January 2023 goals update!

One month down and I am trying my hands at some new things, and marking off accomplishments!

1. Anniversary Plan! Plan something to commemorate being married for 20 years! I was a whopping 20 when I got married. We were young and broke. I’d love to be able to celebrate this anniversary in a special way! No updates yet!

2. Can 100 jars- Last year we only canned tomato sauce, green beans and a couple pickles. This year, I’d like to do more! Nothing to can, yet! But, I’ll definitely be growing more jalapeños this year for tons of cowboy candy! (Candied/pickled jalapeños!)

3. Grow 1,000 pounds of food! I love a lofty goal and I hope to have extras in order to offset the chicken feed bill! We have been bringing in eggs lately, but nothing else!

4. Make 20 quilted things this year! Last year I really got into quilting. (I inherited my Mom’s supplies!) I’m hoping to have many extras to sell! I made 2 quilted pillow covers!

Upcycled from random antique blocks found at the goodwill!

Pillow #2!

5. Get the bonus house ready to be rented! So, we got tired of looking at the neighbor’s house that has been abandoned for 10 years. So, we picked it up for a great price and now we need to fix it up! The electric is being worked on next week! So, moving in the right direction!

6. Go on a hike! This fall I taught outdoor school and hiked through the swamp daily. It reminded me how much I love hiking. Something about being outside and taking in nature. We will have to count the New Year’s day hike as the one last month because the Mr. decided to break his toe when he dropped a 45 pound weight on it. But, he’s on the mend! Trust me, you don’t want to see the picture!

7. Finish our own bathroom remodel. We have been working on our remodel for too long! All that is left is new flooring and a new sink. I don’t mind that they’re out of style, but they’ve been in rough shape for a while. The floor is ready to be installed! We are just waiting on the back ordered toilet!

8. 2023 in 2023! We did this minimalising challenge before, but we are hoping to do it again. It’s purging the house of 2,023 things over the course of the year. That’s almost 170 things per month! This one is going really well! The boy cleaned out his t shirt drawer!I cleaned out cabinets, the hutch, bathroom closet and clothes. And the Mr. started cleaning out the garage. So much stuff!

9. Grow mushrooms! I’m hoping to find newly fallen hardwood logs to inoculate. But, if not, I’ll find another way to grow some! I may have asked for logs for Valentine’s Day. 😆❤️

10. Grow something new! Last year I grew a couple new flower varieties and found out how delicious honey nut squash taste! This year, I’m hoping to grow something new to us! I got a new variety of melons from MIGardener and I’m trying my hands at new herbs too!

All new to me varieties. Don’t mind that nose hole.

11. Start a YouTube! I’m kind of nervous about this one. I’m not sure if my tech skills are up to par, but I’m going to give it a try! Between baking sourdough, making rugs, raising chickens and greenhouse growing, I’ll be looking forward to sharing our progress! This is I’m super proud of! I’ve made 3 shorts so far! Check out my channel! Our YouTube channel

12. Date a month! This is a fun goal. Like I stated above, we’ve been married quite a while. I’m looking forward to planning to do more fun things together. We are guilty of not doing that enough. This month was a chill one! Just a movie on Amazon, a few beverages and enjoying a few talks about future plans!

13. Make 50 flower arrangements! I love growing and arranging flowers. And, I love sharing their beauty with others! Come on Spring!

I feel like I am enjoying these goals this year, instead of stressing about them! And honestly! I can’t wait to get some plants growing!!

Keep blooming!

Propagating plants! Indoor plant living!

It’s still too cold to do much outside, plant-wise. However, I’m working on propagating tons of plants around here!

First up, the African Violet! I have to start with a backstory! My mom loved growing them when I was a kid. However, she was raising 3 kids who played way too rough in the house. Therefore, they rarely survived after falling off of the shelf daily! So, here I am as an adult cutting off leaves, and watching them grow into beautiful little plants. The universe is strange! And I’m sorry Mom!😆

African violet a couple months after putting the leaf in soil

Those little baby leaves!! ❤️

I also still have my little succulent gourd planter growing from propagated pieces of my plants! You just shove the little “leaves” into the soil and let them root!

They all seem happy. So far!

My mom gave me a basket of all kinds of indoor plants. So, I clipped off the end of the pothos and made lots of little baby plants!

Pothos growing roots in water! Grow babies grow!

Little roots!!!

I also clipped off the top of the dragon plant and hopefully it will reroot! And, I divided the beautiful rattlesnake plant! (It took me a while to identify what those plants are!)

Dragon plant cutting in water!

I love the leaves on this beautiful rattlesnake plant!

I officially was put on break from school due to the Coronavirus. So, I guess I will be chilling here with my plants and family. I’m hoping to get some seeds started and get into the garden. Anyone else off work for who knows how long?!

Potato stamp wrapping paper

I catch myself getting a little bummed by how much waste is created by the holidays. So, I do my best to cut way back on gifts, give experiences and avoid all of the holiday excess.

When it comes to wrapping paper, so much if it is not recyclable. Then, there’s the plastic tape and ribbons. So. Much. Trash!!

This year I decided to make my own paper using things that I have around here. My momma taught me how to make potato stamps when I was young.

I used a couple of my homegrown potatoes. (Yes, that one is a purple potato!) I cut them in half and then just drew on some easy shapes. Then I cut them out:

And nope, I don’t get the newspaper either! But, my husband rescued these from work! And yes, that oui yogurt cup was rescued too!

So, after the potatoes dry off for a bit, I painted on some craft paint that I had here. Then, I stamped it on the newspaper. (By the way, make sure that you read the pages a little first. I avoid the obituaries and not so great articles!)

Don’t these stamps look beautiful all painted and ready to be used?!

I can’t wait to see our paper put to use!

Then, it will either be burned or composted!

How are you all bring a little more green this holiday season?!

Our little free library opened!

We checked another goal off for the year! We wanted to make a a little free library that our neighborhood could enjoy and encourage my students to read extra over the summer!

So, last weekend we finally opened up our library with a little get together.

My husband completely constructed it himself. Parts of it is made from upcycled barn wood and I love the personal touches that he added to it! It has a hand forged handle and dog leash holder.

At our little get together I made cupcakes, some kettle corn and had some drinks too. We had a place to drop off books and a couple people swung by to get some books and look at the seeds inside. (We have a seed swap box and a small container of dog bones for people walking their pups!)

My niece was the grand opener of the library! She is named after my sister and that is who the library is in memory of. Her Aunt, my sister, was a reader. She loved reading and she always was giving me books to read. (She didn’t understand why I didn’t love reading as much as her!)

I also made a book pillow as a giveaway! It was really easy to make and I’m hoping that the winner loves it!

So many books dropped off!

After wrapping up the party, I saw a message about a swarm of bees nearby that someone needed out of their tree. It was pretty close by and I’m happy to say that we were able to get them!

The bees have since been moved into a full sized hive and they are building comb fast! It was a good sized swarm!

Last weekend was memorable and I’m glad that I was able to provide a little extra something for my neighbors and enjoy time with family and friends!

Happy almost weekend and keep blooming! 🌸❤️

Greening up the school and indoor plants

We are still working on recycling what we use and composting on our Waste free Wednesdays at school. This week we decided that the recycling bins needed cleaned out and counted.

We have a terracycle box for our glue, the markers go to colorcycle through crayola and the crayons go to the color initiative.

So far we have gathered around 400 glue sticks and 8 pounds of markers and 8 pounds of crayons. I’m so glad that I have students who love to help count everything.

We also composted on another waste free Wednesday and the compost was cooking nicely when I turned it! We have composted around 70 pounds of food waste this year!

And how lucky am I to have neighbors who drop off food scraps that the hens would love. (They scarfed them down!)

And now for the indoor plants:

I think that the pineapple plant that we are trying to regrow might just make it!

When I was taking down the Christmas crafts from the windows in town I ran across a beautiful old Christmas cactus. I was gushing over how it is so hard to find a real Christmas cactus and she told me to take the pieces that her daughter had cut off. And guess what?! They are rooting!

The ginger that we are trying to regrow is sprouting! I can’t wait to see what this 89 cents worth of ginger turns into!

Today I was able to freshen up the chicken coop and then turn the huge compost.

That compost is mainly the remains of all of the pumpkins and leaves. It is decomposing really well for temperatures being cold.

The weekend is quickly approaching and I am really looking forward to getting more work done around here before winter weather returns! Happy almost Friday everyone! Keep blooming (even in February!)

August Goals Update 2018

Well September, you just snuck right up on us! August helped to grow some delicious food and work in some fun before school started!  And here’s how the goals are going:

1. Expand the garden- ✅it happened! Everything is growing pretty well and I’m hoping that I continue to get great harvests! The before and after below!

My big idea

How it turned out! 

 2. Fix the camper- ✅We fixed up our camper and loved using it on a trip of a lifetime! This month we took the camper on another trip in August to the Chesapeake Bay!

3.Travel out west- ✅ We did it and enjoyed every single stop! We are still talking about our fun trip and I love hearing the boy talk about what he saw and what he learned! (I am still in awe of all of the beautiful sights that we saw!)

4. Create a certified wildlife habitat ✅ There’s a grass patch in front of the garage that is begging to be returned to nature. So much is still blooming! And my favorite part is that I have been able to raise and release monarchs because of the milkweed planted!

A beautiful female tgatcwe released last week! 

5. Reduce garbage- Last year we made 7 bags of garbage and we want to make less than 6 bags this year. We had to finally get rid of bag 3.

6. Volunteer/Donate/Do Good Every month- This month we had an excess of cherry tomatoes, so the boy and I walked around the neighborhood to give away extra tomatoes! We also passed along a lot of my boy’s clothes in to people who could use them!

7. Repurpose, remake, mend, repair-  This month I upcycled some old cat litter containers into recycling centers at school and into more compost buckets for my son’s composting service! 

Recycling center at school 

Upcycled containers from kitty litter and laundry detergent containers 

8. Paw Paw trees- Our 2 little trees are looking great! They are going to be repotted this month and set outside to start being put into dormancy for winter.

9. Build a pizza oven- ❎ we are not doing this one this year. We are trying to figure out how we are going to change up the backyard next year!

10. Grow different produce- We have been able to start harvesting some of those different fruits. We ate our first Apple melon this month and have picked so many cucamelons.

Glass gem corn 

Apple melons

11. Continue tracking the solar panels- August was a rainy month, but we still produced enough power to keep our bill at the $5 connection rate!

12. Work on garden cart sales- We have been selling lots of extra produce to friends and neighbors! Mostly tomatoes here lately! I love being able to sell organically grown deliciousness to people who can enjoy it! (Below is before and after our sale)

How have you been crushing your goals lately?! Have you been enjoying any deliciousness from your garden? Keep blooming friends! 🌱

Canning and back to work

Last week was a long one! Going back to work means prepping for a new school year and SO many meetings. (And sitting in seats made for 8 year olds during those meetings!) I am absolutely exhausted by the end of the day! But, everything will be ready by the first day for my students!

I have been able to get in the garden several nights this week and had a few nice harvests! I need to make so much more out of tomatoes!

Nice harvest right out of the yard! 

We also had our stand set up this weekend! We had lots of customers!

Our tiny produce stand 

All of the tomatoes still left after the sale! 

Some salsa ready canned and delicious! 

We finally had to take out the trash. Our goal for the year is to only make 6 bags, so I am thinking that we should be ok!

Bag 3 and both dogs made it in the picture! 

We also did the compost pickup today. It takes a lot of scrubbing and cleaning, but we only upcycle unwanted containers for the compost. The regular buckets are from a company’s laundry detergent and the left are kitty litter containers.

Upcycled and ready to be used! 

And check out how much we have composted so far:

717.24 pounds!!!!

And last, but no least, we found 13 more monarch caterpillars that we will be raising and releasing!

So many babies! 

And our last 2 were ready to be released on Thursday! 1 girl and 1 boy! (The girl flew away immediately!)

This handsome fellow even posed for me! 

I’m looking forward to getting myself back in the work routine and hopefully having a great school year! Keep blooming! 🌱❤️

Certified wildlife habitat!

One of our goals for the new year was to turn the front lawn by the garage into a wildlife habitat, and I’m happy to report back that we did!

The check off sheet for certification:

Food, water, cover, places to raise young and sustainable practices

My rough draft last year

After lots of hard work getting rid of the grass

And this week!

And now all of the requirements:

food: we have raspberries, lots of pollen and nectar, a walnut tree and sunflowers for both pollen and nectar as well as seeds

water: we have 2 bird baths and a tiny pond back by the garden

cover: we created a small brush pile and we have a wooded area and tiny pond

places to raise young: we have milkweed for baby catapillars, pond, bat house, pollinator hotel and trees for the birds

sustainable practices: we capture rain water, use lots of mulch to reduce watering and keep soil from eroding, reduce watering, plant lots of native plants (and plan on adding more every year!), hand pick weeds and invasive plants/insects, reduce lawn area and compost like no one’s business!

 

We started many native plants indoors last winter (coneflowers, milkweed, yarrow, bee balm)

I keep seeing beautiful cardinals enjoying the seeds

Not Native, but a polllen and nectar source

Nasturtiums and the pollinators are enjoying the blooms now

Echinacea

Black eyed Susan (a Maryland favorite!)

Another variety of black eyed Susan with a native bee

Birdhouse gourds volunteered to come up here

Upcycled bamboo sign post

The solar lights along the walkway

It is far from perfect, but I plan on working on and adding to it every year. My husband enjoys not having to cut the grass in that area anymore and the wildlife have really moved in to this area! I see so many different birds, lots of different bees and beautiful butterflies flitting around. Plus, with more birds, I have had less issues with some insects in the garden! I’ll post a picture of it at the end of the season! Keep blooming friends!

 

 

June Goals Update 2018

Happy July all!! June was a fun month of finishing up school and traveling! Plus, the garden is taking off!

And here’s how the goals are going:

1. Expand the garden– ✅it happened! Everything is growing pretty well and I’m hoping that I get a great harvest!

2. Fix the camper– We fixed up our camper and loved using it on a trip of a lifetime! We are going to update it some more, now that we lived out of it for 2 weeks!

3.Travel out west- ✅ We did it and enjoyed every single stop! (And the last blog posted was all about our adventure!)

4. Create a certified wildlife habitat- There’s a grass patch in front of the garage that is begging to be returned to nature. We are finally starting to see what we envisioned! The pollinator hotel is being used, and flowers are blooming!

5. Reduce garbage– Last year we made 7 bags of garbage and we want to make less than 6 bags this year. Bag number 2 was just taken out!

6. Volunteer/Donate/Do Good Every month- This month I didn’t do a big do-good gesture, but the boy’s composting service has kept around 220 pounds of food waste out of the landfill!

7. Repurpose, remake, mend, repair- this month we were able to pick up some pallets and the Mr. turned them into compost bins that the chickens gladly turn for us! Post will come later on how to make them!

8. Paw Paw trees– These native trees have grown near here for such a long time! The little sprouts are starting to look like trees!

9. Build a pizza oven– I do believe that we are putting this off for another year.

10. Grow different produce–

I am proud to say that the Tennessee dancing gourds are growing, along with the apple melons and all different kinds of tomatoes! I also was able to pick up some ground cherries at a local nursery!

Genovese tomatoes

11. Continue tracking the solar panels- May was a nice solar month, despite lots of rain! 1.47 MWh and just the connection rate for an electric bill! (It’s around $5)

12. Work on garden cart sales– I am hoping to be able to put something out for sale this weekend! We will have garlic, eggs and some birdhouse gourds! That cart is too pretty to not be used!

Last month things grew so well while we were out of town! I hope that your gardens start to produce some fruit and veggies for you! Keep blooming friends! 🌱💚

May Goals Update 2018

It’s June!!! Only another week and a half of school, the garden is coming to life and the temperatures are on the rise. I love summertime!

And here’s how the goals are going:

1. Expand the garden– it happened! The whole thing is planted! I have walkways and I’m doing my best to keep the weeds at bay! The trellises are all looking great too!

2. Fix the camper– We have been fixing up our home away from home! It is finished, minus a few little cosmetic things that I’d like to do! We love how it turned out! And the Mr. custom fit the bamboo mat for the bathroom area!

3.Travel out west- That camper is officially ready for adventure! It’s going to be happening this summer! I really want to see a buffalo, a few Great Lakes and the beautiful sights in Yellowstone! Oh, and spend another summer with my boy before he’s all grown up!

4. Create a certified wildlife habitat- There’s a grass patch in front of the garage that is begging to be returned to nature. So far we have raspberries, blueberries, black eyed Susan’s, brown eyed Susan’s, echinacea and a wildflower mix. And I’m pretty sure that some wild yarrow is coming up! And we are up to 2 inhabitants in the pollinator hotel!

5. Reduce garbage– Last year we made 7 bags of garbage and we want to make less than 6 bags this year. We are still working on filling bag 2! (Or actually not trying to fill it!) Still only 1 bag of trash! [/caption]

6. Volunteer/Donate/Do Good Every month- This month I spread some good! I volunteered at a STEM festival and helped to educate kids about the importance of bees! I saved all of the water bottles from being thrown out during a school event and the boy’s composting service has kept around 70 pounds of food waste out of the landfill!

7. Repurpose, remake, mend, repair- the Mr. turned a broken window into a planter for the wildlife area! He also painted up and installed a cat litter container (now mailbox) in my garden so I’m not losing my garden trowel as often! And I turned some unused worksheets into notebooks for the boy to write down compost weights on! Great upcycling month!

8. Paw Paw trees– These native trees have grown near here for such a long time! We are now up to 2 seeds sprouting! I was hoping to at least have that many for cross pollination!

9. Build a pizza oven– I do believe that we are putting this off for another year.

10. Grow different produce–

I am proud to say that the Tennessee dancing gourds are growing, along with the apple melons and all different kinds of tomatoes! The only seeds that didn’t germinate at all were the oriental long beans. Not a one!

11. Continue tracking the solar panels- May was a nice solar month, despite lots of rain! 1.6 MWh and just the connection rate fir an electric bill! (It’s around $5)

12. Work on garden cart sales– I am hoping to be able to put something out for sale this month! Maybe at least eggs! That cart is too pretty to not be used!

Last month I worked every single free minute in the garden. On more than one occasion I had a bad feeling that I bit off ore than I should have. But, not everything is planted and growing. I hope that your gardens are taking shape! Keep blooming friends! 🌱💚