Yellowstone

August 12, 20142 Comments

When I considered vacations this year, I realized my children hadn’t been to Yellowstone yet, and it would make a nice quick vacation. PB already love geography and volcanoes and just the right kind of subjects to make Yellowstone interesting to him. We camped for three nights and spent two full days and a little more exploring the park. I’ve been there quite a bit, it was fun to go back to places that I remember and show them to my kids. We also were able to take my sister with me. She was a lot of fun, and a great help in the car.

In Yellowstone you spend a lot of time driving and walking. My kids actually do pretty well in the car, and thank goodness I could occasionally had them a device when tempers were short. Sometimes the hiking/walking part was a bit hard, but luckily there are plenty of short hikes to do. If PB puts his mind to it and wants to keep going he can hike for over a mile and did quite cheerfully on at least one occasion. But if he doesn’t quite see the point or he is a little tired or it is raining…that kid can complain a bunch too. C is still young enough just to carry, and luckily Joe is willing enough to do so.

It did rain, but luckily only in the afternoon although not timed up well enough to match our trips to the visitors centers and nap time in the car. We brought rain ponchos and jackets and used them to keep exploring. The kids looked cute in them.

Before, and often during the vacation I was stressed a lot. Vacations aren’t as relaxing when you are camping with little kids and you happen to be the one in charge. But everything worked out well, and now I can remember the trip with much more joy than leading up to or even during it.

Having fun not getting wet in the rain.

At Sheepeater Picnic area. I love this place, and we also missed it due to a non existent sign.

Made it to the top of the pile of rocks, although not up cliff.

Joe climbed all the way to the top of the cliff.

C called this a volcano at first.

Joe’s neck was a bit sore after the trip.

The good tables were taken…but this spot was more fun anyways.

This squirrel actually climbed up on PB’s lap.

This is Grand Prismatic Spring during a rain shower.

Joe took this picture, explaining that this is how we spent most of the trip.

Swale

July 30, 2014Leave a comment

So if you haven’t studied permaculture, and even if you have a little bit, you probably don’t know what a swale is. And what I’m about to describe isn’t necessarily a true swale, it’s more like a ditch mixed with a swale. If you want to learn more about swales, go ahead a follow this link. If you just care about how I dealt with the flood irrigation problem in my landscape, keep reading.

Our side yard grass is flood irrigated with a water turn. We turned it on this year and noticed that with all the dips and hills in area, the flood irrigation would only water a portion of the grass. Water doesn’t move uphill. If the area was almost flat and the water came from the high point, it would have worked out a lot better. That’s how rice patties work–perfectly flat land, and then it all gets irrigated the same way. Our grass was on a downhill slope with plenty of dips and low spots that meant that originally only 1/3 of the grass was irrigated.

We noticed that at some point there was probably a ditch going to a downhill portion of grass that wasn’t getting any water, so we re-dug the ditch. But then all the water simply went down the ditch and wasn’t watering the uphill part of the grass where it started. We tried putting up little rock dams, and it helped a little but not a lot. I had been in my permaculture class and knew that we needed to build a swale: or in other words, we needed to level the ditch so that the middle and both sides were neither uphill or downhill from each other.

We marked it out with an A-frame and re-dug the ditch.

We were not quite successful at actually making it level, but with only one little rock dam, it finally worked. The swale would fill up with water, and because it was relatively level, it would spill over across the length of the swale instead of at just the low point. We ended up watering about 3/4 of the grass. The other quarter is simply being converted to planting beds.

Because landscaping is moving toward automated irrigation sprinklers, and we use big machinery to level everything, very few people care about contours, or level lines across a slope. But after studying permaculture, I’m learning the benefit of using contours: they create beautiful and highly functional curves. Because I’m still using flood irrigation, it is essential that I know about the contours in my landscape, because if I understand them, I also understand how the water is going to travel. And I can fix things like the flood irrigation of my lawn so I don’t have to start using culinary water.

*I realize that portions of this post might not make a whole lot of sense. If you are interested leave a comment and I can either respond and clarify, or add a video.

Colored Sand

July 30, 2014Leave a comment

After a round of color mixing with liquid watercolors and water, I suggested we try putting the watercolors on the sand. It turned out pretty fun.

An Example of a Mother

July 29, 2014Leave a comment

I never have got what is so wrong about trying to be supermom, because I’ve always had my mom to look up to.

She wasn’t supermom, but she did a beautiful job of being a good mom. One thing she has always taught me is the art of simplifying. We never had a elaborately decorated house. Parties and family gatherings were usually some good food on paper plates. Birthday parties were simple or non existent. My mom didn’t work, and she really didn’t have that many hobbies she did extensively.

When I think of supermoms, I don’t think of people trying to be perfect at everything. No one can. But I do think of people like my mom who try to be good at what they are good at, and it might be elaborate birthday parties or a career, or having a bunch of children close together, but not trying to do everything. My mom was a great listener, she could recognize strengths potential and encouraged us. She didn’t miss a game or performance of mine or my siblings. She cooked and baked, and I still adore her chocolate chip cookies. And she managed to have seven children in nine years and always kept up with us all.

When we discover what we are good at and focus on on that instead of everything, that’s the key to really being a supermom. I don’t think we need to ditch the idea of perfection, even Christ commanded us to be perfect. But I don’t think he expected us to be perfectionist or to be perfect all at once. He does want us to keep trying to develop our talents and always striving to work toward being a better person.

As moms we can pick the things we want to do awesomely, and we can to do the rest simply good enough or not at all. All of us need to spend quality time with children, and keep the housework under decent control, but the rest of all the duties of a homemaker we can take our pick, and certainly pick what relaxes you and what you enjoy, not something that just fits a mold.

So I garden and raise chickens and blog a lot. I do sometimes elaborate preschool activities, and I love to go fun places with the family. I study permaculture, I like to help others with their gardens. I don’t generally do crafts or sew, my meals are simple and repetitive, and I’m not a great entrepreneur. I love homemaking and mothering, but I only love it when I’m focusing on the aspects that I like.

Squash Pests

July 24, 2014Leave a comment

My squash patch decided to have an abundance of pests. I find it rather fun. I love diagnosing problems in the garden, I spent a couple internships in college doing it and got hooked.

First–here’s a mini guide to diagnosing your own pests.

Consistently check your plants for damage, yellow leaves, insects or other problems. If caught early, problems are managed much better.
Look for the easy answer first. Find out what your plant needs and compare it to the care you are giving it. These are generally issues like a plant in the wrong spot, over or under watering, chemical spills, etc. Most problems are caused not by insects or diseases, but the care and environment the plants are in.
If you are in Utah, sign up for the Extension pest advisories. They keep you up-to-date on problems they are frequently seeing. Their site is also were I first go to start hunting for pests. It’s local, so I’m not finding problems that don’t actually exist in my area. Pests and diseases and typically regional. If you live in another state, look for the equivalent in your area. If you start Google-ing away, sometimes it can lead you down a path that has no basis in the climate and situation your are facing.
Use the Extension office: but use caution. Unless you are talking to an agent or sending in a sample for diagnostics by an actual professional, calling the Extension can often mean talking to an intern or master gardener. They generally do a good job, but they are just normal people and their depth of knowledge can vary greatly. I’ve given less than great advice answering phone calls as the Extension when I was first starting out.
Always diagnose the problem before spraying with insecticides or other drastic action. I’ll never forget the man who brought in a some dead insects off a tree. He had sprayed before he even knew what they were, and it turns out they were ladybug larvae.

Okay, so out in my garden, I was hunting for squash bug eggs, because I do subscribe to the pest advisories and they said to start looking. I found a whole bunch, and removed them with tape. My treatment for the squash bugs is to continue to monitor for adults and eggs and remove them when I find them. I only have a small squash patch, so it shouldn’t be hard.

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While I was removing the eggs, I noticed that my leaves were yellowing. This is common for watering problems, or under-fertilization, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t the problem. Closer inspection led me to believe that I had spider mites. My best options for control are insecticidal soap or neem oil. I don’t have either on hand though, so I’m going with the third option–a hard stream of water to knock off as many as I can, and continuing to take good care of the plant.
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My last squash plant problem was the sudden death of a zucchini plant. Over two days it wilted and died. I don’t know what caused it. There weren’t any signs of insect damage from squash bugs or vine borers, cultural control was the same as the surrounding plants, and I didn’t see any signs of a root rot. I’ve seen this happen before. On this page it lists sudden wilt with an unknown pathogen as a widespread problem. So I have no idea what happened to the zucchini plant, I just know that sometimes squash plants up and die for no apparent reason. It’s okay because I have three other zucchini plants.

Swings

July 23, 2014Leave a comment

In my city, we don’t have swings at the parks. I’m not sure why, but it did mean I wanted to put swings in my garden.

I thought of a traditional swing set. Unoriginal, and often not functional. Metal swing sets tip if not anchored, and I’ve seen lots of wood ones collapse on themselves after a few years. They aren’t very cheap either.

On our property is a very large Douglas Fir. I thought it would be a wonderful place to hang a couple of swings. Later on, I saw this post, and we copied the construction of the swings. One swing is a traditional rope swing, the other we attached our existing baby swing.

The whole project took one evening, a large borrowed ladder, and cost about $50. The kids love the swings. Because they are hung on high branches, they swing high and far.

The only downside so far is the tree is rather sappy. It can get shoes and shorts pretty dirty.

Swim Lessons and T-Ball

July 23, 2014Leave a comment

This is our first year of entering the world of city recreation. I signed PB up for t-ball, and then later for swim lessons. C and I took the mommy and me class as well. T-ball was fun. PB was often found sitting down and digging in the dirt. C liked the dirt as well, they were always fifthly after a game. PB loved to get the ball, and had a tendency to get upset if someone else always got it. He didn’t quite get the idea of teamwork. Sometimes it was hot, boring, and a little long. But sometimes PB did a great job of chasing balls and swinging too.

Swimming lessons was well worth it. PB went from having no desire to go under water at all, and freaking out if he did, to voluntarily dunking himself. He wouldn’t go down the big slide, sometimes even with a parent, but now he goes down by himself again and again. Mommy and me was actually pretty good. Curtis squealed in enjoyment most all of every class. He loved everything, except getting dunked but he’d tolerate that.

Something Made Sense

July 20, 2014Leave a comment

Yesterday I had the awesome expereince of going with all my siblings to the Temple. While there, I was thinking about the work we were doing and why we were doing it. To tell you the truth, proxy work hasn’t made a lot of sense to me–but I had come across this quote early and was pondering it.

The turning of the hearts of fathers to children and of children to fathers, is the power of salvation for the dead, by means of the vicarious work which the children may perform for their fathers, and is in every sense reasonable and consistent. I have heard it said many times by those who oppose this work that it is impossible for one person to stand vicariously for another. Those who express themselves in this way overlook the fact that the entire work of salvation is a vicarious work, Jesus Christ standing as the propitiator, redeeming us from death, for which we were not responsible, and also redeeming us from the responsibility of our own sins, on condition of our repentance and acceptance of the gospel. He has done this on a grand infinite scale and by the same principle he has delegated authority to the members of his Church to act for the dead who are helpless to perform the saving ordinances for themselves (From Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Fielding Smith pg 222, available here).

While pondering I realized that I was able to have the experience of performing the temple work for someone that is dead, and they are then able to share in that experience. Even if they didn’t have the opportunity in this life to get baptized, to be sealed in the temple, or other work, I could have the experience over and over, and they can then share in mine. I felt blessed and privileged to perform the work.

It made me think of the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians, Chapter 12

12 For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.
13 For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.
14 For the body is not one member, but many.
15 If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?
16 And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?
17 If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?
18 But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.

Each of us has a unique experience, and somehow we can all share in each other’s experience. Only one man was ever perfect, only one man ever needed to be. Because we can now share in Christ’s perfection. The work of God is not just the salvation of one man, but it is the salvation of the entire mankind.

I even thought that it made sense that only a small portion of people get to know of the true gospel in this life. There are many ways of evil, but only one way of righteousness.

Matthew 7: 3 ¶Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

But the wonderful blessing is that all of us can still choose our own path and where we want to end up, no matter our trials and circumstances.

The Fate of Our Rooster

July 17, 20144 Comments

A while ago, I posted about how we had an unexpected rooster. For a while I really liked him–he was friendly, and I liked the sound of his crow. But he kept up his cook-a-doodle-do at 5:30 am for too long. Normally I”m not opposed to waking up this early–but not so much when I’m pregnant. I wanted to sleep in occasionally. Please. The horrible thing about a rooster for an alarm clock is he doesn’t have a snooze feature. Its just lots of crowing until you get up and let him out, and then he still goes at it.

My desire to sleep in won over any small desire to keep the rooster, and one night my brother in law ripped his head off. I did most of the plucking, butchering and cleaning (badly I might add–it was my first time and I had no clue what I was doing). After resting in the refrigerator for a day and half we ate him for dinner. It was pretty good too.

Our dinner of homemade bread, homemade strawberry jam, and homegrown chicken.

My toddler liked the rooster a lot. He would copy the crowing sound when he heard it and say, “Mommy, rooooster.” I wondered if we should tell the children exactly what we were doing, and we went ahead and did. They didn’t seen the actual killing of the chicken, but did see me plucking and butchering him, and knew exactly where the chicken came from when we had it for dinner. They weren’t too bothered by it either. When asked about the rooster now, my toddler will say, “Rooster died,” not sadly but just as something that happened.

I enjoyed the experience of raising and butchering my own meat. But it isn’t an experience I’m going to continue to pursue anytime soon. First of all, it wasn’t cost efficient. The chick cost $2 to begin with and then 3 months of care and feed, plus an hour to butcher and clean. He was probably a three to four pound chicken. Compared to grocery store prices–not a great deal. (Meat birds are a lot bigger in less time, and I’m not factoring in the price of a free range local chicken vs. the factory raised birds in the store, so there is a lot more to think about in the process. But a straight up economical analysis of my bird doesn’t come out that well.) I didn’t particularly enjoy the butchering process. It’s not something I want to repeat in order to get meat every time. Maybe if I actually learned better how to do it, I would be more willing. We also have enough projects and improvements in the yard that raising chickens for meat isn’t a priority. But I’m glad to have had the experience–and also glad that most of my chickens are hens that are now laying eggs, a much easier source of protein to deal with.

Harrisville Park

July 16, 20141 Comment

We found a new park, and it just might be our favorite. It’s twenty minutes south of us in Harrisville. I first found out about it when I drove by and saw disk golf stands. My husband and I, and sometimes our children, like to go disk golfing, so we are always keen to try out new courses. (By the way disc golfing is a wonderful hobby. The whole family can enjoy it, it is very inexpensive with startup costs of a $7 disk and you really only need one, and doesn’t take a whole lot of time. And you can do it anywhere, coursers are located across the country, which makes for some fun adventures on trips.) When I was looking up the course, I found out that not only did the park have a new disk golf course but it had a splash pad as well. Double win.

So last Saturday we spent the day in the park, throwing disks on a pretty good course, playing on the playground, and finishing up with the splash pad. This time the kids actually got soaked (last time we went to a splash pad they didn’t even get wet). It helps that Daddy decided to get his swimsuit on and play with them.