EKjourney Backup

Whoohooo! I have moved on from needing to get up three times a night to go potty! I will enjoy it for the time being because I know it will be coming back again. I also am not needing daily naps (more every other day). I went through many weeks where I was asleep on the couch about 2 minutes after I put the children to bed for their naps. I am 15 weeks and I feel quite large already. I was not pleased to learn that I gained 7 pounds in the first trimester. I have a feeling I will be ginormous by December. I am looking forward to feeling regular kicks! Oh deer.....We have the place pretty well fenced in but we saw a deer in the backyard twice and watched her jump between the wire that Phil strung up at the top of our backyard fence. She stripped the column apple tree that was finally starting to leaf out. Those poor apple trees haven't had leaves in the 4 years that we have had them. Phil and I draped deer netting over the top wire and tucked it into the fence and we stru...

Picked 21 pounds of strawberries and close to 3 pounds of raspberries. Spent $17.40. Froze 4 1/2 gallons of strawberries and made 2 batches of raspberry and strawberry mix jam. Unfortunately, I am not going to get the amount of strawberries that I was hoping for. The season is almost done and I only got about 1/2 of what I wanted. Cherry season should start within a week or so. We have access to free cherries and I will be freezing, drying, and making jam with as many as we can get. Raspberry season just started this week and I want to freeze several gallon bags worth. They are a more expensive berry so we will pick a small amount. As I was making jam this morning, Jubilee asked me why I had "Mommy feeders". (Meaning breasts.) I said when you grow up and are a woman, you grow Mommy feeders. (Can you tell she knows about breastfeeding!!) She informed me that she didn't have any. I told her that she will. Sigh....don't grow up too fast!!

I have been enjoying gardening!! I had to tone it down a bit. I overdid it several days in a row and found myself utterly exhausted one day. The front bed is completely done including the sweet peas (tied up and mulched). The veggie garden is completely terraced and all the dirt moved. Phil has been working hard on this. A few new herbs are planted. The deer fencing is nearly complete and plants are starting to grow back!! The side bed is weeded and ready for mulch. I am thrilled with the way that my garden has turned out. I am constantly tweaking things and the urban farm goal is to have edibles in every garden bed. The front bed is pretty good - a grape trellis, 2 gooseberries, a currant, and I plan to plant a column apple. The others are still taking shape. Love love love love love my garden!! The house is an entirely different story. I know that I have been parenting (juggling) for 4 1/2 years now but I can't seem to figure out how to keep up on the house work and be outside wo...

I picked 12 quarts of strawberries, 24.5 pounds, at $.60 cents a pound. I spent a total of $14.70. Aren't strawberries delicious looking and tasting!! I froze 3 gallon bags of strawberries and dried a pint. The secret to frozen berries is to place them on a cookie sheet, freeze them, and then put them in bags. This way they don't squish and stick together. The next time I dry strawberries, I will use parchment paper and see if that helps with the sticking factor. I used coconut oil and they came off ok but there must be an easier way. It is always shocking to see how much they shrink down but they are so flavorful in muffins and oatmeal! I also made 18 pints of strawberry jam. Not bad!! It took me about 2 hours to pick and probably 4-5 to process. I added an extra step this year. I washed the berries. Usually I don't but with the rain we had they were a little dirty and there were a lot of mold spores. The jars, lids, bags, pectin, and sugar were leftover from la...

We found a nice place to pick strawberries about 5 miles from our house. Phil breaks out in hives around strawberry plants (and others as well but strawberries are particularly bad) so he and the children play while I pick. It works out great!! Here is Evi. She was content for a good 45 minutes eating strawberries and throwing dirt. The older two picked and ate for a short while but the fields were just too tempting. They ran and ran and ran! And played hide and seek. And even rested a little.

I had my midwife appointment this morning. Phil is officially done with school (although he starts a construction job Wednesday) so the whole family was in tow. After the initial health questions and other paperwork, it came time to hear the baby's heartbeat. The midwife was unable to find it. We were able to schedule an ultrasound for 3 hours later to check "viability". She though that perhaps my dates were off, but I was confident of the timing so that wasn't good news. It was an agonizing time. We didn't really have time to drive home and back and since naps weren't going to happen anyway, we got lunch and went to a park. Phil supervised the children on the play equipment and I sat on a bench. Behind my sunglasses, I teared up several times as I faced the possibilities. Having been in this position twice before, I was not hopeful. I pondered how a miscarriage this late in the first trimester would physical play out. Phil would have to take time of...

The children and I started the day hearing machinery noises. The neighbor who own the back 1 acre of property decided to completely clear the property of all shrubs, saplings, and the many many locust trees. Here is Jubilee enjoying a cup of peanuts during the excitement. Sawyer was SO excited, he could barely eat his breakfast. He was running around outside, hollering for me to come watch, and wanting to know everything that was going on. Phil helped out when he got home. There were several big locust trees, including this one that lined our fence. They were leaning in such a way that you really needed to have some knowledge and experience to cut them down safely. Since the workers that were hired felled a sapling on one of the other workers (and the following day, felled one on the neighbor's metal shop), I would say they weren't experts. Phil hooked up a roping system and notched the trees so that they would fall away from houses and fences while the workers pulled the...

The Great Pajama Escape.

This is a common red racer garden snake. This one is one of the larger ones. Daddy put on my gardening gloves in case it bit. Instead it pooped. Snake poop stinks! Interesting, isn't it Evi? Everyone got to pet him before we let him go. A minute later Bookie was running through the yard with the snake in his mouth. We managed a rescue and put him in a better hiding place. I don't mind snakes as long as they are small, harmless, I don't have to touch them, and they don't surprise me.

Here is Pheobe exploring the great outdoors Yes, this is a 4 month old rabbit!!! When the children lost interest, Phil manned the leashes Suzie checking out the flora

I spent most of the day yesterday working outside. It felt so good to put in a hard day's work and get something accomplished! I weeded this front bed. It was quite a mess. I am now ready to mulch. This is the view from the driveway. This is the view from the top of the retaining wall. I finished mulching the few veggies that I managed to plant. I have tomatoes, basil, peppers, lettuce, and cucumbers so far. Mulching is no easy task on the retaining wall. I have to fill 5 gallon buckets and haul them up by hand. This is the divider between the neighbor's lot and ours. We ran deer netting down the entire side. We have retained part of the space and leveled out the hillside to stair step down instead of being so steep. Phil has been digging and moving dirt. The rabbit house (which is raised) is now completely backfilled with dirt. We made another small bed to the left of the wall and I planted lavender. Oh, we also put in a temp brick pathway yesterday. It is a l...

Not sure if it is technically summer yet but the weather has been unusually warm and dry. The past couple of days have been hot and humid with clouds rolling in an out. The forecast called for a storm and I watched it roll in in the late afternoon. One moment I was sweltering in the last of the sunshine watering my veggies and the next I was running for cover from a torrential downpour complete with wind and lightening. We had made plans to go to Costco and it was fun to take the back country roads into town and watch the storm. It had rained so hard that the Costco parking lot was flooded and we literally waded to the entry. I wish I had pictures. Alas, my camera disk went belly up and I haven't been able to take any pictures for the past week. I did get a new one at Costco so I am anxious to get some picture updates. It is very wet outside today and I am want to get out and survey the damage. My persimmon and fig trees really took quite a beating. Oh, if you read my last ...

I made dinner AND cleaned the kitchen tonight for the first time in 5 weeks! I usually put together a not so exciting dinner and then lay in bed leaving poor Phil with the mess. Tonight, we had fresh (as in made while the pasta cooked) pesto with basil from our garden, fresh asparagus from my mom's garden, garlic toast, and cantaloupe for dessert. Phil and the children went on some mysterious errand which gave me a nice quiet cleaning time. Nausea is getting better. I still have a bouts throughout the day and don't feel great in the evenings but I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. When you are in the thick of it, it is hard imagine ever feeling good again. I was very sick weeks 7 through 10. Toward the end of week ten, I started to feel a little better in the evenings. I am 12 weeks now and I think the first trimester goes through 13 weeks so I am almost done!!!!!!