Oh My!

I am so sorry I haven't kept up on my Blogging! So much has happend over the summer! I tell you what, I am going to do a "catch up" Tomorrow, while my littlest daughter is napping. I have so much to tell you! Some sweet and some very sad news. I will also post pictures too! Please come back and check out what I have to tell y'all! I hope y'all had a lovely summer! my goodness where did our summer go?
Many Blessing to each and everyone who comes across my blog! :0)

Catching up over the fall and winter.........

This blog is a "Catch Up", I kinda forgot about my blogging duties during the long winter! So now I decided to just do a whole mess of photos to show you what our simple life has been like over the long winter. So get some hot tea or coffee, sit back and enjoy reading about our simple lives over the long winter!

Our little Eliza Jane is growing up fast! Here are a few photos during our long winter.







Here's Happy Maria!


Cold Lake Superior!


The Harbor at Lake Superior


Our Lovely dog, Annabell!





Winter season was long!

So Happy today is the first day of SpRiNg!

Our lovely Dog, Annabell wanting to come in to say "Hello"....






We had a beautiful Fall Season, Just wanted to share some photos with you of our beautiful Fall tree leaves.....















This last Fall , we had fun building "Fairy houses"!




My oldest granddaughter busy making "Spoon Dolls"







These two are four months apart....


The whole cousin gang!




Winter in the North land of Minnesota, there are days where you can't let the children go out to play in the snow because it's too cold.

To stay busy, I taught Maria how to sew by hand, and we made bean bags! This is her first time sewing. She loves to sew and will ask me to help her sew dolly clothes, more bean bags, and clothes for spoon dolls.









Here are a few photos of my living room. I have spring fever ,so I did some spring cleaning this weekend. Today is the first day of Spring! But it snowed all day today..Ugh!









Having a small living room 12W X 14L,I can't have much furniture. But I think this new set up is cozy!

Now that Spring is here, I can't wait for the snow to melt,so I can get out into my gardens and start planting! I've been pouring over seed catalogs all winter!
C'mon snow get melting!

Well I guess that all the photos for now. I am going to try and keep up my blogging. I do like to write about our life.....but my question is...



Is anyone out there reading my blog? I would love more folowers!
Blessings!
Rhonda

Ok It's the Christmas season! I love this movie of the photos I posted above. I hope everyone, who reads my blog, has a Merry Christmas!




My son is traveling back to the lower 48 from Alaska. He will be here for Christmas, and then in January, he'll be traveling to New York, to his new duty station. My Son is in the U.S. Army. He has been in the military for nine years. I can't wait to see him!








I haven't posted photos of the inside of my home. So here's a peek into our home. The above photo is our dinning room.

Putting The Gardens "To Bed" The Ruth Stout Way

These past few weeks I have been cleaning out the gardens and putting them to bed the Ruth Stout way. I just know I am going to like this new (to me anyway) gardening method that Ruth Stout discovered so long ago. I bought her her book called, "How to Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back" I read it in one night from cover to cover,I couldn't put it down! Oh and this little book wasn't cheap, but well worth it to me. As this little book is now my "Bible" to gardening.
Reading Ruth's book was like sitting in her kitchen, drinking tea, and having a conversation with her! Her book is just lovely with all her stories of her failures and successes of her gardening experiences.

I took some photos of the garden after I put the hay down.
I'm not going to compost in a compost bin anymore. I am just going to collect the food scraps in my compost pot I have in the kitchen, and then dump it out into the garden area in different places of the garden. Why not? Ruth says the garden is one big compost anyway!

I hope y'all have a great fall this season. The colors up here in the north land is just beautiful! I should blog about how beautiful the colors are here! Maybe That will be my next blog!
Many Blessing to you all!
Rhonda

Potato Harvest

This year we tried the "Ruth Stout" method of gardening. You use hay for mulch. You lay hay down in your garden area up to 8 inches to start with. You keep adding hay when you see a weed pop up. you never have to hoe, plow, weed, water...it's like a dream come true! You can have a garden and not have to to all that hard labor of weeding and watering! Well I thought I had this garden in the bag this year! Then When I got my garden planted in June, I got sick and had to go to hospital for two days. Then after that spell, of being in hospital, my energy just slipped away! I couldn't function! I could barely take care of my little girls. All I wanted to do was sleep, and I still couldn't get enough sleep to actually function right. So my garden went by the wayside for the summer. I never went back into my garden since I had planted it, and it sadden me.

The summer went by fast, and I enjoyed the good days when I felt pretty good and could do a little housework and take care of my little girls. As I did the dishes, I'd look out the kitchen window and see my poor neglected garden calling me to come take a peek. But I never did. I just figured that nothing was growing because I didn't do anything! Not even put hay on top of the weeds, and I could see the weeds were doing very well, and it sickened me to know that I spent all that money on seed potatoes and bails of hay for my hopeful beautiful garden I was dreaming of!

Now it's September. Summer is finished up here in the north land. The trees are turning their beautiful burnt orange, deep red, and brilliant yellow hues. The air has the smell of fall. Maria always tells me, "Mommy, come outside and smell how beautiful smells like!"

I'm feeling better now at least I have my energy back. I can take care of my little girls, and take care of my housework. So yesterday, we went outside to play baseball with Maria's new bat and ball. We took turns hitting the ball with the bat, and had a good time playing.

We were taking a break, sitting on the steps and I looked over at my neglected garden. It called to me to just come look..... just maybe something grew...yeah right, I said to myself. Well curiosity got the best of me, so we went to venture over to the garden ..just to take a look.

I saw dead potato plants, weeds everywhere, mostly morning glory chocking the potato plants. "They didn't even have a chance!" I said to myself. Maria was walking around the dead potato plants and she pulled a plant out of the dirt, several small potatoes fell out with the plant. We both looked at each other, and Maria said," look mama! Potatoes!" She scrambled to pick them up. I then started poking around another dead potato plant and found more good size potatoes under that hay mulch. So we went to the garage got a pitch fork and two plastic milk creates, went back to the garden and started digging up the mulch and finding potatoes! Some were chewed on by a family of mice, but we were hopeful to maybe find some potatoes that the mice didn't get to and sure enough we soon filled the two milk creates with potatoes! Some potatoes were huge for a garden that was totally neglected the whole summer!

After we finished digging up all the potatoes and came into the house to warm up, as it was chilly. I said some prayers of thanks to the Lord.
We harvested two milk creates of potatoes, I keep thinking had I took care of my garden and mulch as I saw the weeds come up, just think of the harvest I could of had! But I am still thankful of what the Lord did provide for us!



“If I’d learned anything from experience and from Ruth Stout’s books it was to experiment….try different methods, be open to the ideas of others, but always temper those ideas with common sense…..Gardening is like cooking: Read the recipe and then use your head.” A dash of skepticism can do no harm. Go lightly on caution, heavily on adventure and see what comes out. If you make a mistake, what of it? That’s one way to learn, and tomorrow is another day.” Ruth Stout

Harvesting a Neglected Garden.......

This year we tried the "Ruth Stout" method of gardening. You use hay for mulch. You lay hay down in your garden area up to 8 inches to start with. You keep adding hay when you see a weed pop up. you never have to hoe, plow, weed, water...it's like a dream come true! You can have a garden and not have to to all that hard labor of weeding and watering! Well I thought I had this garden in the bag this year! Then When I got my garden planted in June, I got sick and had to go to hospital for two days. Then after that spell, of being in hospital, my energy just slipped away! I couldn't function! I could barely take care of my little girls. All I wanted to do was sleep, and I still couldn't get enough sleep to actually function right. So my garden went by the wayside for the summer. I never went back into my garden since I had planted it, and it sadden me.
The summer went by fast, and I enjoyed the good days when I felt pretty good and could do a little housework and take care of my little girls. As I did the dishes, I'd look out the kitchen window and see my poor neglected garden calling me to come take a peek. But I never did. I just figured that nothing was growing because I didn't do anything! Not even put hay on top of the weeds, and I could see the weeds were doing very well, and it sickened me to know that I spent all that money on seed potatoes and bails of hay for my hopeful beautiful garden I was dreaming of!

Now it's September. Summer is finished up here in the northland. The trees are turning thier beautiful burnt orange, deep red, and brillant yellow hues. The air has the smell of fall. Maria always tells me, "Mommy, come outside and smell how beautiful smells like!"

I'm feeling better now at least I have my energy back. I can take care of my little girls, and take care of my housework. So yesterday, we went outside to play baseball with Maria's new bat and ball. We took turns hitting the ball with the bat, and had a good time playing.

We were taking a break, sitting on the steps and I looked over at my neglected garden. It called to me to just come look..... just maybe something grew...yeah right, I said to myself. Well curiosity got the best of me, so we went to venture over to the garden ..just to take a look.

I saw dead potato plants, weeds everywhere, mostly morning glory chocking the potato plants. "They didn't even have a chance!" I said to myself. Maria was walking around the dead potao plants and she pulled a plant out of the dirt, several small potatoes fell out with the plant. We both looked at each other, and Maria said," look mama! Potatoes!" She scrammbled to pick them up. I then started poking around another dead potato plant and found more good size potatoes under that hay mulch. So we went to the garage got a pitch fork and two plastic milk creats, went back to the garden and started digging up the mulch and finding potatoes! Some were chewed on by a family of mice, but we were hopeful to maybe find some potaoes that the mice didn't get to and sure enough we soon filled the two milk creats with potatoes! Some potatoes were huge for a garden that was totally neglected the whole summer!

After we finished digging up all the potatoes and came into the house to warm up, as it was chilly. I said some prayers of thanks to the Lord.
We harvested two milk creats of potatoes, I keep thinking had I took care of my garden and mulch as I saw the weeds come up, just think of the harvest I could of had! But I am still thankfull of what the Lord did provide for us!



“If I’d learned anything from experience and from Ruth Stout’s books it was to experiment….try different methods, be open to the ideas of others, but always temper those ideas with common sense…..Gardening is like cooking: Read the recipe and then use your head.” A dash of skepticism can do no harm. Go lightly on caution, heavily on adventure and see what comes out. If you make a mistake, what of it? That’s one way to learn, and tomorrow is another day.” Ruth Stout

Sharing a new recipe and doin' a little catchin' up....

Lemon Herb Chicken

1/3 C. oil
2T. Grilling seasoning
1T. Garlic
2T. Lemon Juice (Fresh is best!)
2T. Parsley, Chopped
2T. Rosemary,Chopped
2T. Basil, Chopped
Place all in a bowl except the chicken!
Stir to mix well.
Place chicken pieces into mixture.
Be sure to coat chicken pieces well.
Place in Refrigerator for at least 2 hours or over night.
I like to use Chicken legs with this recipe, but you can use what you like.
Next cook chicken pieces on grill or on cook top.


So where do I begin? So much has been going on with us! Maria went to "Farm School" for two weeks, she absolutely love it! They did chores on the farm, caught minnows and counted them. Collected eggs and graded them. Feed the goats and sheep baby goats and lambs. Held the baby bunnies to tame them. On the last day they did a program resiting little finger plays and poems. I thought this will be great to blog about! I was so excited to tell you all about "farm School"! Of course I forgot my camera! I was so angry at myself! Well Maria is going next summer in June, and you can bet I am going to remember my camera!

Eliza Jane has so many teeth I have lost count! She is crawling and pulling herself up on the furniture! She'll be walking very soon! I'm thinking before she turns one year in Sept.

On June 25th, 26th & 27th, we had our family reunion on my Mum's side. There was great food, great conversations, and my sister and I were clowns! We had some of the children and adults stand up in front of everyone, and do the "Tooie Ta" dance. It was great fun!

We are taking a summer break from home schooling until August 27th. Maria and I need a break for a while.

I am working on my "Family Closet". I want to blog about how I set the "Family Closet" up. The reason I am doing a "Family Closet" is because my little cottage does not have enough closet space. Plus with my laundry room, if you can call it a "laundry room", is in the basement, I am tired of hauling laundry baskets up the stairs and too tired to put the clothes away, so we live out of laundry baskets. our clothes are always so wrinkled then. So I am doing something about it! But that's another blog post in the near future!

We haven't gone on any camping trips, as money is tight right now. But we live in Northern Minnesota, so it's like we are camping all the time anyway. But yet, it would be nice to get away from here just for a bit!
I hope y'all are having a great summer so far!
Happy 4th of July!
Rhonda