The Garden Path

God made rainy days so gardeners could get the housework done.  ~Author Unknown

Link up and have fun visiting all of the participants.  Happy Gardening!

Watch Mugabe and the White African on PBS Tonight

One family’s stand for Justice – catch the story on PBS 7/26!

I'll be blogging about the book Mugabe and the White African later this month, but I wanted to let you know that Point of View will air the documentary Mugabe and the White African on Tuesday, July 26th.

The film tells the story of Mike Campbell and his family of three generations of Zimbabwean farmers as they attempt to keep their farm under Mugabe's "land reform." Watch the trailer for the documentary below and visit the PBS Point of View website for your local listing. http://www.pbs.org/pov/tvschedule/

The book Mugabe and the White African (Lion Books, distributed by Kregel Publications, July 15, 2011, ISBN: 978-0-7459-5546-9, $14.95) written by Mike Campbell's son-in-law Ben Freeth provides more detail regarding the family's struggles and court battles.The book chronicles the deeply moving and life-threatening struggle of a Christian family from Zimbabwe to protect their legally owned farmland, to protect the lives and livelihoods of all those working on the farm, and to live to see justice.

Freeth lays bare a beautiful but lawless land fouled by fear. A 'Clockwork Orange' state where racism, greed, and violence are ultimately humbled by almost unimaginable courage. Richly described, bravely chronicled, and utterly compelling. 

-Mike Thomson, Radio Foreign Affairs Correspondent, BBC

Note To Sarah

Don't be influenced by your older brothers to follow a facebook fad.

Do sit nicely at your desk and do your work quietly every day. 

Thanks!

2 Chronicles 30:27
Then the priests, the Levites, arose and blessed the people, and their voice was heard; and their prayer came up to His holy dwelling place, to heaven.

Mulch and Weeding Shortcut

Yellow pear tomatoes

First, I'll present my brilliant, time-saving weeding revelation.  I don't have to weed the paths in the vegetable garden.  I can get someone to weed eat the area once a week or so to keep the weeds short so they can't go to seed.  I think it will look nicer to have a green path instead of plain dirt.  Oh, and then all of the clippings will compost on their own and I can rake them up onto the beds in the spring.  Two wins with one simple solution, I hope!

Squash mulched with weeds

I am experimenting with using the weeds we pull as mulch instead of making compost.  So far, I like the results.  The soil stays moist and the weeds slowly decompose and add nutrients back to the soil.  Keeping the soil covered also keeps more weeds from growing and helps the plants stay cooler in the heat.  It's a great natural method.

It takes a lot of weeds to make a weed suppressing mulch.

One side effect I have noticed was a large spider who was living in the mulch.  He ran out onto the sidewalk while I was watering.  I would suggest wearing gloves if you are going to grub around in the soil.  

I started my tomatoes with a thick mulch of hay and they are taking the heat really well.  They have not wilted once and are loaded with fruit.  The mulch keeps the soil evenly moist so the tomatoes always have the water they need and I only have to water once a week.  It makes my job so much easier.  I also think the mulch looks nicer than bare soil or weeds.

The same bed 1/2 mulched, 1/2 left bare.  I have not pulled weeds from either side all season.  That's a tomato in the center of the mulched side.

I also like to use a living mulch to keep the weeds under control.  Sweet alyssum works well in the flower beds.  I do have to thin it out every once in awhile to give the other plants room.

How do you keep the weeds in your gardens under control?  I would love to hear any tips you have!

My Ab Rehab Journey

I took photos again this week but it is still too hard to tell by photo if I have started to shrink.  My upper abs look better and I feel like that area is smaller.  I still can't find my tape measure so I can't report accurate results.  My husband says I'm walking better and I have less jiggle in certain areas. My abs are sore in different spots this week and I feel stronger.  Daily activities are getting easier and my back continues to feel better.

I was pondering why I'm not seeing visual results and realized that I have a lot of rehab to do.  I've had back problems on and off for the last ten years with almost constant pain for the last three.  That's a lot of muscle retraining and strengthening to do.  My back feels stronger than it has in a long time.  I think I am making progress internally and it will just take time to see the results.  I'm definitely not giving up.  I still have not ordered another splint for my lower abs and I'm sure if I do and use it it will speed up the process.  The visual process I have made is where I wear the splint. 

That's it for my week.  Next week I will finish week 6 and then I can start other exercises again.  I plan to start walking if I can wake up early enough in the morning and then I will add in some weight lifting.

How was your week?

Lazy, Like Summer

Well, I had planned to write about something serious today.  There are many serious things going on in my life(homeschool, teen angst, my oldest slooooowwwly inching out the door) but I don't feel like writing about any of them. 

I am in a pleasant mode of mini school, not many chores, and piddling around in the garden each day.  That's about all that's going on here.  It's nice not to be planning a move, worrying about fitting a new baby into our family, or any of the other major life events we have gone through in the last few years. 
 
We are in a waiting time.  Waiting to find out if our oldest will really serve our country and when and how, waiting on things with my husband's job, waiting to find out if our second son can finish high school early,  waiting to get back to our budget and waiting to start a new year of school.

I have a huge list of things I could be writing about here but I haven't started on it.  I just feel lazy, like summer.  Not really lazy, but I do long for those days of summer that used to stretch out before me when the only thing I had to worry about was being bored.  Fresh peaches from the trees in the backyard, an afternoon swim, and weekly visits to the Pacific marked my childhood summers.  The excitement of the week was to scrape together some change and walk to the local convenience market for a piece of candy.  The days stretched out long and hot until September when we would head back to school for another year of hard work.

I'm rethinking my commitment to year round school now.  Not really.  When Nathan finishes his General Science course with a 75% or above I have promised the whole homeschool a month off.  That should happen around September.  I should really start figuring out what I can do to keep my six homeschoolers busy and out of trouble for a whole month!  Any suggestions?  How is summer treating you?

The Garden Path

Science, or para-science. tells us that geraniums bloom better if they are spoken to.  But a kind word every now and then is really quite enough.  Too much attention, like too much feeding, and weeding and hoeing, inhibts and embarrasses them.  Victoria Glendinning

Please link up your garden post below.



Isaiah 17:7
In that day a man will look to his Maker,
And his eyes will have respect for the Holy One of Isreal.

Homeschool Confessions: Handwriting Failure

Handwriting is a problem for the students in our homeschool.  For the last few years I've had the children use handwriting books daily.  They write neatly in the books but when it comes to writing their daily essays or math pages their writing is completely different.  The biggest problem is that they start at the bottom when they write letters and numbers.  I don't understand why.  I've seen them form the letters properly while they are using their handwriting books.

The only solution to the problem I can come up with is to watch them do their writing and remind them how to form the letters.  Is there a remedial handwriting program we can use?  I would like them to write neatly.  I'm going to have to be stricter and not accept anything with sloppy handwriting.  I see lots of copy work and rewriting in their futures!

How would you handle this problem?  I ignored it with the older boys but I want to do something about it for the younger peeps.

Isaiah 23:9
The Lord of hosts has purposed it,
To bring to dishonor the pride of all glory,
To bring into contempt all the honorable of the earth.

David's Haircut

Before.  Elijah thought it was fun to give him a ponytail.

Can you tell he's the youngest?

After.  No more pony tails for a long time!

He's already learned to ham it up for the camera.

Amos 9:11
On that day I will raise up the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down, and repair its damages; I will raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old.

Too Many Garden Pictures?

The flower garden looks almost the same as last month.  There are a few more flowers blooming which I'll show you in a bit.   I need to work on pruning the crepe myrtle.  I don't like how it grows straight up.  I think it needs some thinning out in the center.

Here's the back of the house.  We added some squash in the empty spaces.  The tomatoes are growing quickly now.

We finally harvested four cherry tomatoes this week.

The plants are loaded!  My garden helper is supposed to stake the rest of the plants soon.

The corn looks a little short to me.

The winter squash plants by the chicken yard started taking off this week.

One section of pole beans(to your right) are growing well.  The other three sections are much shorter.

We are clearing out the lettuce which is now bitter and filling the spaces with squash, carrots, beets, and scallions.

This bed has the poorest soil so I'm just mulching it like crazy and hoping it will be more productive next year.  It has Italian dandelion(the plant with blue flowers), asparagus, broccoli, carrots, onions, and lettuce growing there.

It looks like I'm growing flowers with some veggies thrown in for interest.  It really is the other way around.

Here is one of the beds we just cleaned up.  We added beets and scallions to the bare spaces.  I need to figure out how to grow cabbage.  I planted those plants in March or April and they will stay small until the weather cools off again.  I will try planting them even earlier next spring and may try planting some late this fall to overwinter until spring.

The green beans are already taller than their supports.  I don't know what they will do now.

The veggie garden entrance.

I don't think California poppies and echinacea go together but I'm happy to have some color.

The new garden path needs some weeding.  Hopefully some of the purple alyssum will work its way over to join the white alyssum.

This sunflower looks like it is being attacked by morning glories.

This could be bad or chicken food.

Can you see all of the pollen this bee has collected?

A different perspective.

A few bunches of green grapes survived our late frost.

Have you ever enjoyed the scent of a sweet pea?  I wish I could make this photo scratch and sniff for you.

How is your garden growing this month?

My Abs Are Getting Stronger!

This week was the hardest so far!  Monday I completed all of the head lifts and most of the seated exercises and my body was so sore that I didn't do any of the exercises on Tuesday.   On Wednesday I did all of the seated exercises and one set of the head lifts.  Thursday, I did everything(30 head lifts 3x + 10 sets of 100 seated contractions) and was sore but not as much as Monday.  Today I am going to do all of the seated exercises and tomorrow I will try to add in the head lifts again.

From now on I'm going to use the checklist as a tool to help me achieve the goal of more exercise by the end of the week instead of pushing myself to do everything by Monday or Tuesday which makes me too sore to do anything the next day.  It's strange but my chest(sternum area) gets sore from the exercises also.  I was having lots of hip pain last week but that has been much better this week.  It's amazing how much the ab muscles affect the rest of the body!

It is becoming easier to hold my muscles in when I do something which requires them.  I'm still being careful about what I do each day.  I try not to bend down to pick things up often.  I'm getting better at directing the children to pick up after themselves and help me when I need it.

My husband says my tummy is less mushy and feels like there is some muscle in there now.  I don't think I've lost any girth.  (My measuring tape is missing so I don't know for sure.)  I took photos this week but I can't tell that I've made any visual progress since I started.  I do feel much stronger and like my abs are taking back some of the work they should be doing from my back.  My midsection feels more pulled together and I have hope that I will see some improvement soon to match the improvement I feel.

Amy at Raising Arrows was my inspiration to get back to working on my abs.  She wrote post full of great tips this week.  She has also set up a support forum which you can find at the beginning of her tips post.

Isaiah 8:18
Here am I and the children whom the Lord has given me!  We are for signs and wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts, who dwells in Mount Zion.

Previous posts on this topic:

My tummy problem 
The Beginning 
One Week Down
Frustration
Progress?