At Annie's Request

I have finally posted pictures of my corn patch. The corn is much bigger now - there are tassles on the top and several stalks have ears with silk sticking out. The beans are at the base of the stalks and they are really starting to grow too.
It's just a little baby garden, isn't it? This is about all I can handle.
In late August, I am going to plant beets, carrots and spinach.

My tomato plant (which is hanging on the swing set, upside down, in an empty litter container) is doing fabulous. I hate tomatoes, but I guess I will make salsa or homemade spaghetti sauce???

With the fresh blueberries we picked today, I made a pie. With Abbie's help, of course. I froze several bags for blueberries. We're going to have some with our waffles tomorrow. And tomorrow, Abbie and I will make blueberry jam. I'm pretty excited about that.

We had a good time picking the blueberries today. The bushes are taller than us. They weren't loaded with berries because this family fills lots of local orders for restaurants and such. After they pick a lot, they let a select few of the public come in and pick. Paul, Abbie, and I each took a bucket and waded into the bushes. I think we picked about 11 pounds? I gave about a 1/3 to my sister. I hope we can make this an annual tradition. By the time we were finished, Paul was a little overheated. We'll need to take some water next time, and Paul should have worn the hat I brought him!

My Garden

Drum roll..............oh, wait, I don't have any pictures to post yet. But I will give an update and post pictures after this weekend.

I planted 10-12 corn plants. I wanted to go easy on my first crop, and I know my freezer has limited space. I want to eat some fresh corn, but I want to cut most of it off the cob and freeze it for the winter. I planted 3 corn varieties. The corn plants started coming up really nice (I did some jumping up and down with gleeful cries - oh yes, I did!) and then the big bad wolf came and blew them down. Wait, wrong story. A bad man who was in a hurry cut down my corn with his weed eater. I sank to my knees and was like "WTF?!" Then I called 911 (my mom AND my sister) to get their opinions on whether I had to replant or not. My mom said yes, my sister said probably not. So I left the little sawed off stalks and planted a new corn plant right beside of it. My mom said that if both plants lived then I could just pull up the smallest, youngest plant. The big bad wolf didn't win. The corn plants lived and the new ones came up too. And since I can't kill anything (except ticks and flies), I cannot bring myself to pull up the little, new corn plants. They are all growing happily together. I love the little garden plot that Paul made for me, but I realize now that it gets more shade than we thought. I think the corn might be bigger if it were getting more sun. I'm not using any pesticide, but I have used a "miracle grow" type substance (that is actually years old and I'm not sure how effective it is).
Recently, Abbie and I took a pencil outside, and I showed Abbie what to do. She used the pencil to poke a 2 inch hole near each corn plant then she put a bean (green bean) into each hole, pushed it down and covered with soil. She loved doing this! Today, we discovered that the beans are sprouting. They will grow up the corn stalk so they will not need to be staked. This is how the Native Americans did it.
I have one tomato plant growing upside down in a cat litter pail. It is growing very well, but it needs to be watered just about everyday. I forgot to water it for a couple of days and the leaves shriveled and some of the tiny tomatoes began to wrinkle. I panicked a little, but with careful attention, the plant is back to normal.
And they all lived happily ever after. The end!
At the end of August, I will be planting a crop of beets, spinach, and carrots. I've never grown these, but I know where I am going to plant them - in a sunnier patch.

Frustration and Fun Stuff

Today, I was very frustrated to find that the landscaping crew took the weedeater to my new corn plants! 5 plants got cut down - I didn't have that many plants to begin with so losing 5 is a big loss. I called my mom in a hurry to find out if the plants would indeed die or if they would continue to grow and grow new leaves. She said they'd probably die so Abbie and I replanted them. I called Paul too and he said he'd put a fence around it so hopefully this won't happen again.

Yesterday, Abbie and I joined my brother and his family for a fun, fun day at Splash Country in Sevierville/Pigeon Forge. This is a large water park owned by Dolly Parton. It is an offshoot of Dollywood. There are 3 water playgrounds, several high thrill water slides, some medium thrill water slides and several tame ones for little kids. There is also a large lazy river and a wave pool. We have had really nice weather lately - sunny, yet breezy, and not too hot. Very, very pleasant! So we did not bake yesterday. When I first arrived at the park (it was my first time there), my brother pointed to the slide that I had to go on first. I said, "Sure!" in a nonchalant way because I've been to a really nice water park in Virginia that had plenty of intense water slides. The slide was called Mountain Scream, and I was excited to ride it. It took me 4-6 seconds from top to bottom, and I was fairly speechless as I got off. I was completely discombobulated. Not only could I not keep my eyes open as I went down, I had no idea where I was, my arms kept flying open, I couldn't tell if I was airborne or still on the slide, and I had water up my nose and felt like I was under a tube of water. Was I drowning? Dead? Was it over? I didn't scream or cuss - I was just speechless at the end. When I finally realized that it was over, I stumbled off the slide and discovered that my brother was laughing at me and I had broken my sunglasses (my brother fixed them though). I didn't ride that one again, but surely I could do it again since I lived to tell about it, right? But I have to draw the line somewhere so I will never ride this one.
We stayed until the park closed at 7 pm. Abbie said, "I never want to leave Splash Country." She really had fun with her cousin in the water. I bought season passes as we left so we can go back as many times as we want, and we can go to Dollywood as much as we want too. We're really looking forward to more of this fun this summer. I told Paul that he and I need to go by ourselves one day (because Abbie won't ride any of the thrill rides and she doesn't qualify for the height requirement for others, but she still had a ton of fun doing all the other stuff) so that we can do all the big slides together. Except for Fire Tower Falls.
In other water news, Abbie is swimming in the deep end. With her instructor with her but not touching or helping her, she can swim across the deep end. She has also learned to tread water, swim on her back, streamline underwater, and has really strengthened her freestyle. But she still lacks confidence and hangs onto to me if we go into the deep end together, but I saw her using many of her skills yesterday at the water park.

Farmer's Market

I never give up. Tenacious is my middle name. I apply this trait to several aspects of my life. If we are letterboxing, and Paul says the letterbox is missing, I keep re-reading the clue and backtracking and usually discover that we misread the clue and have gone the wrong way, and we usually find the box after all. If I lose something, I look and look and look and look until I find it. I could give numerous examples, but I won't. For several years now, I've told Abbie that our family motto is "NEVER GIVE UP." I didn't consult Paul on this; I just decided on my own. She knows our motto like our address and phone number. Anytime she is up against a difficult task, I remind her of our motto, and she will dig in and try again.
I've been wanting to go to the Farmer's Market for 2 weeks now. I went on Tuesday, but the sign said the Farmer's Market was Wednesday & Saturday. I went back on Friday only to discover that I had read the sign wrong - it said Wednesday & Saturday not Wednesday thru Saturday. By now, I was frustrated because the farmer's market is not close to my house. I almost talked myself into waiting until next Wednesday, but I got up this morning and decided to try again.
Eeeee! It was open! Paul stayed in the car reading while Abbie and I shopped. He was along for the ride because we went bowling afterwards. Apples, peaches, strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, cherries, and beans were available (I'm sure I'm forgetting others). We bought strawberries from one lady and peaches and cherries from a man. I bought some homemade baklava from another lady. By then I had run out of cash. I wanted to buy some homemade bread and goat cheese too. I'll just have to go back next week.
After bowling and our errands, we came home and Abbie and I made a double batch of strawberry freezer jam (you actually can't double the recipe so we just made one batch, washed all our utensils and started over again). My freezer will be full now. Abbie helped with all the steps except measuring the sugar and boiling the sure jell.
I'm pretty excited about trying my hand at canning and preserving food. When Abbie was around three years old, I noticed a change in her personality. She became much more moody - in an extreme way. I did some research and discovered the Feingold Diet. It intrigued me. I will not go into detail about what this is all about because I know I will get facts wrong, but on a basic level, Dr. Feingold says that preservatives and food colorings and other additives are not good for anyone - especially children who might be sensitive to these things. Paul is very sensitive to certain foods so I decided to try this diet. So I tried to cut out as much foods with food colorings as I could. IT-IS-NOT-EASY! Just about everything has red dye #40 in it. I started buying only brown sugar cinnamon pop tarts much to Paul's dismay. Although I disliked the extra trip, I started buying certain foods at the Natural Foods Store. One thing Abbie was addicted to at the time was fruit snacks - those little gummy/jelly snacks. I stopped buying them. I think my "experiment" worked. Maybe it was all in my head, but I am pretty sold on the idea that all the extra preservatives, additives and dyes in our food is hurting our health. So what I'm trying to say with this back story about Abbie when she was three is that I've been interested in food and how it is made and how it benefits or hurts our bodies for several years.
Fast forward to 7 1/2 year old Abbie, and I now have the time to try gardening and canning. Now, I also have a bigger opportunity to buy organic and buy locally grown produce. And then Annie suggests that I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and it all starts to tie in together.
Another coincidence is that one of Abbie's last assigned chapter books in school was Little House in the Big Woods. Although I'm a big reader and a big fan of the Little House tv series, I had never read this series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. We (Paul is now a big fan too) liked the first book so well that we have now bought the series. In the middle of the day, Paul will ask, "Lorrie, will you read to us for awhile?" We are currently on book 3, and these books are very farming oriented, cooking from scratch, making your own furniture, etc. Everything just seems to be pointing in a certain direction for me.
I'm following the signs; I'm following the signs.

Trying My Hand at Gardening

Today (I am really late, I know) I planted some corn. Early in the year, around February (maybe earlier), I started thinking about planting a garden. I have lots of yard space for a garden, but we live on a corner lot so most of our lawn is "on display." Basically, the neighbors can see everything. And unfortunately, we do care a little bit about what the neighbors think. *But I could really tell some stories about things we've done that I know has caused the neighbors to laugh at us. We are "those people" in our neighborhood - the ones that cause people to point and whisper and crane their neck as they drive by. I'll tell those stories another time. I only bring it up now to prove that we only care a teeny bit about what they think about us. We mostly do whatever we want.
But I hesitate to just plant a garden anywhere because I am a pansy ass (a phrase that The Pioneer Woman uses and I like it). I don't enjoy the heat or sweating or getting dirt under my fingernails. Ick! And I know myself. I know my limits and my weaknesses. I know that if I plant a garden, I will let it get weedy or dilapidated. So in my early musings, I knew I couldn't have a big garden.
I approached my mom and told her that I am now (after all the years of being a non-vegetable eater and a non-helper in the garden in my growing up years) ready to learn about gardening. I asked her if she would let me help with her garden this year in exchange for her growing a little extra for me. She said she would, but so far she hasn't ask me to help. That's okay because when it is time to plant she doesn't have time to wait on my schedule to clear up. In anticipation of the planting, I sent off for some seed catalogs. I didn't purchase anything because my mom had the seed she needed, but I enjoyed reading the catalog. I saved it to use in case I really get the gardening bug. When it is time to hoe and weed my mom's garden this summer, I will have time to help her now that my schedule has cleared up.
My brother has also planted a big crop of beets. He grows them and I can them and share them with him. I think we'll have a bigger crop this year.
But I was still itching to grow some things on my own - on a small scale. I currently have one tomato plant - in an upside down planter. It is growing well. I haven't forgotten to water it yet. I don't really like tomatoes - raw, anyway. But I do like salsa and plan to can some if this plant produces well.
Today, I planted 3 varieties of corn. When I was buying the seed, I couldn't decide so I bought the 3 I thought I'd like best. Paul found a spot for my small, small garden that is away from most of the neighbor's eyes. Paul was very helpful and enthusiastic about the project. I planted 2 rows with 6 seeds per row. I even drew a map so I'd remember which variety was planted where. I have already marked my calendar so I'll know when to expect to see the plants and when I should harvest. I watered and fertilized today.
We eat a lot of corn so I hope to be able to freeze several bags if my plants produce well. If this project goes well, maybe I'll plant peas or beans next year.