Trampoline

Back in March, we heard that my youngest's school year was switching to remote learning and all of her end of year activities were cancelled.  No 8th grade trip to Washington DC, band competition & trip to Six Flags, softball tryouts, end of year concert, 8th grade graduation, and likely the summer musical that she's enjoyed being in the past two summers.  We anticipated that a "bummer summer" was looming ahead with no visitors, no trips, no sleepovers with friends, no annual '80's party, no beloved cousins coming to stay and the town pool closed for the season.  I gathered the girls and we made a summer wish list and a summer to-do list -- all things that we thought we could still do, in spite of the pandemic sweeping the globe.  The top of the list for my youngest - something she's been asking for for ages - a trampoline!  I took some of the money that we were refunded from the Washington trip and I found a trampoline on Amazon - searched all around but in addition to a run on toilet paper and sanitizing wipes, TRAMPOLINES and actually KIDDIE POOLS were also pretty darn hard to find!  I placed an order for both items in April and they arrived around Memorial Day weekend!  The pool was not a big success, some fun was had but it was a hard summer to keep a kiddie pool going - a run of cool days led to little use and a need for a lot of scrubbing and chlorine shock - and with so little rainfall (we must be in a drought this summer!) it was hard to justify constantly emptying and filling the pool.  But the trampoline...  BIG hit!  My youngest is out there a ton (pictured above) and my eldest enjoys it too - to bounce on but also she has spent quite a bit of time just lying on it and reading this summer!  And my husband, the biggest kid of all, loves to jump on it!  Summer is winding down, this will be enjoyed into the fall and then we'll tackle how to store it this winter - yikes.  But much loved and used this summer - well worth it!

Summer Garden

We tried our second garden this summer!  This was a trial and error year which was prompted by the Coronavirus global pandemic.  Back in April, supermarkets seemed to be clearing out - in addition to toilet paper, sanitizing supplies and even bread and baking supplies running out, locally we were low on things like eggs.  We know lots of people in our town that have chickens or ducks for eggs and I was deeply regretting not having our own chickens!  (Although, truthfully, I've heard some stories that make me think YIKES... the term "egg bound" springs to mind...)  But a conversation with my bestie about the value of being more self-sufficient got me motivated to start our first garden here!  And, with a long "pandemic summer" looming ahead of us I thought a summer garden would be a great project to keep the girls entertained.  (I was half right...)  My friend told me that seeds were also hard to come by this year, but we had a canister of (old) heirloom seeds that I had been holding on to for years.  We decided to build raised garden beds on the sunniest side of our house.  That side of the has a light layer of gravel on the ground (the former homeowner kept a camper over there) so this was an easy way to plant a garden without having to use a roto-tiller.  My husband built two simple wood framed boxes and we had a load of dirt delivered to fill them.  All of the time and effort to prep this year is done and next year will be a piece of cake!  We planted our seeds after doing some internet research about what each plant would need (amount of space, sun, etc.).  We also tried planting a few cut up potatoes with eyes, some green onions that we had used and started in a jar of water until roots had grown again.  

And we planted some already started mint and tomato plants.  The girls were able to watch the plants from their bedroom windows this summer which was fun for them and my eldest turned out to be quite the farmer!  The garden ended up being HER project this summer - her younger sister did a lot of cooking, which she enjoys, but she is not terribly interested in gardening.  But differences make life interesting!  Anyway, our old seeds were...too old.  But we got a few little potatoes, lots of mint, TONS of tomatoes, some basil...  All in all, not a bad harvest!  Of course our family farmer, happens to be a vegetarian who does not like tomatoes.  So I tried some new recipes that transformed tomatoes into things she would eat.  We tried fried green tomatoes which were delicious, Half Baked Harvest Easy Sheet Pan Tomato Herb Pizza which was a big hit (my husband liked it better than take-out!), roasted tomato pasta sauce, and tomorrow I will try my hand at fresh salsa.  We look forward to next year's garden, trying some new things (getting new seeds!) and learning from this year's experience.  

At Last, Spring?

It was a beautiful day here in Southern NH, and while Daddy was working, the girls and I were feeling like we should be out enjoying the fresh air and sunshine!  What a lengthy process to get us out the door (into our own yard...).  First, we had to find appropriate warm weather clothing.  That took longer for my little girlie, because I thought this would be the perfect time to go through her piles of shorts from last summer to see which ones still fit!  Hilarity ensued, as it seems to, when my two girls and I spend any amount of time working on project together.  More on that in another post.  We finally found an outfit!

Now, lunch -- we'd decided on "munchy picnic-style" food for lunch.  I pulled out two plastic serving trays -- went searching for the one large one that I like to use for just such an occasion.  In the kitchen, no.  In the laundry room, no.  In the storage closet, no.  Then I remembered -- it's in the playroom with every large Lego creation my little girlie has made!  Moving on to find something else...  Got my trays, pulled out pita chips and hummus, pulled out dipping pretzels and fancy mustard, sliced up cheese, pulled out crackers, grapes, beverages...  Finally, we are ready to walk out the door!  We rearrange some furniture to allow everyone a seat near the food.  We sit, and start to eat, and enjoy the sunshine!

And two minutes pass...  And my girls are ready to go inside because there are bugs outside!  Oh the horror!  Seriously?  We've been prepping for over an hour and you give it two minutes!  Somehow we pushed through had a bite to eat and then we moved onto outdoor projects.  My husband is having back surgery soon and he must avoid any lifting for 4 - 6 weeks, so I told the girls we are going to have to pitch in more than usual.  They worked together to put out our pretty collection of painted garden stones, and I worked on trimming up my hydrangea and raking leaves leftover from the fall.  My little one pulled her bike out of the shed.  It was a fun and fairly productive day!  I was very happy that my girls were able to find their inner outdoorswomen and "tough it out" in spite of the bugs!  (Although, they both abandoned me when I moved out front to rake...  Baby steps!)

How are you enjoying the nice Spring weather?

Earth Day - Fairy House!

 My husband was off work today and he and our littlest girlie spent a busy Earth Day going to the Recycling Center (we do not have garbage service - we take our garbage, MUCH less than we used to accumulate! - and our recyclables -- MUCH more than we used to accumulate! -- to the town's Recycling Center!), then came back to work on cleaning up the yard.  They also worked together on setting up our daughter's sweet little fairy house!  This is year 2 for the fairy house, and she has gathered quite a large number of adorable items -- some from gifts, lots of natural materials, some recycled materials.  It's such a fun project! 

What are you doing to celebrate Earth Day?

Our First Harvest

It’s official! We are farmers! We had our first tomato and cucumber from our garden, and let me tell you how excited we are over here! My 4-year-old (ugh, that pains me to say...) and I were out in the yard the other day and I was showing her the cucumber that was fully grown, and some little zucchini and little cucumbers that are not ready to pick yet. All of a sudden she starts squealing with excitement, “A RED TOMATO!! Look Mommy, a red tomato!! Can I pick it??” I let her gently pick the tomato (so as not to disturb the green tomatoes that are still growing) and we picked the cucumber and took our harvest in to the kitchen. As I mentioned in my first post about our garden, we did not have big expectations since this is our first attempt at vegetable gardening, but we considered this an “adventure.” What fun to see a return on our work – it’s a wonderful opportunity to try and introduce our girls to new veggies that they may not normally be interested (my 9-year-old did try the tomato – still not a fan, but she tried it, which was a big step!). It is also a wonderful learning experience to see that food doesn’t just magically appear in the fridge or on the shelf at the grocery store – someone puts in an effort to grow the food that we eat!

Planting Our First Garden!

We had a great family day today -- we really took advantage of the great weather and we finally had the chance to finish our garden! We spent the majority of the day outside -- the kids played in the yard, my husband started prepping for the pool people to come and open the pool in the next two days, and we planted our first garden! As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, we built a wall of garden bricks with the intention of planting our first vegetable garden.

Today, all four of us got in on the fun and we did our interpretation of a "lasagna garden." (Sorry, I would add a link, but I'm having a hard time searching right now! Tons of info on the internet, if you are interested!) From what I've read and heard about lasagna gardening, it's a layering process and the great thing for us is that you don't have to take time digging up the grass before planting! We started by laying a layer of newspaper over the grass in our garden. Then we soaked that with water -- by next year, that grass will be totally gone, along with the newspaper -- so easy! Then we took 2 wheelbarrows full of leaves, leftover under a tree from the fall. We laid that on top of the wet newspaper. Then came a layer of peat moss, and finally a layer of top soil.

We had to take a trip to the local garden store to pick up the peat moss and the top soil and while we were there we purchased vegetable and fruit plants -- my girls were SO excited!

We may have gotten a LITTLE carried away... It didn't look like a lot of plants in our little wagon, but later when I was talking to my grandmother (garden clubber extraordinaire!) I thought, "Wow, that sounds like a lot -- that's not all going to work in there!" But, she didn't seem concerned, and I told her that this is our first garden, we'll find out what works and what doesn't work and we'll make adjustments next year! This year is a gardening adventure!

For our first garden, we chose things that we would normally eat and therefore buy at the store -- tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, bell peppers. My girls also chose a few things that they just thought would be fun to plant -- watermelon (I know... but it's an adventure!), strawberries and even pumpkin! It will be a wonderful experience for the girls to see the fruits and vegetables (hopefully!) grow and it might even get them to try some things that they may not normally eat (I've got my fingers crossed that my 9-year-old will try a tomato!). But, in any case, we had a wonderful day together as a family!

Starting a Garden - Step One, Move the Bricks!

Yesterday was a beautiful day here and we had the great fortune of having all four us home to enjoy it! We spent the afternoon outside in our yard -- the girls enjoying their new swing set, and my husband and I taking the first steps to have our first garden! One of the elements that I wanted to have for the kids in our "Best Backyard on the Block" quest is a little garden in which they can help to grow vegetables. I think this will be beneficial for all of us -- the girls will learn about what goes into getting the food that is put on the table, they will have a great time getting to tend their own little garden, and maybe it will even encourage them to try some other veggies that they may not be interested in right now. Not to mention the benefit of going out to the garden to pick some veggies, as opposed to driving to the store!

And as a special bonus, creating the garden is helping with another ongoing project this spring -- to clean up the yard! Near the site of the new garden, we had a sandbox that the girls have not used in years, and we cleaned that out and will be putting it on the curb this week. We also are FINALLY using the pallet of garden bricks that Grandpa and Gramby bought me (at my suggestion) for my birthday, hmmm... 11 years ago? I have gardening/landscaping commitment issues -- I'm finally starting to learn that you can do something in your yard and if you change your mind -- you can re-do it! Anyway, that birthday present came when we were living in our first house (before this current one). I had a vision, at that time, of a landscape project that I wanted to do at that house. I also had a vision, that we would be at that house a lot longer than we were! Shortly after we had our first daughter, we started re-evaluating that house -- we loved it, but it was only a two bedroom, with a small yard, near a busy street, and not in a great school district. When we started thinking about moving to another home, I decided that I wanted to save the bricks and take them with us. Much to the delight of my husband! He's such a great, PATIENT guy -- it was the LAST day that we had at the house and our last chance to take anything from the house or yard -- it was a super long day, and it was November, I believe... My sweetie went back to the house for the bricks, at the end of a long day of moving. It was dark out, it was cold, and he loaded up his Subaru wagon with as many of the bricks as he could pry out of the ground! (Love that man!) Of course, then they came to this house and were piled up into a corner of the yard for the past 8 years until I was able to come up with a use for them! :) (That is a picture of where the bricks have been sitting all these years, and of the girls checking out all of the bugs and worms in the ground underneath them!)

So yesterday, he and I piled them up in the girls' wagon and wheeled that back and forth over to the garden site. We ended up having enough bricks to put on the other side of the little picket fence -- we built a similar wall around our irises that are sprouting up! That fence separates our pool from what we call the girls' yard -- our side yard that is completely fenced off from the street, neighbor's yard, and pool. This is where we have their swing set, where the veggie garden will be, and the area that we are working on this spring in our best backyard project! This week, my garden guru, Christine (who I think was hoping to sneak over this summer and smuggle the bricks out of the yard...;) is coming over to check out what we've done and to give me some tips on planting the garden -- so stay tuned!

New Swing Set!

There are some pretty happy campers in our household -- our girls, because we are the proud new owners of a fabulous wooden swing set, and my husband and I because the girls are enjoying it tremendously, AND we got a great deal on it! We had purchased a metal swing set about 5 (?) years ago for our eldest daughter. It dutifully served its purpose and was enjoyed by her, her friends, and finally her younger sister. But that swing set has seen better days, and between rust and our not feeling it was sturdy enough for both girls to play on, we decided to look into a wooden swing set. Have you priced these out lately? Whew!! Expensive. Lowe's sells them for about $1500, and Toys 'R Us has some for $800 and up. Friends of ours have been lucky enough to find people who have older kids who are no longer interested in their swing sets, and they have gotten them for free -- just the labor of moving the play set. We looked into that and also looked on Craig's List a site that I rarely remember to check before heading out to the store to buy something new. I did a search for "swing set" and every day for a week there were different options -- lots of people were looking to sell them, or even give them away! We inquired about 3 different ones, went to see one of them, and ultimately that was the best deal and we purchased it! It was the most expensive of the 3 -- $400, but the tower and fort on this alone, sells for between $600 - $700 at Lowes! With the help of our good friend, Michael, and my father, the guys went out (in the rain -- bless their hearts!) and took it apart, drove it home and put it back up in our backyard. It is possibly the best $400 that we have ever spent -- our girls have been out enjoying themselves in the fresh air, swinging on the swings, sliding down the slide, playing up in their new fort, just about every day that we've had it. And we are rediscovering our backyard and starting some other projects to make ours the "Best Backyard on the Block!" (Stay tuned -- I have some ideas to share throughout the Spring!)