saturday…

so on Thursday… i was wishing for more jersey knit for my waistline.  Friday I discovered new muscle groups and then there was Saturday.

the plan:  My mom was coming over to help me with the Kids and the compost.  We were to drive to my Brother-in-Law’s house to commandeer his Old Chevy truck, drive it to Singh Farms and fill it with a ton (no seriously, a TON) of amazing, your garden can not live without it, compost.  Then we were going to slowly and very carefully drive the poor truck to my house and then unload it one wheel barrel at a time into the garden.

7:40 am – My mom arrived.  She was there to assist me with compost procurement.

8:25 am – I wake my Brother-in-Law to warn him that we are on our way to steal his truck…

8:30 am – We arrive to steal the truck.  After a quick once over of the little “quirks” the truck has, we are off.  Stop for gas and we are on our way.

9:00 am – We pull into Singh Farms.  I follow the sign to the compost pile.  The grounds of the farm are amazing!  Plenty of trees, and greenery, a wonderful little house and the soil… I feel the squishyness in the truck…  And I don’t mean squishy like the place it over watered… it is the feeling of an earth that has life.  Where things grow because they have something to grow in.  I am even more excited to be bringing home some of this rich earth for my own 729 sq feet.

9:15 am – I request a fill up with a smile… And the tractor begins to dump.  The compost smelled rich and magical.  And it was hot.  I knew this was the stuff…

9:30 am – My mom asks if I should rethink this.  I pay the man in charge ( he smiles and asks if I’m going to make it home.. “I hope so..” )

9:45 am – We pull around to the parking area for the Market and get out to explore.

(note:  By now I had so many people tell me I was crazy to load this truck up with 1000 pounds, no really, of compost that I was starting to have some anxiety.  For me, this and two wild and crazy kids made for a little bit of a distracted visit.  So I pledge to go back to Singh Farms, a few weeks from now, when I don’t have a little less than a Ton in the back of a truck with the thought of what do I do if it doesn’t start hanging over my head)

So, into the market we went… Which was really just a lovely walk through the gardens that make up the Farm.  There is a little “log cabin” where you can purchase vegetables, fresh bread and even maple syrup in recycled Coke bottles.  There was a chef cookin’ up goodies and other homemade goodness… (Next time I will take more market pictures…)

But what blew me away was the gardens… remember the squishy soil… now it was under my feet.  I wanted to kneel down and hug this earth.  Trees and garden rows… time and love live here.  This is what I strive for…

10:30 am – Peas were one of the things that I know have been backordered on my seed order ( which I was totally bummed about) so when I found transplants for sale… I bought the whole flat.  Then we were off… for the long (and seriously stressful) drive home.

(Other than the risk of breaking an axle… the real danger with a load like mine is stopping.  No matter how much you want to you just can stop a seriously loaded truck with drum brakes.)

So about this time I lost track of time..  On the way home, I thought about slowing down, about the physical effort of bringing this dirt home… and I noticed (more than ever) that people in Phoenix are not friendly drivers. (Boo!)

In less time than I thought it would take we were home.  Now, we had to unload.  Because of the load I made the executive decision to park on the street… we would just have to hoof it.

So, we got the wheel barrel and the shovels.  After one load, I texted the neighbor for another wheel barrel…  We got that and two sets of hands to help unload the truck. After about an hour we were unloaded.  A quick spray down, a drive back to my Brother-in-law’s, the work was done… and the chickens were happy…

And that was Saturday..  I discovered new muscle groups in my back… I was dirty, and so were the kids…

a long two months…

It has been a long two (very hot) months.  The garden has been hard at work harnessing the power of the sun and its big plastic comforter to kill off as many un-wanted residents as possible before planting.

I am glad to have this part out of the way… but you know who else is glad?  Six laying ladies and two curious kids.  It was like you opened the doors to a new theme park.  Before I had even finished pulling up the plastic, there they all were, in the dirt.

I think it may be hard to get them to stop…

octopus garden…

if you’re new to my life, i am the proud and sometimes incredibly tired mother, of two BEAUTIFUL (if i do say so myself) girls.  i also believe (like a crazy woman) that kids learn best through play (not the video game kind).  i love watching preschoolers (adults are more frustrating!) learn.  they are SO funny! the things they say OMG.. rolling on the floor! …i digress..

margot is currently obsessed with latex gloves…  whenever i put them on (which is not too often) she wants one.. NOW!  i think she thinks they make her like a princess (this child is from mars BTW).  so, the other morning we were watering the plants (which is when i fill a galvanized bucket with water for her play with) and she filled up a glub (glove margot style) and asked me to tie it for her.  I added two pom poms before i did and told her it was an octopus.

into the bucket he went.. you know they can’t be out of the water for long.. add some rocks and sand to the mix and soon you have a lovely octopus garden.  ok people we are talking at least 45 minutes of busy-ness… some water play (which is always nice in the middle of a seriously, horribly, HOT summer) and mom saves the day again!!

i am a people watcher at heart and i love, love, LOVE to watch these little people discovering the world.  it makes me realize how much i take for granted.  so if you have little ones.. make yourselves an octopus.  and remember, mr. octopus works just as well in the sink or the bath… just don’t forget your imagination or your smile.

what happens..

when you let the kids loose with the camera.  here are a few of the random shots the kids took while waiting for the tilling to be done..

fancy gardening shoes.. (go big or go home sista!)

a little stinky..

(note: since i was the worker today, i let the kids take the pictures)

so when we last spoke we were preparing to solarize the garden space…  so we bought some black plastic sheeting, only to learn that it is the clear plastic that we needed.

it was clear that we needed to do some research…   i took a trip to my most favorite nursery Baker Nursery (i have been going there since i could walk) and learned that what we needed was manure and soil sulfur to amend the soil (manure to add organic matter to our dirt and soil sulfur to get rid of excess salt.).  manure you say, and a lot of it!  so we did some research on where to get the poo.  there are all sorts of options, but the local choices were where we turned.  craig’s list has all sorts of people either giving away manure or selling it super cheap but in the end (because we don’t have a big truck or a trailer) we didn’t go bulk, but instead we started at the beginning back at Baker and loaded 30 cubic feet of steer manure (in bags of course) and a 50# bag of soil dispersant (which has the soil sulfur) into the back of the station wagon.

once home the kids (maryanne and a neighbor boy) helped me unload and set out the bags…

today’s mission… spread the poo and the sulfur, till it into the ground and cover with CLEAR plastic.  the manure and the sulfur have to be in the ground for a minimum of 6 weeks (some resources say 8 weeks) before we can plant, that means we are down to the wire for the fall planting.

so all 30 bags opened and soil sulfur spread… we will till in the evening (or so i thought)…  well, the tiller was out of gas, and i had to make dinner so this work would have to wait until the morn’..

the next morning we’re up.. the summer storms are coming (yeah!), it’s humid (yuck!)… 45 min later the poo and the sulpher are mixed in and the ground is soft and fluffy.. time to wet and cover.

while we spray the water the kids ask me why we are doing all this to the ground,  i smile.  that question along with the many questions to come is why i wanted to start this garden, to get the knowledge back and share it,  i tell them we are trying to kill all the grass and get all the good stuff back in the soil..  “when we puttin’ the plastic on?” they want to know…

together we spread out the plastic, the kids take turns with the camera, and in no time the garden is covered.

now we wait..and the ground bakes!  …in the mean time we’ll work on a final layout for the garden and decide on the veggies we’d like to have… i’m glad the hard work is over for a bit… now bring on the rains!

lower wolf creek…

so this week was our annual camping trip to lower wolf creek which is right outside prescott, az.  last year we had it together, this year with a combination of a job interview the morning we were  to leave, which was preceded with long nights preparing a resume and getting ready for the big once over, we were not as prepared as we had been in year’s past.  let’s just say we spent a lot of the drive up, remembering all the things we had left.  some were things that we really didn’t need and some, like the diapers and coffee filters, were things we needed.

but over all, an investment in a citronella candle kept the bugs down and once again we had a really great time.  this year the creek had water, so the girls (including the dog) got some much needed rinsing off.

the girls helped michael with the fire wood…

i once again got to do one of my favorite things.. cook over an open fire (one that doesn’t have a knob) in my trusty dutch oven..  but my favorite thing is to watch the girls, find their way around the woods… discovering the world around them.

as michael put it, maryanne would put a hitch up to “nature” and bring it home with her if she could…  a little smile on my face as i imagine what that would look like..  of course all exploring left some in our party on a little on the tired side..

there was some fun with the food,

and a lot of just being.  now we’re back to the heat, the grass has started to take over the garden area… this weekend, we’ll re-till and start to solarize… back to the grindstone.

toufet 101

so maryanne has been talking about this dessert that she wants to make for a few weeks now…  when she first started talking my ears perked up and I thought, “oh my little chef..” and then I heard the words, “salt, water, milk and sugar” in the same sentence.  no, no i did not want to choke down that sludge.  but it got me thinking… when i was about her age, my grandmother use to watch the frugal gourmet, so i used to watch him too.  in one episode (in my 5 year old brain) he did a stir fry with something that looked like iceburg lettuce and vinegar.  i don’t know how many bowls of that my loving grandparents choked down.. but i remember how special i felt that i had been able to make something “on a real stove”!… so tonight maryanne asked again and i looked at her and said, “sure, what’s the recipe?”  so, here you go, the play by play… toufet 101

first you cut up about 8 strawberries (yes, that is maryanne with the sharp knife!.. she is very careful.. so she will tell you.)

then you add 3 spoonfuls of sugar..

a handful of milk…

3 handfuls of flour…

1 scoop of salt.. stir and into the microwave for 2 hours (she must get the time frame from her daddy, who once put oatmeal in the microwave for 13 min… it started on fire.)  luckily i was in charge of the buttons, in the microwave for 2 min.

voila.. toufet.  it tastes sort of like oatmeal, only not.  margot was stoked until she saw what it was and refused to even try it… but nothing compares to the smile on maryanne’s face that she got to invent her own recipe.. she rocks!

the t-shirt says it all.. miss independent.

just add dirt..

i knew my kids liked to get dirty.. but i didn’t realize how much they LOVE the dirt.  as we loosed the soil from other parts of our property and brought it to the new garden plot, i was amazed at the fun they were having… digging, jumping from mound to mound… even just lying down to gaze at the sky.

maryanne even got up today and wanted to continue with the earth moving…  one shovel full at a time, savoring the coolness of the freshly turned soil.  with these two at my side..this is going to be fun!