Fall Garden

I was thrilled earlier this year when I learned that North Carolina had two growing seasons. I always thought that you planted in the Spring, harvested in the Summer, and that was it, you were done.

But no, I learned that here you can also plant in the late Summer and harvest in the Fall. Some veggies will even overwinter and produce long past the normal growing season. What a great way to continue getting fresh produce to supplement your groceries.

In our side of the world, the Fall Garden starts in late August, early September. I think it was the last week in August that Joshua planted carrots, onions, sweet peas, green beans (two flavors) and cucumbers. And voila! Our green beans and cucumbers are flowering...

...and our sweet peas are now taller than Daniel!

Won't be long and we'll be eating good!

The tomato plants had kind of stalled out thanks in part to the heat of Summer, but now they are covered in little green tomatoes. Joshua came close to pulling them all up, thinking they were done, but decided to hold on and wait. Good thing, too, because they were rejuvenated with the cooler weather that September brought us.

We still have a ton of bell peppers, jalapenos, and egg plants growing. Those have done really well. Our watermelon plant surprised us and has one or two little melons growing. We thought that it was done, but it too proved us wrong.

Rather than pull it up, Joshua just pushed the watermelon plant to the side to make room for some transplants--broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and 3 kinds of lettuce. We kind of missed the window for planting these by seeds. Just didn't have the time to do it, but Lowe's is definitely stocked up with Fall garden transplants, so Joshua helped himself and brought home a whole bunch. I can't believe how much lettuce he planted. That will be coming out of our years before we know it!

Above: lettuce, cabbage, cauliflower & broccoli growing alongside a really pathetic-looking watermelon plant. You can see the last large watermelon at the bottom of the pic. I need to harvest it. Up towards the top of the picture is the baby watermelon.

Below: More lettuce and carrots and onions (hard to see, they are up at the top of the pic) growing next to jalapenos, egg plants and bell peppers.

P.S.: Pay no attention to that squash plant down in the bottom of the above picture. It had a couple flowers and looked like it was going to produce more squash, but ended up just teasing us. It doesn't look too pretty, so unless it starts producing, it too will get pulled up. The cucumber plant growing along the left has given us a couple cukes, but the dogs took off the most recent cuke that was ready for harvesting...grrrr! They kept trying to poke their snouts through the fence to grab the cucumber until finally getting it just enough that they bit off part of the end and it was unusuable. Ggrrrr!!!! I don't understand their fascination with cucumbers. It is what it is. :)

H1N1 Virus Symptoms

I don't want to worry you, but with all the hype and attention in the media recently concerning the spread of H1N1 virus I decided to ring the Government's new Swine Flu Helpline yesterday just to check on what the Symptoms are.

Basically,

If you wake up looking like this…



…Don't go to work!!!

Gardening

We've been working on our Fall garden for about a month now, planting seeds of various types--carrots, corn, 3 different kinds of onions, sweet peas, cucumbers, green beans--on top of what's still growing in the garden. Joshua bought some transplants from Lowe's this afternoon. The kids really enjoyed helping to plant some green leaf lettuce.

Joshua showing Daniel how to plant the lettuce:

Raelee digging a hole exactly where her daddy said to put one:

In addition to the lettuce, we'll also transplant romaine lettuce, red leaf lettuce (yes, we will have lettuce coming out of our ears in about 45 days), cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower. Our garden is definitely getting a work-out this year!

Dancing

I noticed one recent afternoon that the kids were laughing and giggling. They get along fairly well--usually--and on this particular day they seemed to be getting along even better than usual. So after heading into the living room to investigate, I found them having a great time dancing together, each with the absolute biggest grins. They were really pleased with themselves!

And I was pleased to see them being so kind and fun-loving to each other. :)

Isn't It Amazing?

Two kids...same mother, same father...different tastes.

One child gobbled down his vegetable and just nibbled at the main meal.

The other child gobbled down her main meal and just nibbled at her vegetables.

Gotta' love it.

Clearly Not A Celebrity

Yes, I am blushing while posting this pic. I'm the coordinator of our charitable contributions at work, and some organizations ask for a picture in the paper recognizing the donation. It helps to give the organization more exposure, but makes me nervous because I really don't care to have my picture on display for all the Goldsboro area to see. But here I am! One of the local non-celebrities who ends up in the paper at least 3 or 4 times a year. :)

Poison Ivy :(

Raelee has become quite the daddy's girl lately. With the cooler weather we've been experiencing, Joshua has been clearing out some of the overgrowth on the edge of the woods to expand the size of our yard. And Raelee's been helping him, carrying brush from one area to another.

Now Joshua knew that there was poison ivy in one section of the woods. He's highly allergic to it and got burned by it a year ago when he was clearing some of it out. Unfortunately, it never occurred to him that our little girl might come in contact with it while helping him clear the land.

And that' exactly what happened. Not on did Joshua break out all over, Raelee, too, developed a rash. Not as bad as Joshua's, but still, not pretty to look at.

It's all over her chin, forehead, left ear, and along her jaw line. She scratched herself really bad during the night a couple nights ago and has scratch marks on her chin. There's some on her left arm, a little on her tummy, too.

Her left leg also broke out with the rash. She told me that she's "itchy all over." We've treated with cortisone just about as much as we can, but rubbing it in makes the rash itch.

The good news is that it looks as though the rash is starting to clear out--thank goodness! I never in my wildest imagination would have ever guessed that I'd have a child this young get poison ivy. Oh well, bound to happen eventually!

School Days!

You know your kids are growing up when they start Kindergarten. I can't believe the day has finally come.

We decided to send Daniel to Protestant Preschool & Kindergarten instead of entering public school this year. He went there for preschool last year and loved it. We were going to put Raelee there for preschool and got a scholarship to help offset the cost. Which was really good because the other option was to put her back in day care full time so Joshua could find a job, but day care is really, really expensive. So instead we enrolled her in the preschool program, and Daniel in the Kindergarten program, and we're still saving a ton of money. Gotta love it!

Daniel met his teacher last week. Can you believe that he had homework before school even started?! Here he is working on a poster that was all about him--things he likes to do, his family, his favorite place to go, what he looks like when he's happy.

Time for the first day of school! Kindergarten at Protestant Preschool & Kindergarten started on Tuesday, the day after Labor Day. A couple weeks later than public school, but he'll learn just as much if not more since he'll be in a small class-size.

Daniel was happy to be sitting next to Tristan, who was in his preschool class. There are only 12 kids in the kindergarten class, and most of them were in his prescool class, which is very comforting. He was rather nervous about having a new teacher, new room, and so having some of the same friends is something concrete and familiar.

And here is Daniel with his teacher, Mrs. Darden. He really likes her and I know that he's going to have a great year!

And Raelee started preschool today! She was so, so happy. Look at her big smile before we left the house! The preschool uses baskets instead of backpacks to carry lunch boxes & supplies. She picked this one out herself. It's a pretty creamy yellow.

Raelee met her teacher, Mrs. Owen, last week at the open house. Here she is today with Mrs. Owen in her classroom. Raelee told me earlier that she was not going to be shy. Well, that didn't last long because she was definitely shy going into her room! But she told me this evening that she liked her teacher and her class.

Here's a shot of the classroom. What a big girl she's turning into!