lot of small onions in the garden. I decided to make cold pickled baby beets and onions.

First cook the beets, and remove the skins. Place beets and onions in a clean jar. Cover with vinegar and add a little salt and pepper, or other pickling spices if you like. Place the lid on the jar and refrigerate. Let sit for a day before eating.

Because of the vinegar, these will keep for a long time in the refrigerator. If you need to store in the pantry seal the jars in a boiling water bath.

Finding a Rhythm to the Days

It is almost July (hope you join us for Firsts on the First over at MIFS on Wednesday) and I am finally finding a summer rhythm. There so many projects going on in the summer. There are activities with family and friends, and this year there is also work away from home. It can all quickly becoming overwhelming to me.

I've long given up on trying to do it all perfectly, and have settled for doing it all tolerably. Perhaps that sounds like a poor work ethic, but I simply can not have a spotless house, a weed free garden, daily blog posts, and attend every social activity in the midst of raising four children, tending animals, and working part time. But more importantly, I refuse to even attempt to attain perfection in those areas if it is going to keep me from enjoying life.

I enjoy my home, my gardens, my family, and writing. They all require my time, and quite a bit of work, but there are only so many hours in the day. There simply are not enough hours to get it all done. I find it helps if I establish a schedule for my days. The schedule gives a flow to the days. It keeps me moving, and gets enough done to keep all areas tolerable. My days look something like this:

Waking Up

I generally wake up around 7:00. I'm a little slow to wake up, and usually have the house to myself for a bit. If Tim hasn't left for work yet, he is usually outside working on the project of the week. I enjoy the quiet to eat my breakfast, check email, read blogs, and what not. Most mornings laundry is also started and the clothesline filled.

Soon the kids are up. The oldest two can get their own breakfast and get dressed. The younger two sometimes need a little help.

Getting Moving

We all go outside in the morning while it still cool. There are animals to feed in the morning. Then it is time to work in the garden. In a few weeks, there will also be berries to pick. I usually have the kids help with some task, but they all end up playing long before I'm done in the garden.

I don't mind. I enjoy the peace and solitude in the garden. I enjoy the process of gardening. I'm not the best gardener in the world. I am still learning, especially about organic methods, and I have a hard time keeping up with the weeds.

We mulched this spring with bedding material from the barns. Mulch is supposed to help control the weeds right? Usually, but with it being so wet this spring, everything in the mulch germinated. We ended up just tilling in some of the mulch, but now that it is hotter and drier the weeds have been a bit easier to control.

We have three garden spots. Two small ones close to the house, and a large one quite a way from the house. I try to hit each one everyday. I'm not doing a whole lot in each garden everyday. Sometimes I just look in to see what is growing and what needs done.

This morning I picked beets and checked carrots in one garden. In another garden I picked cucumbers and zucchini while keeping an eye out for squash bug eggs on the plants. I think I saw a vine borer moth this morning there too. I pulled a few weeds, and put strawberry runners in their rows. In the large garden I trained bean vines up the fence, pulled a few weeds, checked the yellow squash plants there, and made a mental list of what needs done in that garden tomorrow. That garden will have to be the first stop tomorrow morning.

I Need A Break

By the time we've done all that it is time for lunch. We all get a quick lunch, and then the three year old goes down for the nap. The other kids usually use their TV time for the day after lunch too. You'll find me right where I am now, in front of the computer.

This is the time I check email, Facebook, or write. Often times I will do a little behind the scenes garden work like making notes in my garden journal, or researching or making lists about what I observed in the garden in the morning. Today I found what Vine Borer Moth eggs look like so I can start keeping an eye out for them. I also found an interesting article that suggests putting foil down around the plants. I may be out in the garden with foil tomorrow morning.

Eventually I look at the clock, and look at the kitchen and realize I better get moving again.

In the House

By mid afternoon it is hot outside, and I find things to do in the house. Most often I am cleaning up the kitchen and working on laundry. It won't be long until the afternoons are spent processing the harvest. Housework is not an enjoyable task to me. I often am distracted from it by my garden books, cook books, or the computer.

Evenings

When Tim gets home there are still a few hours of daylight left. He and my dad always have a long list of farm projects that need done. Those precious hours of daylight, when they are both home, are spent outside working on projects. I am usually occupied wrapping up my other projects from the day, and getting dinner ready. Dinner is usually late in the summer, sometimes not until after eight. Then it is time to put kids in bed. Tim and I might watch a movie or just sit and talk, but we usually are in bed relatively early. We both need a good night's rest.

I wish everyday flowed to the rhythm described above. It is a rhythm that I can follow easily, but life isn't that simple. Tuesday evenings the rhythm changes because I work. Saturdays and Sundays I am working all day following a completely different beat. There are busy weeks where I barely see the gardens or touch the laundry because we are playing with friends or have errands to run.

It is after those weeks that I feel so overwhelmed by the weeds and laundry piles that have exploded. But instead of it overwhelming me, I can just slip back into the rhythm that I prefer, the one that I know so well. I work in the gardens in the morning, getting done what I can get done. I work in the house in the afternoon, getting done what I can get done.

No my gardens aren't weed free. My house is far from spotless. I don't get everything done that I'd like too. I keep things at a tolerable level. Finding a rhythm to my days helps me get enough done, and keeps me from getting overwhelmed by my to do list. I like this rhythm that I have found.

The picture of my middle children really doesn't have anything to do with this post. I just like it!