They're Always Our Babies...

Our kids--even when they're grown & too big to hold and don't hardly fit on the couch or the bed--are always our babies.....especially when they're sleeping. No matter what they do when they're awake, or how crazy they drive us, it seems that when they're lying there sleeping (just like when they're babies) they look so innocent & sweet. You want to sit down & cuddle them (even know you KNOW that would never be allowed if they were awake.) I wonder if I'll still be feeling this way when HE'S 41 and I'm 65......Does that ever go away?

August Already? Time for an Update!!

Well, August is upon us today and with the beginning of a new month the guilt sets in that I haven't been keeping up on my blog again. I may have to do like my niece Jenna and do a long update post to get you all (and by "all" I mean those 2 or 3 readers out there) updated...

PIGS

As of today's date, we are down to one pig, Brillo.

Collin & Trevor did an awesome job at the Canyon County Fair. Collin's pig Wallace won 4th in his class for Market and Trevor's pig Spunky got 2nd in his class for Market. The next day was Showmanship, which judges the kids on how well they show their pigs and how much control they have over them. Neither one of them placed in that part of it...we discovered just how unpredictable & stubborn pigs can be.

Overall though they were great and it was good to see them really pitching in and helping out their other club members when it came time for things like cleaning pens, feeding & watering and washing the pigs.

The morning of the first day of the fair, when we were loading up the pigs, the boys reiterated (as they had done for months previously) how much they hated the pigs and they didn't ever want to do this again. However, by the end of the first day at the fair, Collin was already talking about his plans for next year. It's amazing how just being at the fair and participating in the events can really encourage them to keep doing it. They made some good friends (or became better friends with the ones they already met through 4H) and had a great time hanging around with the rest of their club members during off hours at the fair.

GARDEN

Mixed feelings about the garden...on one hand some of it is growing by leaps & bounds. On the other hand, we're having trouble with other parts of it. We had a very hot spell the last couple of weeks and although we've done our best to keep it sufficiently watered, the corn seems to be drying out. Also some of the cucumber plants have gotten some kind of wilt or something. But I'm hoping to keep it from spreading to the rest of them. Of course, the zucchini is growing wild and we can hardly keep up with keeping all of it picked. Some of those little suckers hide under the big leaves and we don't find them until they've grown to monster zucchini proportion. I'm thrilled that our watermelon is doing well...the other night my husband counted all of the watermelon fruit currently growing and there are 22. Yes....22. We're keeping a close watch on the pumpkin patch, hoping to see the small pumpkins start swelling & ripening in time for Halloween. We have about 2 1/2 months until people will want pumpkins for the Halloween season.

Some people have asked us why we planted such a big garden...after all, there are only four of us in our family and the boys don't eat much in the way of some of the vegetables we're growing. But my husband and I decided before we planted the garden that we wanted to have enough to share. We want to share with our friends who have all helped us in their own ways over the past year. And whatever we have in abundance after we have shared with our friends we plan on sharing with a local food bank.

When I was a single mom, back when my son was just a toddler, we belonged to a church that had a food bank program. As a single mom, I was asked if I wanted to participate and I'm so glad I said yes. I would take Collin with me to the food bank and we would walk through the room with our grocery bags, picking out the fresh veggies & fruits (along with canned & boxed goods) that came from local farmers in the Camarillo area. This is my way of giving back what was given to my son & I when we needed it most. I only hope that I can help others as much as they helped us.

Evolution of a Garden...

Tonight when I went out for my nightly perusal of our garden, I was amazed at how much it has changed in just over a month or so. The plants are seeming to explode in size overnight. Some of our rows didn't grow as we had planned--either the birds got the seeds or, well...all I can think of is that the birds got the seeds. But I'm still happy at how the rows have turned out for the most part.

I was going to just post a current picture but I think it's much more of a visual effect if I start at the beginning...

This is the garden on 5/18/09. We had just gotten done with some major planting of seeds. Pretty much all dirt with nothing even thinking of sprouting yet.

This is our garden on 6/7/09, just one month ago today. The corn was coming along, the cucumbers & beans were sprouting, but there was still a LOT of dirt.

Forward to 6/26/09 and things are definitely looking different! My son Collin built a "fence" for me for the cucumbers and everything is really taking off.

And here we are today! First photo is standing in the middle looking left. Second photo is looking right. Corn is above knee-high, most of the tomato plants are in cages, the broccoli is FINALLY starting to form in the middle, zucchini is going nuts and watermelon is sprawling out. (There's more than that growing but you get the idea...)

Every day I'm excited to go out into the garden and see what else I find growing. I'm finding vegetables peeking out from under leaves and vines everywhere. Sometimes I find something that looks like it's been growing for awhile and I like to think it hid there for awhile just to surprise me when I least expect it.
I'll keep you posted...

That's a Lot of Bacon!

Remember this post back in March? Those three cute little piggies we got for the boys to raise for 4H? Just for reference, here they were back in the beginning of April:

Well they've grown just a little...Here is a picture I took just about a week or so ago:

We haven't been able to weigh them and I'm so bad at guessing things like weights and measurements that I'm not going to even attempt to say how big they are. All I know is they pack a lot of power behind them if you get in the way of their food.

Speaking of weighing them, we made an attempt several weeks ago to do this. We were supposed to load up the pigs and take them to a butcher to have them weighed. The whole 4H group showed up but to our dismay the butcher didn't make it so no one could get in to get them weighed. This was unfortunate because it was a very hot day and we don't have an actual livestock trailer.


Whenever we have to transport the pigs, we have to use Randy's cargo trailer. We tried our best to make the pigs comfortable (pigs don't do well in heat at ALL) by opening the vent on top of the trailer and buying several blocks of ice to keep inside the trailer with them to keep them as cooled down as possible.


After the failed attempt at weigh in, Randy & the boys arrived back at home and Randy backed the trailer up to the pig pen area. We opened up the back doors of the trailer and this was the first thing we saw:

I love how he had his butt propped up on the ice block. It did kind of scare us though because he wouldn't move at all and Randy had to kind of shove him out the trailer and he basically just fell on the ground and didn't move at first. We thought for sure we had killed him. But after a short moment he got up on his feet and ran into the pen, so all was well.

Actually, looking at this picture now, it is an even better example of how big the pigs have gotten because you can see Randy's legs in the background for comparison and can see that the pigs body lays across more than half (probably about 3/4) of the trailer width. I told you they were getting big....

Tis the Season.....

...for planting & growing!

This morning I started off "prettying up the place". Randy had volunteered for security detail at a speaking engagement a couple of weeks ago and at the end of the night they gave him a bunch of the plants they had used to decorate. Yesterday I remembered that Randy had brought a large planting pot with him when he moved out here so we got some potting soil and first thing today I got it planted with some of those plants we had. When I was done we still had quite a few left so I decided to put them out in the front flower beds to add some color. I believe that in this zone these plants are considered annuals so they won't come back next year--but for now they add a nice splash to the beds and our front porch. The colors are all red, white and blue so when Fourth of July comes around we'll look very patriotic, lol.


Our garden is really finally taking off, after a few false starts. But I'm pretty happy with how it's turning out. You can't really tell in this picture but almost everything is up & growing. The five rows on the right are all corn which is growing the fastest. Throughout the rest of the garden is garlic, spinach, peppers, broccoli, green beans, cucumbers, watermelon, zucchini, carrots, leaf lettuce and iceberg lettuce. (I may be forgetting something...) We ended up not having enough room for the pumpkins so we had to spend today tilling 4 more rows for them. (You can see Randy starting that to the left of the garden in the picture.) We managed to get them all planted before the rain started this afternoon. The rain we've gotten lately has been a great help because it's cut back on the watering we've had to do this week. I'll keep you all updated on the garden progress as time goes by...