September Art Project / day nine

Just a quick watercolor in honor of the history sentence my kids are memorizing in Classical Conversations this week.

This is Day Nine of my September Art Project and I am slowly but surely running out of ideas of what to draw or paint. However, I persevere. Just like those colonists long ago.

Make sure you check out Carlye's work. She encouraged me to join her in 30 projects in 30 days.

That's pretty daunting considering how much time I don't think I have. So all my projects are small - 4" by 4" or so.

Let me know if you're joining us. I'd love to see what you create!

September Art Project / day five

Day Five

September Art Project / day two

Homeschooling at a Non-Homeschool Location

Day Two of my 30 projects in 30 days for September.

My view this morning homeschooling from a non-home location.

10 points if you can guess the location!

September Art Project / day one

So my friend Carlye encouraged me to join her in a 30 for 30 art project. 30 creations - 1 for each day of September. Here's my first one! (I'm using ink & pencil.)

Outside of Tao, NM

desert southwest road trip 2013

Hiking adventure. Pretty to look at. Don't touch!

The kids and I went on a road trip to visit the Grandparents who are 'snowbirding' in Truth or Consequences, NM this winter.

Hot springs, desert hikes, visiting the Rio Grande, window shopping on the main street - pretty exciting stuff happening in the TORC.

Except for almost visiting the local hospital due to asthma, it was a pretty great trip.

Plants in sunny window sill? Yes.

An example of something to avoid on a desert hike.

Old books. Yummy.

Time to work on those Baby Hiking Muscles.

Like to visit random small town libraries? I do.

Old service station.

Old business sign mural. Love.

Window display.

No texting while driving! Pix? Totally okay.

You need to visit (all of which can be done on a detour off the freeway through town):

Riverbend Hotsprings
Relax in your own private hotspring with a view of the Rio Grande. That's just cool.

Passion Pie Cafe
Best coffee in town. Super strong, the way it's meant to be.

Black Cat Books & Coffee
Great selection of used books. Best carrot cake ever!

Here are a few pix of our trip.

A boy and his Grandpa.

getting in the garden groove

Last summer's tomatoes. Ink and colored pencil.

If you know me, you know I like to garden. It's really so much fun. Fun to get the kids digging in the dirt. [Our pediatrician recently reminded me that Baby was eating dirt last summer. Totally forgot about that.]

Fun to plant seeds and water and wonder and hope things will sprout. Rejoice over the weather. Haul compost. Drag rain water. Fret over the weather. [When the package says 'full sun', I don't think it means full high-desert sun.] Pray to the Lord for some zucchini. That sort of thing.

It's been a long road...

The year we first put in our raised garden beds, and filled them with wonderful composted truckloads of dirty loveliness, when everything was ready, anticipating the seeds...

I laid down in the gravel landscaping, with my hands over my face.

"What in the world are you doing?" says my surprised husband.

And I say, "I'm going to fail! I'm so overwhelmed! What if I can't grow ANYTHING!?"

And he says, "Um... you haven't even tried yet?"

And I'm like, "What does that have to do with anything?"

Me and Little Buddy in 2008. First Garden!

No, kidding. I got up out of the gravel and started planting. After I got over the drama of it all, I realized he was right. And I re-learned that my husband is very wise. And patient.

But I digress.

There's nothing better than an early walk, with my mug of coffee, outside looking at the plants, counting the new tomatoes, squashing my arch-nemeses (squash bugs), and burning the breakfast eggs to a carmelized crisp as I was only going to be outside for a few minutes.

This year, my new challenge to tackle is sprouting seeds indoors. I have no place with good sun. Someone was thinking, when they built this house, about keeping too much sun out. Good for the air conditioning bills in the summer. Bad for seed sprouting. And honestly, for someone who loves to garden so much, you'd think I could sprout seeds inside!

Seriously - It weighed over a pound!

So, what's a girl to do? Growing lamp. It's big time over here now people! But then the question is, should I just go buy one (or a used one) or go the DIY route, build it myself, and spend just as much money?!

Time to get on it... need to get some of the best tasting heirloom 'Grandma Wolfe PA Super Sweet Tomatoes' planted!

[Let me know if you'd like some seeds!]

Worm Bin Alive and Kicking

So, don't remember if I told you, but I took a look in my worm bin the other day. I'd decided to leave the little dudes alone for awhile, as I felt I was taxing their patience with my over-attentiveness. I took a look and found a whopping 5 adult worms! What happened!? No wonder the kitchen veggie scraps I'd been putting in the bin weren't getting eaten as fast as I thought they would.

I'm trying to resist just ordering more worms. For one thing, worms propagate. I just have to be patient. For another thing, who wants to pay $10 for a styro cup full of worms? And for a last thing, I did see a bunch of baby wormlets who will soon be eating their weight in kitchen scraps daily!

Did notice a few other interesting things growing in there though. A mushroom, tall and skinny. Some very furry and light looking mold on the damp shredded newspaper bedding.

What a saga! Having a worm bin is like having my own personal soap opera.

Up 2.

Been up to a lot lately. It mostly involves feeling dehydrated, dusty, and tired. Yup. You guessed it. More landscaping! Thankfully, the butt-load of chicken poo in our driveway has shrunk quite a bit. We're putting the rest under our to-be-delivered-Friday-sod.

I've found that if I get outside everyday to putz around in the yards, I feel so much better about life!

Here's my composter! *Which has got some sweet-o aromas, bug populations, and homemade dirt! Next to it you will see the tree-with-the-red-leaves, which-I-thought-was-dead. I'm glad I didn't just chop it down. I tend to do stuff like that.









This is a Century Plant, also known as Agave. These babies get really big and there's no telling when they'll bloom. But when they do, you can't miss it! They send up a huge spike (like 15+ feet) with these funky flowers on the top. Then the plant dies.

Since I just invested in four of these, I hope they don't bloom anytime soon.