Not a farmer yet...

...but I think my grandfather would be proud of me. I do not have any delusions about being a gardener or even liking gardening BUT ----> I saved my basil from a horrible fungus fly infestation! And all it took was a hour on the internet, some potato slices and a bag of cinnamon. OK, maybe there was a little more to it than that.

I have two little basil plants in my kitchen window and one sad little cilantro plant that didn't make it but hey… focus on the positive people! Over the course of a week we noticed little gnats in the kitchen. I thought it was the bananas… until I saw them crawling all over my basil pots. Grrrrrrrrrrr! Nobody comes between my family and it's basil mayonnaise! After doing a little online research, I discovered that they were most likely fungus flies and it was probably because I was over watering the basil. I told you I don't have a green thumb. So, yeah… I created the problem that I solved. Moving on…

The first thing I did was cover the dirt in potato slices. Over the course of a couple of days, I rotated out the old ones and then added new ones while the plants sat outside to dry out. Potato slices?! That's what I said. Apparently, the little flies will lay their eggs in the potato slices instead of the wet, damp earth. Get them to lay their eggs in the potatoes and you can throw them away thereby stopping the breeding cycle. Once I felt like the dirt was sufficiently dried out (about 3 days of potato and sun) I pulled off all the dead leaves at the bottom of the plants and then covered the top of the dirt with a thick layer of cinnamon. It must be a solid layer, not just a little sprinkling, and it must be cassia cinnamon (I don't know why… that's just what the internet told me), which I had accidentally ordered an abundance of… thank you, Katherine!

Why cinnamon at all? Well, apparently, the little flies don't like it one bit and will pack their tiny bags and leave rather than dip their little toesies in it. (Ok, the internet didn't quite tell me that… I embellished.) So… now my basil plants are not crawling with tiny creatures and we can make some more basil mayo this afternoon and my grandfather can look down at my little farming effort and smile. It's not the back 40, but I'm proud of it. :)

A Community Garden Party

Our community garden celebrated it's official opening this past weekend. Even though we made the decision to give up our garden plot to someone who would be able to give it the attention it deserved, the girls were very proud of the hard work they put in to building the garden last fall and wanted to participate. Everyone was so joyful and excited to be out and about in nature together.

One lovely lady specifically chose this ROY G. BIV color coordination for her garden!

Decorated rain barrels, so cute!

Face painting done by a local artist who created beautiful paintings for the garden and these lovely designs on my sweet girls.

I loved these adorable decorations that Miss Sandra came up with. Colorful bottles on bamboo poles with a sunny sunflower inside. What a great idea for a garden party decoration!

The community garden is also making room for our beautiful Texas wildflowers.

Ow. Ow. Ow.

Saturday, for some reason that only a mother of some bright eyed, nature loving daughters could understand, we decided to become farmers for the day and help our community garden get started by shoveling dirt, filling up wheelbarrows, dumping the dirt into 80 garden beds (20 loads to fill just one!),

raking that dirt smooth,

tamping it down and then starting all over again. Why?

Oh, I don't know...

Why do you think? :)

For the record, it was 39 degrees when we started the day, but the layers we had on came peeling off fast. Yes. It is possible to get a farmer's tan in November. Oh, and the boys were there too! They joined us after their golf lesson and pitched in quite energetically. In fact, BigBoy's energetic shoveling was quite entertaining for the other people helping out and reinvigorated some of the more tired volunteers! It took all day, but all of the beds were filled and capped off, ready to be planted in the spring!

By the end of the day, after washing the dirt from under our nails and the dirt from our sinful souls in the sacrament Confession, our beds at home were quickly filled and ready for sweet dreams!

Grammie's Summer Garden

We visited my mother last weekend and if there was one thing that my children enjoyed more than anything else, (chocolate chip cookies and pizza parties aside) it was Grammie's garden! Boy, I wish I had inherited her green thumb! Now, I know she would say it isn't nearly as pretty as it was when the poppies were in bloom, but the children still thought it was pretty fantastic. The birds at the feeder, orange and purple blossoms to tiptoe around, a vine covered archway, the Blessed Virgin in the middle... it was like their own little secret garden!

And now I must get back to dealing with this summer cold that is plaguing our family. Aren't summer colds the worst? Who wants lots of soup and hot tea when it's 112 degrees outside? OK, maybe it's not 112 but it sure feels like it! Summer has hit with it's full force which means we are in for the long haul. Goodbye, spring! We'll miss you!

Nature Tally

Sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste.
- William Shakespeare

~2 new friends for BigBoy
~1 nature lesson on plant sap

~2 lovely plants still blooming despite neglect

~1 ladybug burial plot

~1 black-eyed susan from a sweet brown eyed boy

~5,793 weeds pulled
~5,794 to go!

Birmingham - Day 2

Well, I was going to post some of my pictures of The Casa Maria Retreat Center, but none of them really do any more justice than the ones the Sisters have provided. Please go click around their website and enjoy all of the joyful work they do. Check out the CD page if you are interested in hearing their gladdening voices. If you find yourself in need of a retreat from the world, feel free to peruse their current schedule or have a retreat delivered right to your door!

As for the other pictures below, they came from my inlaw's house. There is a beautiful garden surrounding the house just perfect for exploring. The children thought they had walked right into Misselthwaite Manor. A robin and a key would have made the fantasy complete but playing soccer with their uncles and a Sister (in full habit) was the next best thing!

A wild strawberry peeking up to sip the sun.

A beautiful pond hidden in the corner for now until they can remove all of the poison ivy.

Flowers in bloom

Roses for Mary

Roses and fairies!

A gas light with a wooden arbor and swing in the background
~ like Springtime in Narnia

Lots of friends to uncover!

One of many fountains

Fun little treasures around every corner!

Talk to you later... unless the AC guy isn't able to replace the brand spanking new compressor that broke yesterday. If that's the case, I will be hanging out at the mall/library/movie theater/Margaret's tent/the North Pole tomorrow on the hottest day of the summer so far and you won't hear from me until it is fixed or after our company leaves... which ever comes first!

Stay cool! (I mean that.)