Hi! Long time no see. Once again I am debating whether or not a blog is something I’m interested in maintaining. Every time I think I have convinced myself to get rid of it, I somehow can’t quite manage to go through with it. So for now, I guess it’s staying. I keep hoping to write more, but honestly, with all the doing there is little time for writing about it.
In the garden, we have peas, lettuce, spinach and garlic. All the beds have been loosened up and some leaf mulch incorporated. I need to get some composted manure on most of the gardens. I could have sworn I’d put leaf and dry grass mulch on all the beds at the end of fall, but from the looks of things, I actually only did this on three beds. The difference in the quality of dirt and the number of worms is extraordinary. One sad looking bed had no obvious worms at all. I will have to pay extra care to this one this year. As of now I think it’s supposed to have tomatoes in it, and that will not go well without significant improvement.
Inside, we have seeds started for onions, cabbage, broccoli, gentian sage, lemongrass, lemon mint, cilantro, peppers, jalapenos, and tomatoes. Stevia is in the refrigerator undergoing cold stratification, a process I’ve never tried before. I have to check dates – it may be time to get that out of the fridge. I still have a bunch of things (flowers, mainly) that need to get started indoors.
There are also a lot of things that could have been seeded outside already, that I’ve not accomplished yet. On this list are: garlic chives, more lettuce and spinach, carrots, raab, brussels sprouts, turnips, pac choy, cilantro, chard and chamomile. Potatoes will be arriving soon and it will be time to take care of those as well.
So, I’ve got my work cut out for me.
And that’s all I’ve got for today, but it’s more than nothing ! :)
I have been enjoying making my own lotion, lip balm, deodorant and soaps for a while now. In my enthusiasm, I’ve been sharing them with lots of people. Family, friends, friends of friends, my son’s violin teacher…and the response has been pretty exciting. Everyone offers to buy more, and says “you should sell this stuff!” So, I’m thinking of doing that. I’ve been working on a few recipes to start with and I’ve got a few I’m satisfied with. A couple of my goals include recycled, limited or no packaging and healthy non-petroleum based ingredients. Whenever possible, I’d like to buy my materials locally. 
I don’t know where this will lead, but if it does take off, I really hope I can make it profitable. I enjoy the time I spend making healthy body care products, but it would be great to actually be paid for my time and make money for my family, creating something good that people love.
This was flubber, in progress. It is neon blue (and a more vibrant blue than is evident here!) but glows yellow-ish in the dark. Very fun!
Here we have glow-in-the-dark neon puffy paint. Creations are drying as I write, before testing glow-in-the-dark success!
And this would be “galaxy” playdough, made with black and blue food coloring, and purple and iridescent glitter. Also fun, but seems to turn your hands an interesting reddish-purple color while you knead it. I’m hoping this last quality disappears when the playdough is room temperature. We shall see.
There is a lot of exciting learning going on – all that comes with a boy that has (finally) become a reader. He’s always loved to look at books (and actually it’s astonishing what he’s been able to figure out without actual reading), but it’s so exciting that he can read them now. He takes such pride in reading aloud to us now! We’ve always read at bedtime – we all curl up in my bed and I read for a good long time. Now, when I’m done, he’ll say “now I can read to you!” and jumps up to get a book. It’s wonderful. And there’s nothing quite like seeing him sitting on his brother’s bed, reading to him.
Soon, I’ll be back with a post that has my 2012 seed list. I’ve added things and removed a few, too. And somehow, my favorite soup beans were left off the order. I spent a morning putting beans in jars (well, jar) and realizing that something like 100 square feet of garden produced about one pint of beans, and really, I don’t know how I can conclude this is reasonable use of valuable garden space. My only excuse is that this is a bean I’ve never seen in a store or co-op, and it is my very favorite soup bean. It’s the Hutterite soup bean – small, greenish white and so lovely. Creamy in soup. So, the question is, do I order them or leave the order as is? I don’t know. I don’t even know if the beans I grew last year were open pollinated or not, so saving some of this pint may not solve the issue for me. Ah well, time will tell.
Now, back to the marble game in the other room. I can’t recommend this little project enough – one of our answers to no snow in the yard is fun, active games in the house. Magnetic darts, trampoline, foosball, ping pong, and marbles keep us all sane when there’s no snow to play in in the yard. I made the marble mat with a piece of leftover flannel from Alec’s Halloween costume. Very simple – make a large circle on it, an ‘x’ in the center, and lines for guides to position the marbles for “Ringer”. A 44″ wide piece of fabric was large enough for a 40″ diameter circle, which is a great playing size.
