Tag: grandkids

The Garden

When granddaughter N lived here for a couple of years, she liked helping me in my garden (so did her big brother). When both of them were working, I had to make sure everyone was spread safely apart because garden tools were sometimes dangerously wielded as they hacked at weeds. They moved to a nearby town into a beautiful home with a yard, not a flat city yard, her neighborhood is noted for steep driveways and heavily sloped yards. Late last spring, N said she wanted a garden and her Mom didn’t know where to begin. One Saturday, I joined them in the morning and we set out to get a couple of raised bed boxes, lots of cardboard, garden box bagged soil, seedlings, and seeds. I had taken some low plastic erosion fence and step in poles. We dug away sod to level, laid the cardboard, assembled the boxes, filled them, and mulched around them. Put up the “fence” and planted her boxes. The boxes are close to the neighbor’s fence and they have a little garden on their side of the fence. This was a good and a bad thing, it meant fewer weeds along the fence line, but it is a 4 generation Asian family and grandmom whose garden it was, doesn’t speak English. She took it upon herself to water N’s garden every time she watered her own and N’s garden was saturated, which didn’t help. One day when I was staying with the kids, I tried to let grandmom know that we didn’t need her help watering. I don’t know if I succeeded.

About the time her beans sprouted, something dug up most of one box and something feasted on young pepper and tomato plants, so it wasn’t a great success, but she did end up harvesting a few tomatoes and peppers before the season was out. This didn’t deter her or dampen her desire to garden at all. About a week ago, I got a request to help plan this year’s garden. She is now 8 years old and quite a good reader, so this week I have contributed to her lessons with emails that she has to read aloud to her Mom and then write me back with questions and what she wants to plant. She decided she wanted to expand her garden to a third box and plant some early spring veggies this year. She and her Mom stripped the sod uphill from the first two boxes, built a new box, filled it, and mulched around it yesterday. Then she sent me her wish list.

I had already sent a list to daughter with instructions on a better, more secure fence arrangement and she ordered the supplies to be delivered today. Last night, I designed N’s 3 garden boxes to accommodate her plant wishes and put planting dates by each type of plant. I suggested to daughter that she buy seedlings on as many of the plants as she could, though not the cheapest option, it will guarantee better success and enough quick germinating plants were included that planting those seeds will allow N to have the full experience. I love that she wants her own garden. I hate that I can’t be with her to do it this year, but it has been fun helping her plan. It is contact I miss so much with this social isolation. Daughter has been terrific about sending pictures nearly every day of lessons and projects and it helps.

I wish my garden area was that neat. My celery experiment is growing nicely. I had two celery hearts that were getting soft, so I chopped the celery and froze it for cooking and stuck the ends in a shallow dish of water in a sunny window for about a week or 10 days. When the centers were showing signs of growth, I stuck the two in a clay pot of potting soil and put them in the sun. It will be interesting to see the end result.

The Asian Pear trees are in full bloom and there is no indication of frost in the next 10 days so I am hopeful for fruit. The apples are beginning to leaf out, though I have seen no blooms there.

Today is another sunny day, though cooler than the past two near record breaking days, but yesterday and today, the wind is howling. If I can secure my long hair so it doesn’t whip my face too bad, I will do some weeding in my garden today and maybe try to move some compost into the newly rebuilt boxes.

March 30, 2020
Quiet Monday Back Home- 8/5/2019

The past few weeks have been quite active. Three weeks ago, eldest grandson came for his annual summer visit. We love having his visits for a few weeks. He loves it here and helps out with the garden and getting to drive the riding mower and tractor. Between the last time I saw him and this trip, only a few short months, he sprouted taller than I, though I still outweigh him by too much.

We got some projects accomplished, though not all I hoped for due to persistent heat, thunderstorms, then other activities getting in the way, like a day trip.

Week two, we added two of his cousins to the mix, two grandchildren that live nearby. We had arranged for them to participate in a history summer camp for the week, with eldest grandson and me as volunteeer helpers. I think we all had fun and some history learned. Following camp, the younger two came back to our house til their Mom got off work. During the weekend, eldest grandson and I did get some garden work done.

Week three, we had all three kids all day for the week. During one day when they were “playing” together (not sure that their activity was really play or ganging up on each other), I got some fall vegetables planted in the garden.

Sprouts in the fall veggie bed, but nothing in the cover crop bed behind it.

Machado pumpkins, not a single bloom, but they are keeping the weeds at bay.

Grandson eldest ended his visit with us with a couple of days of basketball camp in Roanoke about an hour away. His camp was Friday evening and we stayed in Roanoke for the three hours, getting dinner and browsing the bookstore before picking him up and returning home. Saturday was all day, I took him in the morning, returned home to do some canning and cleaning and prepped dinner while hubby went to pick him up in the evening. Yesterday, hubby took him in the morning while I gathered belongings, got laundry done, finished cleaning, and drove over to pick him up and drive him 3 more hours to his home. It has been a busy, often hectic three weeks and we loved it. Now for a few days of rest.

Up next will be fall canning, a fall fiber retreat at a new location, and possibly some help with eldest grandson as his family works on a new to them dwelling and move as school starts and jobs conflict.

No more signs of snakes in the coop, I guess the 6 footer was the culprit and he is now far away.

If you have been missing me, the blog has had some technical issues. It looks different now, there are no archives, but there is a “Like” you can use, still a place to comments, and a place at the bottom to subscribe if you are a new reader and want to be notified when new posts are made.

August 5, 2019
Garden Day, Finally

Tomorrow is our last average frost date and it seems that we have gone from winter straight to summer, so we aren’t afraid of more cold nights. After our weekly jaunt in to the Farmers’ Market for salad, asparagus, a bit of meat and some more pepper seedlings, we started on the garden to do list. First up was removing the remaining 4 pods of the old compost bins. They were constructed 9 or 10 years ago when the property had been purchased, but the house was only under construction. My current compost bin is up from the chicken coop and serves me well. The very large multi-pod bin was necessary when the gardens were just started, filled with composting leaves and horse manure from down the road. They have served as temporary shelter for cull birds and last year for sweet potatoes, winter squash and pumpkins. Today we deconstructed it. SIL knocked it apart with a sledge, Daughter and I knocked nails through the boards and pulled them, dropping them in a bucket for later disposal. Many of the boards are Chestnut and still sound, so they were stacked with the idea of using them to construct a more permanent meat bird coop.

While we hammered and pulled, our helpers started on the weeding, to keep them away from the nails. Unfortunately, SIL missed and swears my middle name must be Vlad as he impaled one of the smaller finishing nails through the sole of this boot and into the instep of his foot.

Once the wood was stacked, we tackled the former grape bed that had not been weeded very well last year and had many large clumps of Bermuda grass growing in it. While Daughter and I weeded, SIL hauled rocks and put them in the tractor bucket. Daughter was given her first tractor driving lesson today and by the end of our workday, was driving the tractor alone to dump the buckets of rocks onto one of the dozens of rock piles on the farm.

The chickens loved having clumps of grass, chickweed, burdock, thistles and other greenery with roots tossed into their run. They are still penned up, because we still haven’t moved all of the fence to keep them out of the gardens.

Romeo standing guard.

Today was a great start on the garden. When it cools some tonight, I will set the peppers, tomatoes, and tomatillos in the beds prepared for them. The former raspberry bed still needs further clean up, many volunteers pulled and weeds removed and we will get the beans and other seeds planted. The barren end of the chicken run will be planted with winter squash, the area where the compost bins stood, we will plant the Seminole Pumpkins. Until they get large, I will continue weeding the area between where the bins stood and the chicken run. Sunflowers will be planted along the edge of the garden for their beauty and for the seed for the chickens.

Love this time of year, just wish it wasn’t quite so hot already.

May 9, 2015
Whew, We Survived!

The kids are in bed and we survived the entire weekend. We were not young parents, which makes us not young grandparents, but we are healthy and stay active.

The weather cooperated, and the kids had a lot of free outside play time. They have moved from a neighborhood with a street in front of the house and a canal that was home to the occasional alligator in the back, so playing outside without an adult nearby just didn’t happen. Here on our farm, they have boundaries about where they can go alone and rules about not climbing on the rock piles, but are allowed to dig, run, romp and roll, and play make believe games to their heart’s content.

We are still introducing them to the region, so after lunch and quiet time, we took them to the Huckleberry Trail, a paved former rail grade that is still a work in progress, connecting more and more areas of the region, but the original portion, runs from the town library to the mall area in the next town, about 7 miles. The trail is an asphalt path used by bicycles, joggers, dog walkers and people just out for a stroll. We started at the library and walked only 3/4 mile to the gazebo. By then, the three year old was done. She had walked and run on the outward leg. She was coaxed, challenged to races and monkey backed on the way back to the car.

Home for some more outdoor play, dinner prep and clean up, a couple of chess games with Mountaingdad, baths and bed. We are now recuperating before I have to get up early to get grandson to his bus for school.

March 22, 2015
Cave Hill Olympics Vol. 4

Last winter Olympics we had a couple of back to back snows and grandkids coming. We bought a couple of plastic toboggans in anticipation. Once our friendly farmer neighbor with the behemoth tractor with a heated cab plowed us out, we drove to town, resupplied and parked the 4 wheel drive SUV at the top of the driveway. With the toboggans in the back, we loaded the groceries onto the toboggans and before Mountaingdad could turn around, I hopped into one with the groceries and started sliding down the driveway of packed snow and ice. He quickly caught on and hopped in the other one to race me. Each time we had to go out for supplies, we dragged one of them to the top of the drive (2/10 mile) and hauled the supplies back down to the house. When the kids arrived, the fun really began and we took many photos of kids and adults, us included, sledding down the various hills on the property. The biggest kid was our son in law, the one still in Florida trying to sell their house, but he is flying in today for the weekend and some snow fun.

The day after our foot of snow this week, we dragged the sleds out and bundled everyone up for some snow play.

Once we struggled uphill to the top of the drive, sledding down hills as we went and hauling the 3 year old on one sled, we discovered that the road had been plowed by a pickup truck with a front blade and it as it is downhill from the paved road to the bottom of Cave Hill (the hill beyond our house), it made a great toboggan run. All of us, from the youngest, with an adult to the most senior of us, took turns sliding down the slick packed hill, laughing and getting snow covered.

So much fun to be “young.”

Last night after 8 p.m., the neighbor farmer and his behemoth with enough lights to light up our house, plowed us out. We had gotten an additional couple of inches of snow yesterday, it was 13f (-10.5c) with strong wind blowing snow in whiteouts.

We woke to -1f (-18.3c) with a high today of only 4f (-15.5c) and a low tonight of -14f (-25.5c) and light snow falling. We have fires in the wood stove and fireplace and will hunker down except for a trip out to pick up son-in-law by one or two of us when his plane arrives.

Tomorrow is supposed to be somewhat warmer and I expect a great deal of snowplay will occur, lots of dryer time as we dry out layers for more play. Saturday, we are expecting another 5″ of snow and ice before a thaw begins on Sunday. We will enjoy it while it lasts and hope that spring is on its way.

February 19, 2015
Vacation

On July 27th, we packed the pups off to doggie camp, loaded the car with suitcases, guitar and amp, bike, ball gloves and a cooler and headed south. Grandson and I in the car, Jim on his motorcycle for his first major road trip. We headed off for a weeklong visit with our daughter and her family. We haven’t seen them since last Christmas and grandson hasn’t seen his cousins since last August. We had booked a hotel room about halfway there, a bit over 400 miles. It took us longer to make those miles than when it is just the two of us in the car as we stopped every 110-120 miles to reconnect with each other and for Jim to have a chance to get a drink and walk around for a bit to give his sore parts a rest. Once at the hotel, the guys took a dip in the pool, we found a Mexican restaurant catering to the Mexican population and had a good dinner, then back to let grandson ride his bike around the parking lot to let off some steam.

As the temperature reached 100ºf that day, I’m not sure if he was letting off steam or making steam.

Visiting was active for the three grands, with biking, Lego building, Light saber battles, reading, soccer and baseball, a beach visit, a day at Busch Gardens in Tampa. The Busch Gardens day was hot and humid, but everyone from the 2 1/2 year old to the 70 somethings found rides to ride, shows to see, snacks to eat.

Riding a camel on the carousel. We rode it about 5 times and she never would get on a horse that went up and down.

Sunday we started our return journey home, leaving early to try to miss the afternoon rain showers. Again stopping every couple of hours to reconnect and spending a night in a hotel a bit more than half way home. The afternoon arrival was greeted with a delightfully cool house that had been closed up with no A/C on, temps in the upper 70’s, a deliciously chilly night in our own bed.

My stop at the neighbor who chicken sits for us, revealed that she didn’t get a single egg, I’m glad I took her two dozen on our way out and brought her a pound of Orange Blossom honey from Florida. My visit to the coop, I found a still broody hen on one fragile egg that she broke when she puffed up and tried to prevent me from moving her off the nest.

This morning, she got a surprise as I removed her from the nest and put re-freezable ice packs in her nest and the next one over. She is nearing 22 days of broodiness on an empty nest.

Later this week, a delivery of 15 Rainbow Ranger meat chicks will be delivered and we will begin raising them for 11 weeks.

The heavy straw mulch on the garden has kept the weeds down. There were a few over developed squash and cucumbers that got fed to the chickens, more harvested for us. Lots of peppers that I need to process today. Basil that needs to be pulled and dried. Yellow wax beans pulled and dumped in the chicken pen. Bunnies or deer got in the garden and ate most of the new green beans down. I will cover them today and see if there is any recovery. There are three beds that need some fall crops planted before it is too late.

This morning, grandson and I went to pick up the pups. They seem to be glad to be home.

We have one more week and a half with grandson and I will return him home. The weeks have gone by so quickly, but it has been a delight having him with us.

August 5, 2014