Harper Happenings!

New Office Shelves

2012-01-25T18:25:00.004-05:00

Michael started some shelves for my office about two years ago but other projects kept pushing it back and keeping them from getting finished. For Christmas this year, I asked that he get them finished. . . and he did!

He made me two hutches and a media shelf.

Of course, that meant unpacking things. I had books and media all over the house.

It took two days to go through it all but I downsized what we had and got rid of as much as I kept.

Michael did an excellent job. Most of our home has Harper Provincial furniture style. He uses oak and a stain we really like. Here is the end result. It really looks neat and easy to find books.

Now to clean and organize the other half of the office!

Crawfish is a Russian delicacy

2012-01-20T18:39:00.000-05:00

We recently went on a temple trip with Ryan and Sveta and afterwards went to a Chinese Buffet. Sveta got very excited seeing crawfish on the buffet. Evidently, they are a delicacy in Russian and one of her favorite foods. She showed us how to actually eat them.

Wall of family

2012-01-17T16:31:00.007-05:00

With all of the family here and the wedding, I decided it was time to do some major updating of my family picture wall so that has been my project last week. In doing this, I realized that I never had put up a wedding picture of either Adam and Caprise or Todd and Amanda so it really was time to fix that! I now have everyone's wedding picture up.

I love how you can print up big pictures at Sam's for not much money. We had some outdoor photos done of the family and temple pictures. We also had an outdoor photo of each family and they all turned out great!

This is the big family wedding picture!

Christmas 2011 at the Harper's

2011-12-30T20:05:00.004-05:00

Here are highlights from Christmas Eve and Christmas day!

We had our annual Christmas Eve program along with our very own Mary and Joseph.

Baby Seth starred in his first role as Baby Jesus. (We did have an unhappy angel/shepherd.)

Sunday because of church, we opened family presents after dinner around 4:30! Everyone had fun posing!

Ryan was also wearing new clothes in this picture.

Sveta loved her new table runner that Tracy made her.

Ethan loves to build with Legos. I think he got four different sets.

Sydney loves princesses and was excited to get these games.

Haily could not wait to open up more presents at Grandma's.

Sveta got excited about having a wireless router for their house!

I just love this picture of Ethan holding Seth. Little Seth pretty much slept through his first Christmas and visit to Grandma's house.

Sveta's Borscht

2011-12-21T21:31:00.003-05:00

Sveta came over and made Borscht for us today. It is a lot of work. I grew some beets for her but they are small so we also found some finally to buy (the big ones).

The cook was reluctant to have her picture taken in the kitchen!

You have to cook meat, dice up potatoes and then shred cabbage, beets, carrots and onions.

Then you cook it with some special spice in a big pot.

Finally after a lot of tender loving care from our cook, it's ready!

It was great! Eric and the kids came over for dinner also and the children even ate some of it.

Greenhouse Broccoli and Cauliflower

2011-12-13T08:14:00.005-05:00

I went out to harvest some of our broccoli and cauliflower from the greenhouse yesterday. These were grown in our 4" tubes hydroponically! Not bad for a harvest on December 12th!

I think I've now learned how to grow great broccoli and cauliflower. Look at the size of that one head of broccoli.

We have a bit more and the broccoli will make side shoots but I've started seeds for a spring repeat! After cutting our lettuce three times, I'm restarting our hydroponic lettuce tubs as well.

Ryan and Svetlana's wedding pictures!

2011-12-11T18:47:00.003-05:00

Sveta has not wanted me to post any wedding pictures but I can't wait any more so figured I would at least put a few on my blog.

The wedding was just wonderful and we had a beautiful glowing bride!

Ryan and Sveta got married on 11-11-11 at the Columbia temple. The weather was great and the fall colors were pretty much at their peak.

It was great to have all of the boys and their family here and Richard and LaDonna! At times we had 25 in the home for meals but it all went pretty smoothly and like Caprise said the only meltdown's were the two year olds a couple of times!

I love this picture in the trees!

Sveta bent down and with her puffy dress she looks like she's sitting on a clowd!

Fun and Yum!!!!

2011-12-11T18:38:00.003-05:00

We had our second annual chocolate dipping class Saturday at Susan Brown's.

What fun everyone had creating some wonderful Christmas chocolates!

We did peanut butter cups as well as fudge dipped in chocolate (is that enough chocolate for you?)!

Just look at all of that chocolate!

Between the stirring of chocolate with our fingers, the visiting and chatting was wonderful.

We did try to help clean up and it wasn't too bad after licking the bowls!

Seth Michael Harper

2011-12-02T19:17:00.004-05:00

Our new little Seth Michael Harper was born November 30, 2011 at 6:10 pm to Eric and Tracy Harper. He is a welcome addition to the family.

This is Sveta's first chance to every hold a baby! (I think she liked it.)

He was a little more than three weeks early but weighed 7 pounds 6 ounces and is 19 inches long.

One time when I had our boys at home, a young neighbor gal asked me how it was possible to have enough love for four (at the time) boys! I was amazed. Seth is #10 for grandchildren and there is an abundance of love for all of them!

His older brother and two little sisters are so excited to welcome him into the family. Sydney asked Eric if he knew who they were and then proceeded to say, "Seth, I'm your big sister Sydney!"

Sveta's first visit to the temple

2011-11-23T19:39:00.003-05:00

I have been absent blogging lately because of the wedding and Sveta doesn't want me to share pictures yet until she has them fixed but I can share her first visit to the temple to get her endowments!

It was a beautiful day to be at the temple with family and friends.

The Oscarson's who were missionaries in Volgagrade and Olga, her friend from there came for the wedding. It was wonderful having them there.

The trees were just beautiful.

We are also blessed to have LaDonna and Richard come. All in all, the week went great and everyone pitched in.

Growing lettuce

2011-11-23T19:30:00.004-05:00

One of the things we love growing in our greenhouse is lettuce. It's wonderful to go and cut a head or some leaves and then come in and fix a salad.

We have some soft heads like butter crunch and Simpson and then some lettuce mixes.

We grow them in an easy hydroponic way by putting water and organic liquid fertilizer in a plastic containers that fit under the bed. We added some aeration that you get for aquariums (but you can use a whisk by hand).

You plant some seeds in some small cups that have holes in the bottom. Then you cut holes in some Styrofoam and put the cups in the holes. The roots grow out the bottom.

A short trip to North Carolina

2011-10-13T18:49:00.003-04:00

Sveta went with me to get some apples up in North Carolina. We stopped at the welcome center for her to see some things inside and she feel in love with the burning bush! She needed a close up!

After getting the apples, we stopped at another farm where they made some cute animals.

Here are the horses. She also loved the huge pumpkins. She's excited to learn about Halloween and we got a small pumpkin to carve a jack-o-lantern.

September catch up!

2011-10-02T11:21:00.003-04:00

I have been going to blog several times this month but it's been a hectic month and "stuff" got in the way so I'm playing catch up.

Our "princess Haily" turned 4 on September 14. They have a wonderful Grandma Fuller who makes various princess play dresses for them to use. This one is a little big but Grandma Fuller can make it right. How can I compete with princess dresses! I am giving Sydney piano lessons.

It doesn't matter what size box we happen to get in the mail, big boy, our cat has to use it as a nap.

Once the heat let up some, we've had a final push from the garden with some extra produce. Our peppers have outdone themselves and I have made the most delicious pepper relish.

I have been planting various types of baby greens in the greenhouse and picked this yesterday! It made the best salad!

That catches me up for the highlights!

Let the sun shine! We are solar!!!

2011-09-05T21:20:00.005-04:00

We are hooked up and are now solar! They got everything tested and hooked up on Saturday. It didn't take any time at all for the batteries to be charged and going. Even today (Monday) with rain, it is still charging. We are still testing capabilities but during the day, except for the air conditioning, we are running solar!

Now we have to start the process to be hooked into Duke Energy and let them pay us for unused power!

Budding artists!

2011-08-29T19:31:00.002-04:00

Sydney and Haily love art. (They did not get that gene from me!) I found some water colors and one fun thing they love to do at Grandmas is get paper and go out on the front porch to paint beautiful pictures! They get some on the porch but I don't care, the rain washes it off and they love it!

Solar panels are up!

2011-08-29T19:16:00.004-04:00

Here is the 30th solar panel going up on the roof.

I have started breathing easier now that they are just above the deck!

They have gotten pretty proficient at this.

Here they all are up on top! You cannot see any of them from road in the front of the house.

Now for hooking up and testing the batteries and testing the load on the house!

Canning Beef Stew!

2011-08-20T20:12:00.005-04:00

One thing I've loved about canning the past two years are starting to can meat and starting to can convenience foods. I dug up some of our potatoes this week and had some tomatoes and onions left along with some of our herbs so I added some carrots and stew beef and made some delicious beef stew. Fortunately, one jar didn't seal so we were able to eat it for dinner. Yum! All I can say is we didn't can enough to last through the winter. It will make delicious lunches and an easy last minute dinner!

Sveta got her VISA!!!!

2011-08-14T19:59:00.003-04:00

Sveta went to Moscow this week and had her physical and interview at the US Embassy. This took all week. She took a 24 hour train trip on Tuesday and came back Friday night/Saturday. She got her patriarchal blessing while she was there and did get to do a little bit of sight seeing. It was her first time in Moscow. At the embassy, she was asked some questions and fingerprinted and then was told she had her VISA!

We talked through Skype with her yesterday after she got back. The plan is for her to get things organized and pack up what she can bring and then come the first of October and they are planning to be married in the Columbia SC Temple on November, 11, 2011! Everyone help make her welcome!

Canning away!

2011-08-14T19:40:00.004-04:00

When I got going in the garden this summer, I didn't think we'd have as good a harvest. Last week the paper said we had the hottest summer in 100 years of record keeping. But we have kept things watered and I have been canning almost daily for the past six weeks. It's starting to wind down to just eating out of the garden. We have okra coming off and are still getting tomatoes, a few cucumbers and green beans, a couple of melons and a ton of peppers.

We have been getting some good deals on peaches for canning and have taken advantage of that. I just love how peaches look when they are canned!

We also U-picked a couple of bushels of tomatoes last week so I could make some wonderful tomato sauce and a few other things. We have had several bushels of tomatoes from our own garden but there are so many things that I can with tomato. I love having them to make soups, salsa, sauce, juice. . . I could go on and on.

We are going solar!

2011-08-08T20:31:00.004-04:00

Michael and I decided that we wanted to go solar as much as possible so we invested in a 8 KW solar system for the house. The past two weeks, Michael and our friend Bob Libby have been installing it.

I have to admit, it makes me very nervous to see them up on the roof. They installed the rails that hold panels and did all of the wiring they needed for the rooftop part before putting on any panels.

Eric and Ryan came to help move the panels from the garage to the roof. We have a total of 30 panels but they installed 9 on Saturday.

It took a while lining them up but they think it will now go a lot faster once they have done this first set.

Here is the panel that the wiring will go to and convert the power and below these we will have the large batteries that will be charged and store.

When it is done, we will have Duke Power hook it up to the grid so when we have extra power, they will buy it from us and we will use what we need instead of their power. If the power goes out, we will have our batteries capped and can use it without being on the grid! We figure we will probably be able to almost run the house except for the air conditioning!

Bloom where you are planted!

2011-08-07T21:09:00.000-04:00

100 degrees . . .how does your garden grow?

2011-08-07T20:52:00.003-04:00

We were told this week in the news that this is the hottest summer in Upstate South Carolina in 100 years. Not real good for gardens!

It's been a struggle keeping things growing. Amazingly, the tomatoes look great and green. It's hard for them to set fruit in temperatures over 95. I'm hoping they stay healthy for when the temperature moderates so we can get some fall tomatoes! I was still able to get about a half a bushel last week.

The sweet potatoes seem to be vining around just fine in the heat. We will know how good they did in September.

Michael did put in a drip irrigation system in that helps immensely. Our pepper plants are just loaded.

The peppers are also bigger with having the drip irrigation. One of our green bell pepper plants was actually in our greenhouse last summer and I planted it outside for this summer and it's still producing!

Another eternal family!

2011-08-07T20:14:00.006-04:00

Ger and Mee Yang, great friends and members of our ward were sealed together in the Columbia temple last Saturday.

I don't think I've ever been to a sealing with six sweet little children!
Joseph, the oldest was smiling ear to ear the whole time and was so excited.

The children were so precious and angelic in their white clothes.

Mama and Papa Lor (Grandparents) are a wonderful example as the leaders of their family (which you can see is growing larger with Der's baby due at any time)!

New Roof!

2011-07-07T22:04:00.001-04:00

We had had some harsh weather this spring and we noticed some damage and missing shingles on our roof.

We had an insurance adjuster come and look at it and found that it needed to be replaced so Tuesday was the day it was done.

The crew came and in a matter of about 90 minutes they had the old roof all off.

I'm not sure how many came to work but they told us they could do this in a day.

They didn't quite make it in a day. After the old roof was gone, all of the crew left but two who stayed to put the new roof on.

Here's the finished product. I really like the new sculpted look of shingles. It was supposed to be a gray but it matches the green accents on the house. We're happy about it!

Two weeks of fun with grandchildren!

2011-07-06T22:26:00.000-04:00

The past three weeks we have been able to see all of our children and grandchildren! What a blessing. Kevin took some scouts up on a hike in NC and so Bonnie and the children came here for a few days.

When that happens, all of the kids get together for a lot of fun and Grandma is usually in the middle of it!

They had a ton of fun just running around the yard, chalk drawing and bubble blowing.

They had a ball doing some box sledding down the steep part of our hill.

The top of the week included a trip to the water slides at the park up the street! It's so neat to have all of the kids get along so well and really enjoy each other!

Blessings and Bishops

2011-07-06T21:33:00.005-04:00

We have had two big family events this past month! First, the reason we went to Utah was to meet baby Victoria and be there for her blessing.

She really is a beautiful baby and Caprise got her a blessing dress that made her look like a little princess, complete with hair bows and satin shoes. (Adam does not like the hair bows).

Here is mom and dad with Victoria on her blessing day. She really has them wound around her cute little finger.

Of course, we also loved spending time with Todd, Amanda and Caleb and had a lot of fun with them.

We truly had a wonderful week and wish we could come to Utah more often to spend time with them.

In getting caught up with my blog, I saved the biggest news for last. We took an unexpected trip to Florida two days after Bonnie and the children went home.

Kevin was called and sustained July 3 to be the new Bishop of his ward. I wish I had taken a picture of him in his suit. We went down so Michael could ordain him a high priest and be there. It was a really spiritual day. We could literally see him transform into Bishop's mode and is ready to jump in. I know their little family will be blessed.

Hiking in Utah!

2011-07-06T21:12:00.004-04:00

We took a day trip to hike the Grotto trail in the Payson canyon that crisscrosses a creek and leads to a beautiful waterfall.

It wasn't a hard hike but just so beautiful.

Little Victoria was along for the ride and seemed to really enjoy herself!

Here is one of the scenery pictures that I took that gives you an idea of the beauty.

Are they not just the cutest little family!

Caleb was prepared for the hike and did really well walking across the bridges to the falls.

I guess it is called a grotto because of the enclosure.

Caleb loved exploring around the water.

After the falls, we went up into the mountains to a lookout where we are with Mt. Nebo in the background.

Camping in Utah

2011-07-06T20:54:00.004-04:00

Because of a lot of time with family, I am behind on blogging. We went to Utah the middle of June and Caprise found us a great state park near Manti with a lake to go camping. It was just a gorgeous day and we enjoyed 75 degree weather the whole week.

Little Victoria was a real trooper and did just fine being cuddled and loved in the shade with grandpa.

Of course, Grandma had to hold her just as much as possible!

We rented a canoe and Caleb just loved being out in the water. Michael and I spent an hour going all over the lake which was stunning but unfortunately I got a terrible sunburn from the water reflection.

Caleb had a lot of fun with floaties wading in the water.

It was so much fun to spend time with little Caleb who would try anything and was so talkative.

Caleb's Special Present to Michael

2011-06-07T20:10:00.003-04:00

Michael's birthday was June 1st and Caleb sent his Grandpa a special message!

Baskets of Berries

2011-06-07T19:51:00.003-04:00

Our blackberries and Marion berries are in full swing. This was Monday's picking, about three gallons! Michael's berry smoothies are wonderful!

We also picked our first tomatoes June 2. Here is Monday's harvest, some tomatoes, cucumbers, and Romaine lettuce. Can you tell dinners are salads these days! We should pick our first green beans tomorrow.

Southern Virginia University Education Conference

2011-06-07T19:31:00.004-04:00

One of our favorite weekends each year is going to the Southern Virginia University Education Conference. It's about a 4 1/2 drive but it's a beautiful drive and Michael and I love the get away time together. We stay in their dorms and they include food in the price so it's a very inexpensive trip and one I'd much rather do than be in crowds an other functions. A few of the people we heard from include Richard and Linda Eyre, Michael Goodman, Charles Knutson and Scott and Angelle Anderson. We also had a concert given by Marvin Goldstein and Vanessa Joy.

This year's theme was Family . . . Forever. Every speaker was just wonderful. Here are a few quote that stuck out to me:
**God sees things differently than we do. That is why we have faith in him. We can trust Him and His vision.
**The great council in heaven was really a great single adult conference in the skies! We shouted for joy but here many just shout!
**Quoted Jeffrey R. Holland on priorities: A good rule of thumb is to ask yourself: Are you sealed to it or have you made a covenant to it? If not, all other things are secondary.
Any my favorite:
**Quoted President Monson: NEVER let a problem to be solved become more important than the person to be loved.

They also put on the play Man of La Mancha for us put on by students and it was fantastic and complete with a small student orchestra.

We are already planning to go ahead next year!

Early Harvest

2011-05-31T21:25:00.004-04:00

Here is a picture of our upper garden. Yes, we are still building more raised beds! You can see how Michael set up a way to tie up our tomatoes. It's survived some storms so far! We are heavily mulching everything so keep the moisture to the plants and protect them from the heat, which we need since it was 97 today!

We started some tomato seeds in January so we had some nice plants ready to plant outside the first of May. They really have set fruit.

We have some almost ready. Many of these are over a pound and I wanted to pick one for dinner but Michael prevailed on me to wait another day or two! We have never had tomatoes by the first of June before!

We wintered over our onions and they have done really well. Here is the last of them (not as big as the first ones we pulled up). It's probably about half of the onions we harvested.

Our grape vines are just full and look so healthy. We have added three more vines to our grape arbor so we are hoping in future years to have a good harvest.

Our Marion Berries and Blackberries are just beginning to turn. They too look full of berries and so healthy. This is the first year of our Marion Berries.

In fact, here is the first picking of them today.

Ward Memorial Day Picnic

2011-05-30T21:22:00.004-04:00

Saturday the wrad had a picnic at Lake Moss, at Eddie Poole's family. We had perfect weather, great food, lots of water for the kids to play in, boating and fun visits! Here are some pictures from the day:

May Garden update

2011-05-16T19:21:00.005-04:00

We are big time into strawberries right now. I've picked about 35 gallons so far but they are winding down. I'm excited that we have more berries coming. These black berry plants have canes that are over six feet tall!

Our blackberries are loaded and will really perform in a few weeks.

Here are our Marionberries, my most favorite berries ever! They are Oregon's best kept secret but they will live here just fine!

Our potato boxes and potato raised bed (with another bed frame one on top)is going gangbusters. I hope they are setting a ton of potatoes!

Here are our early tomatoes and they have a lot of tomatoes that are really big already.

Our green beans are up and doing well. Since green beans nitrogen fix the soil, I've planted them on the sides of our berries to help their soil and also give us more green beans. Those plants are also doing well so we may have a lot of green beans.

Cats trying to please me!

2011-05-16T19:11:00.003-04:00

These are our cats, Big Boy and Little Girl. We have had them 10 and 13 years but they really are Michael's cats and they just tolerate me. This past weekend Michael went to Alabama to help with the tornado clean up. Saturday night I was working on our strawberries sitting in my chair when Little Girl brought inside a big mouse in her mouth, still alive. Now, I have a terrible phobia of all things rodent! I thought I was being calm when I put down the strawberry bowl and jumped up and opened the French doors trying to persuade her to take it outside. Of course she dropped it and it ran to under my chair. I had to run to the bedroom to shut the door and call Ryan for help. He graciously came over and started looking for the mouse. He moved furniture but could not find it! I opened my door and there by my door was Little Girl and the now dead mouse. Thank Heavens! Ryan was there and took the Mouse out of the house. While we were sitting talking in the living room, Ryan looked down on the carpet and saw a dead bird. He also removed it for me.

Two years ago, Michael had a conference in San Francisco and they brought in a mouse and put it in front of the stove. Why do these furry pets think they need to earn my love whenever Michael happens to go out of town without me?

Run for the roses - Harper style!

2011-05-13T19:58:00.001-04:00

For about a month each year, our Rose hedge looks beautiful!

Learn to sew!

2011-05-13T19:44:00.005-04:00

We had a beginning sewing class last night. Tracy's mom Diane is a wonderful seamstress and she offered to teach sisters in our ward basic sewing.

So, our living room and kitchen was turned into a sewing classroom!

We first cut out jumpers.

Sewing machines sounded like racing cars as everyone got busy.

Even our old ironing board got a workout.

Theresa got immediately busy to make a jumper for her granddaughter.

Our biggest success of the night was Jeanne! She absolutely tenses up and gets very stressed at the thought of sewing. However, at the end of the night, she went home with a cute, well made jumper for Natalie!

A wheelbarrow full of strawberries!

2011-05-03T20:21:00.003-04:00

It's an understatement that we love berries! We have always tried to have a strawberry patch. Last year we had a banner year of 75 gallons of berries out of our patch. But after the season, we replanted four of our beds so I knew this year, we would not have as many berries. So far though, it's doing well. On Saturday I picked 5 gallons of berries.

Today, Michael helped me and we picked 8 gallons. We had to use the wheel barrow to get them up to the house! They are beautiful and taste wonderful. There is nothing like a fresh berry picked on site!

Our princess is 6!

2011-05-03T20:01:00.000-04:00

Last week our little Sydney turned six. At school they gave her a crown to wear all day and to wear home.

Of course, her grandma Fuller makes her all sorts of princess dresses and this birthday was no exception! She immediately had to put on her new princess play dress.

Haily had to get in the act and put on one of her princess dresses too!

Greenhouse progress!

2011-04-24T19:22:00.003-04:00

Michael and I are really having fun with our greenhouse and experimenting with different ways to grow things. We put a lot of things in containers including radishes, beets and carrots. Here's are carrots coming up great! I discovered I loved beets and we finished up one container and have started a second one.

Our hydroponic tube plants have just grown huge and wonderful. Here's a broccoli head that I am going to cut tomorrow. I think we will have several good things coming over the next three to four weeks from the tube grown food.

I'm really excited about our grapes and how well they are all growing. We have six grape vines now growing. Look at all of the baby grapes! Each little nodule is actually a future clump of grapes.

36th Wedding Annversary

2011-04-24T19:13:00.002-04:00

For our 36th wedding anniversary, Michael took me out to dinner. No, he didn't burn it! He took me to Shogun's a Japanese Steak House.

It was all wonderful and we had an enjoyable time! It's neat to watch them cook it all so quickly. We also went out to a movie, one thing we don't do too often so it was a special day.

I am so blessed to have Michael in my life. I thought we were in love 36 years ago but it has grown so immensely! I would rather spend time with him than anyone else in the world!

Atlanta Temple Open House

2011-04-21T21:13:00.004-04:00

Last Friday we went to the Atlanta Temple open house. It will be dedicated in a couple of weeks. For years we were assigned to go to the Atlanta Temple. We got stuck in Atlanta traffic and were an hour later getting there. I don't miss that traffic!

It has taken about two years to remodel the temple. But it was stunningly beautiful inside.

They have also created some beautiful gardens around the temple.

We really had a great time going down and back together (minus the gridlock)!

My personal seed bank

2011-04-21T20:53:00.004-04:00

I have always tried to have a generous supply of garden seeds around for planting. I have seen survival food bank seeds around for sale but a lot of them have limited varieties and have seeds that don't necessarily grow in the hot south.

Clemson University's agricultural center is selling heirloom garden seeds that they trace by almost like genealogy, some back 200 years. They have all been used for decades in South Carolina.

I bought several packets (they were all $1-2) and divided them up into two #10 cans. Since they were wrapped in paper envelopes, I put them in ziploc bags and pushed out as much air as I could.

I made a list of what seeds were in what can and copied the heirloom history pages and put them on top.

You don't put oxygen absorbers in these or you will hurt your seeds. The seeds are dormant and still need some air but they are best kept in a cool, dark place until you are ready to use them. Luckily we have the ward's #10 can sealer in the basement so I quickly sealed them. I printed a label for each can and they are now in our basement.

Poor Lilac bush

2011-04-14T19:44:00.005-04:00

When we first moved into our house, I wanted a lilac tree that would get about 15 feet and have beautiful limgs of wonderful smelling lilac blooms. I guess I pictured something like this:

However, we had a low bush that did bloom and smell good, but just grew low to the ground and sent out runners and was basicallhy a mess.

So. . . Michael decided that enough was enough. He worked hard to get it dug up and out. Now we are planting a fig tree in there instead!

Sweet New Baby Girl!

2011-04-14T19:32:00.004-04:00

I am way behind with my blog. The big thing is that we have a new baby in the family. Little Victoria was born March 16 in Salt Lake City. Adam and Caprise are the new parents. Poor Caprise had quite the job of getting little Victoria here safe and sound. She ended up spending 60 days in the hospital and Victoria came about six weeks early but she is here and healthy and doing well. I think she already has mom and dad wrapped around her little fingers. Thank goodness for Skype. We've been able to ooh and aah watching her with mom and dad. I just can't way to be able to go out to see her in person and hold and snuggle with her!

Potato towers and the Garden comes to Life

2011-03-13T20:17:00.007-04:00

Last fall I planted some garlic and have seen 2-3 coming up!

Our Bartlet Pear trees are probably at their peak in bloom.

I love this stuff - it's mushroom compost that we get from a local garden center that is wonderful to use in our beds.

We are trying out a new way to grow potatoes in these towers. You have to get the right varieties of potatoes that grow throughout the season (I have red Pontiac and Binjte) but basically as the potatoes grow, you mulch them throughout the season and add more sides to the towers. They can still be growing and setting potatoes while you take the bottom planks out to get some potatoes for dinner.

We also did a raised bed in potatoes that I plan on piling up the mulch as they grow. Fresh potatoes are the best to eat! So much different than what you buy in the stores!

Tube plants 12 days apart

2011-03-11T20:34:00.001-05:00

On February 26 we redid our hydroponic tubes and put in some very small plants in with a trickle of nutrients.

Here are those plants two weeks later.

They have more than tripled in size. . . in 12 days.

Floating lettuce and container update

2011-03-10T20:27:00.003-05:00

Here is the picture I took when I put the lettuce in the floating bed on February 26.

Here is the same floating bed of lettuce on March 10 - 12 days later!

Here are the containers of carrots, radishes and beets on February 26th.

Here are those same containers (in backwards order) 12 days later!

I think we are on to something with our greenhouse crops!

See anything different?

2011-03-03T20:00:00.004-05:00

Do you notice anything different about these two pictures? This is what I see when I open the door to the deck or am out in the garden. I love our view from our home. The first one was taken in 2004 before we built our newer raised beds.

I took this picture this morning.

See it yet? I was working yesterday and heard our neighbors across the pond start up some bulldozer equipment. All of a sudden, I thought I felt a light earthquake. I went outside and saw that the tree just on the other side of our fence had been taken down. Actually they took out two other trees, one on the other side of the pond and one by their barn. It sure opens up our view. But, I will miss the tree. It was home to a lot of songbirds in the spring and we enjoying watching the cardinals and mockingbirds come and go! We have a couple of pin oaks that are about 8 feet tall but it will take them a lot of years to take the place of the other tree!

Floating lettuce and other goodies!

2011-02-26T21:59:00.003-05:00

We are trying various ways to grow plants in our greenhouse. We saw this idea from the University of Florida - floating lettuce. Underneath the styrofoam is a water nutrient reservoir. These have been in there a week and doubled in size.

We also replanted our tubes with broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts. We lined them in black to help with the algie. We have a nutrient reservoir that circulates several times a day.

Here's a close up of the plants. We make our own pots!

Here are some early tomato plants that I started January 8th. I plan on putting these in big pots in the greenhouse soon.

I am trying to produce some carrots, radishes, baby greens and beets in pots. They are looking good right now!

We also have several broccoli plants that we potted. They are so healthy looking and green!

Go to the roots!

2011-02-17T21:42:00.003-05:00

The middle of January we started some new plants for the greenhouse and early garden. We started them under lights in the house and took them outside during the day to the greenhouse but this past week has been so nice and mild that they are now living in the greenhouse.

We've had such success growing lettuce in the house that I have started carrots and beets in containers to grow inside under lights as an experiment. I plan to start some more for the greenhouse and then outside in a bed to see how they grow best this time of year.

Last fall when we started our little plants in the tubes, we had the fertilizer mix wrong and the plants had their roots burned. We bought some new type of fertilizer the first part of December and thought we'd keep the damaged plants going to see if we could tell a difference and experiment with them.

All I can say is wow! The plants grew and are deep green and we are actually getting a little bit of broccoli. I pulled these lettuce roots up out of the tube and was shocked at how many roots there were.

Healthy roots make healthy plants. I am transplanting some of the smaller broccoli plants into pots to make room for our new seedlings to go into the tubes. Here is another picture of the roots on the plants.

My babies are 35 years old today!

2011-02-07T08:30:00.003-05:00

I can hardly believe it but my baby boys are 35 years old today!

Can you tell which is which?

(Eric is on the left and Ryan is on the right)We didn't know until five days before they were born that we were having twins. Ryan laid sideways below my diaphragm and they didn't ever hear his heartbeat. They also came three weeks early with a lot of medical problems but we are blessed and they are healthy today!

Happy Birthday!

Lettuce and Tomato harvest!

2011-01-27T20:41:00.003-05:00

We have had a learning experience over the winter with our greenhouse. We started out with the wrong fertilizer mixture and hurt the roots of the plants in our tubes. However, we got some different water soluble fertilizer and mixed it up to see what it would do for the plants.

Many roots came back and for the past six weeks they have taken off despite the shorter days. These plants were only about 3" high a month ago.

This head of lettuce is now ready to be cut. In fact, I cut it right after the picture was taken. It should keep growing. I'm excited on what we have learned. We are starting some new plants and hopefully will have another batch of plants to try.

Our downstairs lettuce has also grown. I took some pictures and blogged about it two weeks ago but now they also are ready for their first cutting.

I plan on trying carrots and beets indoors as well! I think we can do that. We have watered them about two times a week and they have organic soil to get their nutrients.

We are still getting some tomatoes each week from our tomato plants in the greenhouse. The plants look terrible but they were planted last July! I have some new ones started to replace them in another month or so!

Is it Turkey time?

2011-01-17T20:04:00.003-05:00

Today I was on my way into Duncan, just around the corner from where we live near the bridge and looked out into the field to see this:

We seem to have a herd of about 50 wild turkeys living nearby.

I guess they live in the woods nearby but were out foraging for food. I've seen them twice now and they seem to be at home! I hope they don't find the garden in the summer like the beavers did!

Ice on trees

2011-01-12T18:31:00.002-05:00

We ventured out this afternoon for a short time and I noticed that the snow is coming off the tops of the trees. However, it's still cold enough that as the snow melts it refreezes into ice.

The trees were beautiful as they shimmered in the sunshine.

Schools are closed for a fourth day! Michael had to go to class this afternoon as they opened at noon. Once he got to the freeway the roads are fine but secondary roads still have a lot of bad spots.

Winter indoor garden

2011-01-11T14:31:00.004-05:00

We have snow outside but we are growing crops inside! We had heard you can start lettuce and grow it under incandescent lights so we decided to do an experiment. We got a plastic container and filled it with our growing soil that we make. We put in some lettuce and . . .

The lettuce is growing. We keep the lights on longer than the sunshine would be. This is just in our basement and it's growing slow because it's not heated, but also it's not freezing and probably around 60. I am hopeful that when it's too hot in the summer that we can grow lettuce indoors.

Believe it or not, now is the time to start seeds for many things that will be able to be placed outdoors in the garden in about 8 weeks. We bought some grow lights and made a seedling box to start about 100 plants of broccoli, lettuce, cauliflower, collards, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and some tomato plants for the greenhouse and the others to put both in the greenhouse and in a protected bed.

We have plastic over the top until the seeds sprout (7-10 days) to keep a moist, humid environment. We have a heat pad underneath to help keep them warmer. I have put these in a south facing window for sunny days! We made our own pots out of newspaper rolling them with a prescription bottle. The newspaper pots and our soil work the best of anything we have tried. You can just put the newspaper straight into your pots or garden to you don't disrupt the new roots. You don't want to use shiny paper but the regular newspaper print ink is made from soy so it's biodegradable.

2011 JANUARY SNOW!

2011-01-10T18:01:00.002-05:00

Here are pictures from our house on the heaviest snow in years!

It was a good day to stay home and stay dry.

I had to work since I work from home but still life has slowed down!

I made chili for dinner and it hit the spot.

It's only about 27 but we are starting to get some freezing rain on top of all of this snow that could lead to black ice on the roads!

They made it!

2011-01-04T17:24:00.004-05:00

Mom and dad had many heirlooms from families and I am blessed to have several of them. I was to get the 175 year old cake plates and fruit plate (top shelf). These belonged to my great grandmother who married in 1872 and probably got them as wedding gifts.

Whenever I'd visit dad and see them, I wondered how I would ever get them across the country intact without driving to Oregon and back. This Christmas was the time of decision. Flying them home worried me so I took them to the UPS store and explained what we had. They said they could package them to get them here and so I put my trust in UPS. Well, the boxes came today and wow, they were double packed in two boxes, peanuts in both and foam all around them. They made it beautifully and were put on the shelves I had in mind for them when Michael first built the fireplace insert.

It's funny but things my mom loved or made are the things I wanted. The shelf with various bird figurines all belonged to my mother. She just loved to spend time to watch pelicans when she visited Florida. The next shelf has two saad irons (very heavy but if "it fits it ships") that also belonged to my great grandmother and the old brass bell belonged to my great grandfather. Mom loved the music figurines and they were hers. The plates on the bottom were also my mother's favorites, a pelican and a mill. I'm happy and feel so blessed to have these and other wonderful heirlooms to pass on. I hope my sons and their families will treasure these and other items when I die!

Dad's funeral

2011-01-01T19:54:00.007-05:00

Dad's funeral was beautiful. All of us kids and spouses participated. We had a viewing beforehand and made up a table of his life interests and pictures and then had a slideshow of pictures of his life.

LaDonna gave the eulogy, Renetta gave a talk what is a dad, Rich talked about dad's example in life, Michael sung while I played. Brad Richardson, the Stake President and lifelong friend was the final speaker. Dad served as the ward clerk for Brad when he was Bishop (Dad was 85-90 at the time). Brad surprised us with a recording of his father singing mom and dad's favorite song The Holy City. His father was was wonderful tenor voice and listening to that brought back a lot of emotion.

Bishop Hitchcock was wonderful working with the family.

I loved the top of the vault for dad's coffin. It had the angel Moronion it. Their headstone has the Salt Lake Temple on it and they are buried in an LDS section of the cemetery with a beautiful mural of the temple.

Grandson's or granddaughter spouses and one great grandson were the pall bearers.

Mom and Dad have a beautiful spot under a tree. It's on a hill and you can see all over the Willamette Valley.

Here is a picture of the grandchildren and spouses who attended the funeral.

Then we added in great grandchildren. They called dad "Grandpa Great."

Finally, here is a family picture at the cemetery.

I took a pine cone from the tree to place with the pine cone I took when we visited mom's grave several year's ago. Rest in peace Mom and Dad until the resurrection!

Funerals and family

2011-01-01T19:37:00.003-05:00

One positive thing about funerals is that they bring families together. Not all of the grandchildren were able to come, but many did that I had not seen in years.

It's always a chaotic time and a time for lots of pictures.

JC, Wendy, Steve, Jill, Amy, Adrienne and Annalina take some time together during the viewing.

Renetta got a huge Christmas present from dad. All of the kids were able to come for the funeral so she had them all home during Christmas. They now live all over the country. Here's baby Sean, Sarah, and Jeff from Texas, JC from New Jersey, Erica from California and Nicole from BYU-Idaho on Renetta's side and next to Richard are Wendy from Utah, Jill from California and Steve from Texas.

Of course, I was with my siblings, Mick, me, LaDonna and Richard.

Here is the family that were able to go to the private family viewing of dad/grandpa.

Dad's Manger Scene

2010-12-31T19:07:00.000-05:00

At some level, dad realized it was Christmas time. When we went to clean out his apartment, we looked at his shelves near his front door and noticed something on the second shelf.

If you look closer, you can see he had put out his manger scene. Some of the parts were missing. . .

We found the missing pieces in his bathroom. He tried to make two manger scenes. Needless to say, this was touching to me and brought tears to my eyes.

My father's Obituary

2010-12-18T20:11:00.003-05:00

Howard Newton Frederick, age 95, died December 17, 2010 at Orchard Heights in Salem, Oregon. He was born to John and Bess Frederick the 21st of January, 1915 in Marion County, Missouri, near the small community of Warren. He is preceded in death by his wife, Margaret Estelle Rice Frederick whom he married on December 21, 1935. They were married for 60 years. They moved to Forest Grove, Oregon in 1946. He worked for the US Postal Service in Forest Grove for 28 years. He was active in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was the first Bishop of the original Hillsboro Ward. He served in various capacities in the Forest Grove 2 Ward until he was 90. Howard loved researching family history, sports and traveling across our great nation.

He and his wife had four children, LaDonna (Guy) Richardson of Crestwood, Kentucky, Richard (Renetta) Frederick of Monmouth, Oregon, Mick (Mary) Frederick of Hillsboro, Oregon and Linda (Michael) Harper of Duncan, South Carolina. He is also survived by 17 grandchildren, and 39 great grandchildren. He is preceded him in death by two grandsons, Michael and Scott.

Services will be held at the Forest Grove Chapel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints at 2700 Leon Drive in Forest Grove at 10:00 am presided by Pres. Brad Richardson and conducted by Bishop Darren Hitchcock. There will be a viewing one hour before the services. Internment will be at the Sunset Cemetery following the service.

A Ward Christmas Scavenger Hunt!

2010-12-07T21:04:00.003-05:00

Our ward had our Christmas party on Saturday and we went on a Scavenger Hunt to find baby Jesus. With clues, we went to different rooms and heard stories and finally found him! It was an enjoyable evening and great food!

We met with the innkeeper that turned the couple away.

We had a shepherd who told us his experience!

Joseph told us his story!

Here is one of the wise men!

Of course, we visited with Mary!

And finally baby Jesus! We left him a gift of what we could do for Him!

Kitchen goodness

2010-12-07T19:49:00.002-05:00

It is bitter cold for South Carolina and usually the type of weather we get for about a week the end of January! Anyway, I decided I should pick some of the of our garden before it freezes away!

When we were in Oregon, Renetta had some "killer" bread that they like to buy. It was really good but I figured I could make it. Finally, about six weeks later I tried it and it's a great success. I cracked various grains and soaked them before adding them to the bread I was making and then when I made the loafs I rolled the dough in sesame, flax, oats, and sunflower seeds. This is wonderful bread and I will probably make it this way from now on. I also am playing with sourdough!

Ethan's baptism!

2010-11-27T21:20:00.005-05:00

I am behind on my Thanksgiving blogs and pictures but our big event for the month was Ethan's baptism!

Isn't he cute. It's hard to believe he is growing up so fast.

This was mainly a family affair. His daddy was able to baptize and confirm him.

Tracy's brother Chris and his wife and children came up from Columbia.

Kevin and Bonnie came up from Florida. Little Katie was such a cutie and on the go. She thinks she's one of the big kids already.

The kids had a wonderful time together and they get along so well. I'm so glad they are such good buddies.

Greenhouse growing!

2010-11-03T19:56:00.003-04:00

The weather is really turning cooler and fall is here but I am hoping to get a little more from the fall garden including tomatoes, green beans and peppers. So, when a frost warning was sounded, we made some black plastic tarps to go over a few beds. It seemed to work for that night but we will have some colder nights this weekend!

We are finally growing in the greenhouse. These are lettuce ponds. The lettuce is in a small cup with a hole on the bottom sitting in styrofoam with liquid fertilizer in water underneath. I just aerate the water once a day and the lettuce will live and grow in the water medium.

This is our hydroponics and perlite tubes that we plan to grow broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, etc in through the winter.

The little plants were hurting waiting around but looked better over night. We pump the nutrients through the tubes 1-3 times a day depending on the weather and warmth. This will be fun to see how they turn out. We have three other tubes ready that we can put in the system as soon as I have a few more plants to try!

We are getting tomatoes off our greenhouse tomatoes and also eggplant. Either way, we have plans for the greenhouse which is a hobby and an adventure!

Fall Garden Goodies

2010-10-27T20:22:00.003-04:00

We are at the end of October and we haven't had a frost. Up until this past week, we've had a pretty dry fall also. However, we are having still having production from the garden.

This is the harvest that I've had this week. The peppers, tomatoes, and green beans are doing really well. We will soon have carrots and beets. I also had the first head of broccoli from the fall crop with more on the way. I still have a few sweet potatoes to dig up and also the jicama to dig up.

The eggplant and a couple of tomatoes are from our greenhouse. I made the best eggplant lasagna with fresh tomato sauce this week!

Time out for Women in Atlanta!

2010-10-23T20:37:00.010-04:00

I just got back from Time Out for Women in Atlanta! What a fabulous way to spend a Friday night and Saturday!

This was made possible by the generosity of Rachel to make sure sisters she loved got to have this wonderful experience. Beth flew out from BYU to spend the weekend with us as well. Dave could not resist coming down Friday afternoon to see Beth.

We met up with Rachel and her car full of gals plus Beth at La Madeline's a French restaurant. It was great food!

We had a lot of love and laughter throughout the weekend!

Unfortunately, we got caught up in the horrendous Atlanta traffic which took us 1 1/2 hours to get to the convention center for the evening's performance. We were there to enjoy Michael McLean and Amanda Dickson's humor.

Amanda Dickson is a gal who is on the radio in Salt Lake City. She has a sister living in Greer, SC that Rachel knows from teaching seminary. Rachel got to meet her to talk about her sister! Rachael had a special evening planned after Friday night with letters of affirmation to each of us written by someone who loves us! It was a very spiritual evening full of love.

We heard from many fabulous, faith filled women. This woman is from Sierra Leon and her story is incredible and full of faith.

Here we all are at the end of the day: Ruby Timmons, Tracy Terry, Lynn Hansen, Terry Luc, Der Lor, Beth Venus, Rebecca Isham, Linda Harper and Erin Luc. In front are Paula VanValkenburg, Rachel Venus, Christina Eichhorn, and Melissa Anderson.

Oregon Family

2010-10-23T20:19:00.006-04:00

I saved the best for last about our trip to Oregon! Family pictures.

Here is my almost 96 year old father with his children, Mick, Linda, LaDonna and Richard.

The morning after we got there, we went to the Portland Temple. Richard and Michael were ready to go!

LaDonna, Renetta and I were up bright and early. We went through the temple with Mick and Mary, Amy, Tami and Leone who had just been for the first time the month before.

After the temple, we went to visit with Johnny and Leone.

We had Mick with us who spent the night at Rich and Renetta's and we had a lot of fun playing apples to apples. The next day we went to visit dad and met back up with Mary who brought Beth and the boys on their way to Klammath Falls for a trip.

We had Amy and Megan and their families along with Malia Long for a pizza dinner and a night around the campfire.

Amy, her Richard and Annalina were enjoying the evening.

Look how cute little Katherine, Megan's daughter is. I just love those curls! She has to have surgery this week and our prayers are with her.

Oregon Waterfalls!

2010-10-23T20:06:00.003-04:00

A wonderful treat for our trip to Oregon was being able to go up the Columbia River Gorge and see the beauty there. I had not been there through the gorge in over 20 years!

Here is the famous Multnomah Falls that is one of the tallest waterfalls in the US (next to Yosemite).

This is Wahkenna Falls.

This is Lotourell Falls. In about a 10 mile length there are probably 5 waterfalls that are all just gorgeous.

It all comes to a climax at Crown point with a beautiful view of the Columbia River gorge looking east toward the fish hatchery and Bonneville Dam.

Richard, Renetta, LaDonna, Michael and I all spent a fun afternoon together as we explored and reveled in nature's beauty.

A beautiful Pacific sunset

2010-10-21T22:07:00.002-04:00

After our cloudy stormy dinner at the coast, we noticed some light coming from the west and decided to stop and look one more time at the ocean. We were fortunate to watch the sun sink into the Pacific ocean in the most beautiful sunset!

Oregon beauty, what can I say!

2010-10-20T19:33:00.003-04:00

We got back from Oregon on Sunday night late. I always come home with a huge batch of beautiful pictures. During our visit, we were able to get in a quick trip to the beach for dinner. It was beautiful the whole time we were in Oregon, but at the coast it was socked in with a small storm. No worry, it's still beautiful!

The restaurant we ate at was fabulous and overlooked the north end of Depot Bay.

This is the view we watched while we ate.

These were the rock formations in the bay.

We also went to Devil's kitchen to watch the waves go over the rocks. LaDonna had to put on her hat.

Here is a video of the waves crashing over the rocks!

General Conference thoughts

2010-10-04T09:24:00.001-04:00

I just love conference weekends. We are able to literally sit back with our feet up, let life slow down and be spiritually fed. This weekend was not exception to that tradition. I took copious notes (it helps me stay focused) and did the seminary jeopardy game that I've done for years when I taught and still share with teachers around the world. Here are a few impressions that stood out to me:

Pres. Monson: We need many more senior couples to plan to serve and prepare now for that day. As circumstances allow and eligible for retirement, make available to leave home and give full time missionary service. (Michael and I have a goal to serve missions during retirement!)

Elder Holland: The sacred value of each one of you is reason there is a plan of salvation. This is about you. . .

Elder Christofferson: A consecrated life is: Purity, work, respect of one's body, service, integrity.

Pres. Uchtdorf: Work on our relationship with ourselves. It seems odd but we do have one. Some people can't get along with themselves. The criticize and belittle themselves all day long. Get to know yourself better. Enjoy God's creations, ponder truths of gospel and what they mean, learn to see yourself as Heavenly Father sees you, as his precious daughter or son with divine potential.

Elder Andersen: Two words signal danger ahead: offended and ashamed.

Elder Scott: You get what you pay for is true of spiritual matters as well, in obedience in faith and diligent application. What you get is the molding of character and growth and capacity.

Pres. Monson: Gratitude is a divine principle and the parent of all other virtues. To live with gratitude in our hearts is to touch heaven.

Elder Lawrence: Nothing good happens late at night.

Elder Arnold: We are free to choose for ourselves but not the consequences of our actions.

Pres. Monson: Take time to read the conference talks for they are deserving of our careful study. Blessing we are able to meet here in this conference center in peace and comfort.

I'm sure I'll have more impressions as I read and study these talks in the next few months!

Garden Sweet Potatoes

2010-10-04T08:59:00.002-04:00

On Thursday Ryan helped me dig up one of our beds of sweet potatoes. We have a half a bed in another part of the garden still to do. The potatoes got huge this year and some were the size of loaves of bread! They taste great. I think I am going to try to can some of them that were cut up when we took them out of the ground.

Michael and I also moved our potted plants down into the greenhouse where we want them and strung them up. We planned to put them in the middle area so when it gets cold we can put up some plastic walls and just heat that area. The lettuce, spinach, broccoli, brussels sprouts and cauliflower will do fine in a colder area as long as it doesn't get too much below freezing.

We have our materials to build the hydroponics so that is our next big project.

From Russia with Love!

2010-09-26T21:36:00.005-04:00

Svetlana sent Ryan a package that also included some gifts for us. It's been fun for us to Skype with her a few times and get to know her as well. She speaks pretty good English which is getting better and she has a beautiful laugh. This morning, while we were skyping her, we opened the box with our gifts. She was so sweet to think of us and send things. It took about six weeks to arrive.

She got Ryan and Michael new ties! She's really good a picking them out. They are beautiful ties!

She sent us some coasters with cute pictures on them. Right now I put them on display on our bookcase!

The background for these pictures is a beautiful shawl made from goat hair. It's so soft. I'm amazed at it! She sent me this cute Matroyshka doll. . .

That had ten dolls inside, the littlest the size of a pea.

She lives in Vogagrad and sent some refrigerator magnets with some monuments from her City. These are some huge statues honoring the battles from World War II. One is 170 feet tall called the Motherland Calls. It has 200 steps honoring the 200 days of the Battle of Salingrad (which is what Volvagrad use to be named!

Butterfly Bushes

2010-09-25T16:03:00.002-04:00

We have two huge butterfly bushes. I cut them back in the winters but they just keep coming back!

They have been full of beautiful butterflies of various types all summer.

Moving into the Greenhouse

2010-09-25T15:49:00.003-04:00

I took a short video of the new tables we built for the greenhouse and our plants all moved in. We have several tomato plants that have some fruit set already. I also have eggplant (more plants than we wanted but they all came up) that have fruit on them). Unfortunately, we only had one pepper plant that survived. The others were eaten by grasshoppers. They were terrible this year! I also have a lot of lettuce, broccoli and cauliflower coming up that we plan to set into a hydroponic system soon!

Ward Tailgate party!

2010-09-20T19:50:00.002-04:00

Our stake has a new outdoor pavilion and game field so our ward used it this weekend. Kelly had the great idea of making this a tailgate party and for everyone to decorate their cars and wear their favorite team's clothing! The car decoration wasn't real impressive but the food and visiting and games were great! Here are some pictures.

War with the Beavers!

2010-09-20T19:28:00.006-04:00

Our ordeal with the beavers is far from over. We bought some spray that was supposed to be a deterent and it worked for a little while. . . but they are determined.

They have taken all five peach trees, two plum and now our Nectarine.

Here's the nectarine. This is the first time that they actually cut the tree down and left it there. It stayed there for three days but last night they came back and finished taking it to their home.

I have researched what to do. I found some things on line that sounded like a solution only to order it and have it never delivered! Thanks to Paypal we got our money back. I have heard the best thing to do it to make a fence around the trees. Today we finished fencing up what is left. I hope this works. We've ordered some more trees but we have to make sure we can keep the beavers off! Anyone got other ideas except shooting them?

Fall Garden update

2010-09-15T19:32:00.003-04:00

The weather has been amazing lately. We've lost the humidity and the days are milder and it's been beautiful (even though a bit dry). I thought I'd take a stroll out in the garden for an update.

Believe it or not, this is our asparagus. Some of it is now two years old so I expect a good cutting in the spring. Once established, Asparagus will live for 25 years or more!

The three beds on the left are broccoli and cauliflower. We also have planted onions, carrots and beets in here as well as a few heads of cabbage. Our okra and peppers are still producing and in fact having a comeback since it's cooled a little.

Here's our green beans that are just blooming. The plants look so green and lucious. Our fall tomatoes are on the right and just starting to produce.

These containers hold about six tomatoes and four eggplant and a pepper plant that will soon go into the greenhouse with drip irrigation.

We put the greenhouse floor in last week and are working this weekend on some tables and plumbing for our hydroponics.

Our three year old princess

2010-09-15T19:21:00.005-04:00

Our little Haily turned three yesterday. It's hard to image. Last month some members in the ward were moving and asked me if anyone would like this little bike and I knew just the girl who loves pink and wanted one!

Her Grandma Fuller made her a princess dress and she got matching "glass" slippers! She was in heaven.

Tracy made her a cookie cake!

Sure Water Storage Tank

2010-09-07T20:30:00.001-04:00

I've been worried about having adequate water storage that we could easily use in an emergency, even for an extended period of time. We had a 55 gallon drum but it's not easy to empty and refill. We had talked about putting in a well but the expense is out of reach. I think found these sure water tank. It has two spigots that you can use to get water out and a big lid opening in the top for easy fill. This tank holds 525 gallons of water! We decided to order this and used Labor Day to fill it up! It took about 1 1/2 hours but we now have good drinkable water and can use it to water the garden in the summer and refill it yearly.

We are looking into similar tanks to harvest some water off of our roof for water gardening and other water uses in an emergency. Hopefully this plan will work instead of a well for usable water!

Missionary Fireside

2010-08-30T21:05:00.003-04:00

We had a missionary musical fireside and open house at the church on Saturday. Michael sang a beautiful arrangement of "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief."

I was in charge of the Relief Society room for the open house. I am artistically challenged on decorating but put a table display together showing the some of the various activities we have done in the past year.

The sisters in the first ward made some posters and then we had a wonderful video put made by the Relief Society called something extraordinary. If you'd like to watch it, you can see it below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqfCXBsXGfQ&p=3268AAAA91633703&playnext=1&index=23

Canning our own pears!

2010-08-13T18:07:00.004-04:00

We picked our pears earlier this week and I canned the first pears ever from our own trees! I canned 7 quarts and probably have enough for five more quarts that still need to ripen.

PS - I love my new stove with the boost burner. It doesn't take long at all for the canner to get going!

Our new stove!

2010-08-12T16:51:00.004-04:00

I thought we were buying a great stove when we built our house. However, after nine years and four service calls, our oven went out yet again around Easter. I don't use it as much in the heat, and I put my toaster oven in the garage to do minimal baking. Finally, I had enough.

I love our gas stove and the convection oven that it had (when it worked). With just the two of us at home, I noticed that you can get double ovens so you can use a smaller one when needed and not heat up the larger oven. That's what I wanted!!! I found it also had the convection oven and the stove top had various sizes for burners (even a fifth one in the middle to keep things warm or melt chocolate (who wouldn't want to do that!

My problem was that it is more expensive than what I wanted to pay. Fortunately, I found a great deal online which was much cheaper than buying it at Lowe's. It arrived on Wednesday and Michael went to work to get it installed and the old one out. He carefully took it out of the cardboard (he wants to use it for target practice).

After moving the old one out of the way, and cleaning the grungy stuff on the floor underneath the old one, he was ready to set it all up!

Now, we have a new stove in place! We put my old stove downstairs (the top still works) and hopefully in the winter months, we can make me a canning kitchen downstairs! When we built the house we plumbed for a sink and I think now is the time to set it up to use!

Peaches!

2010-08-10T21:05:00.003-04:00

South Carolina is famous for their peaches. At one time more peaches were grown in South Carolina than Georgia. I don't know if that is still the case.

After losing our peach trees, we were bummed. We went last night to buy a bushel of wonderful sweet peaches. They are expensive to buy the #1 quality but I counted that we got 112 peaches so they were about four for a dollar which is cheaper than the grocery store. I'm treating this fruit like gold and went through the bushel and layered them on the table to keep track of.

Of course, we needed to have a sugar free deep dish peach pie! Yum!!!

Gearing up for a fall garden

2010-08-06T21:19:00.002-04:00

Our pears are almost ready to pick which we will probably do next week. Last week we picked a bushel of apples and made some delicious applesauce and apple butter!

I'm praying our weather will become more mild. I've got a lot of plants started for our fall garden including broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage as well as some tomatoes and peppers I'm going to put in the greenhouse. Tomorrow I plan on putting in a bed of green beans. We are still getting tomatoes, okra and peppers. We have another bed of tomatoes about 2" high and blooming and a bed of summer squash that is starting to bloom.

As of tonight, no more signs of our beavers!

Turkey in the solar oven

2010-07-30T20:51:00.003-04:00

Our live is getting back to normal. Michael feels he's 100% recovered from surgery and is starting to work outside again! Speaking of outside, we have had some real heat this summer with most days 95+. We're doing as good as we can to keep our tomatoes, peppers, and okra alive.

It's been too hot to cook. So, last week I cooked a turkey breast in our solar oven. It turned out really well and was completely done. The meat just fell off the bones.

A special horn blower at the world cup!

2010-07-30T20:37:00.001-04:00

Last month at the World Cup, there was a special horn in the crowd!

The mystery of the missing fruit trees

2010-07-30T12:14:00.000-04:00

About two weeks ago, I went out one morning and discovered that one of our peach trees was completely gone. All that was left was about 18" of the trunk. There were not any branches on the ground or any signs of it being cut by a saw. At first I thought someone was in our garden. The cut was fairly smooth with a little bit of grooves in it.

On Monday, the same scenario happened again. We were completely stumped (no pun intended).

Living in South Carolina, I didn't believe there were beavers here but the thought crossed our minds. Our property borders a neighbor's 5 acre pond and two smaller ponds and then a creek in the woods on the other side.

This morning, the third or our five peach trees suffered the same fate. We have a total of about 20 trees and they are about six years old so just producing for us!

We talked to one of our neighbors that has a pond and he said on the other side of the 5 acre pond at the spillway, they have discovered beavers building a home.

As I called around farm and garden centers, etc. the most popular solution was a rifle. One guy told me to open two cans of sardines and place them at the edge of the pond and then get a lawn chair and sit with a shotgun on our laps and wait for them to come for the sardines and shoot away!

We did find something called Ropel that you can spray on the trunks of trees that make it taste terrible and also gets on their paws. We bought it at a pest control place and used it last night and didn't lose another tree. We'll see if it works. I stayed out a dusk last night to see if we could see them (we were told they come out at dusk) but didn't see any!

We haven't had too good of luck with wildlife. We have had deer eat out strawberries, a duck get in our garage, the cats bringing rabbits into the house and now beavers stealing our trees!

Michael's recovery

2010-07-05T21:03:00.002-04:00

This is Michael last Monday, awaiting his surgery. Boy I'm glad this past week is over but it went as well as we could have prayed for. Just one week later, he's able to move around, get up and down and is no longer on any pain medication.
He ended up with about an 8" incision. This is just part of it. They took out 8" of his colon. The mass was just confined to the inside of the colon. Nothing looked abnormal and when the pathology came back, everything was negative so he is considered cured! He will have close follow up for many years but that is a small price to pay!
Here he is the day before he came home. He was able to come home on Friday night about 9:00 after eating a couple of regular meals and having his bowels move. He's now able to eat whatever he wants. We consider this such a blessing and a real miracle! He doesn't have all of his energy back yet but he is starting to teach an online class tomorrow! Hopefully, he will get his staples out in the next couple of days.

My sweet Husband!

2010-06-26T20:27:00.000-04:00

Please keep Michael in your prayers this next week. June 8th he went to have a routine colonoscopy and they found a mass that was malignant. He is going to have surgery Monday to remove 8" of his colon. He will be in the hospital 5-7 days. We will know three days after the surgery if the colon mass is intact and not spread to lymph nodes or elsewhere. We are praying that it was caught early and he will be fine.

He's had a lot on his plate this summer while he is out of school and so we've reprioritized what he could do before surgery. He is in great health otherwise and has worked hard outside all spring so hopefully he will recover quickly.

Again, keep him in your prayers.

New Steps

2010-06-26T20:10:00.003-04:00

Michael has been busy this week with a lot of jobs and one of them was to build steps to go down the hill into the greenhouse. I didn't know how we would do it, but he had a plan and went to work.

Here's the finished product. The top step isn't slanted, but he put some extra wood and dirt in their to hopefully redirect the rainwater. We eventually want to build a swell to direct the water but in the meantime we were able to get some bales of hay and played them down the hill to help in the meantime.

Here is a picture of the new part of the garden. We probably have about 10 cantaloupe almost ready. I'm very disappointed in our corn as it just hasn't set many ears. In fact, I'm a little worried. Most years there have been a lot of bees around and I have hardly seen any and I think that is a factor. Our tomatoes started out setting fruit and after several days of rain the end of May, they are not setting fruit much even though the plants look beautiful. I may have to start hand pollinating them!

Hydrangeas

2010-06-13T19:08:00.004-04:00

We finally have some beautiful hydrangeas just filled with blooms! One year I accidentally pruned them back too much and another year we had a late freeze but this year they are in their beautiful glory! I love the purple ones. The pictures don't do it justice but they are almost velvety looking.
The blue ones are a great color as well.

All of the cousins!

2010-06-13T11:15:00.004-04:00

Kevin had a canoe trip last week so Bonnie bravely drove up for a visit and a canning frenzy! I hope she got a little rest!
It was so much fun to see little Katie and how much she has grown. She loved being around people and was just so cute. She stands and is almost ready to walk. She screamed with delight as she chased the cats around.

Ethan lost a tooth while he was here, his second front tooth!
Here's all of my precious girls! They had a blast together. They got to try out the new water slide park up the street.
We had to put up a gate for Katie but the kids loved playing downstairs. The week flew by.

A Garden Harvest this week!

2010-06-09T19:16:00.000-04:00

This was the harvest from our garden last Tuesday. The little pink berries are pink raspberries and boy are they sweet. We've picked about 5 gallons of blackberries so far and probably a bushel of green beans. I think we will pick our first tomato tomorrow! We're having a heat wave (101 today) so I hope it doesn't ruin our garden production. We are trying to keep the water to everything!

A duck in the garage?

2010-06-02T20:53:00.005-04:00

We have had a lot of rain lately, but I always thought ducks liked to be in the rain. I went out to the garage this afternoon and there in the garage was a duck, looking out the door at the rain!
The grandkids were here minus Caleb and they got excited to see the duck close up.
The duck "ducked" under the car until they went back into the house.
Finally Maggie got some bread and made a bread trail to the side of the house where he "ducked" under some bushes. I'm assuming he ended up at the pond (the cats were inside!)

A lawn sometimes grows too fast!

2010-05-30T21:46:00.002-04:00

Michael does a great job keeping our lawn looking great and mowed but sometimes when we get rain and busy times at the same time, it gets away from him. It happened this spring for a few days, and we had a field of dandelions! They were pretty but didn't last long!

May 2010 garden

2010-05-30T21:22:00.001-04:00

One reason I haven't blogged as much this month is the garden! It's keeping us very busy but we're having great payoffs! Our strawberries are almost over but we've picked 70 gallons and had a wonderful harvest.

We're loaded up with blackberries that are just now starting to ripen. Our blueberries are right behind.

Here's the older part of our garden beds. The tomatoes are in the back. We harvested our cauliflower and broccoli. Our earliest corn is toselling!

Here is a picture of me in the garden.

And Michael working in the garden.

Here are the new beds we've built. As soon as we build and fill them with soil, we've been planting!

We have four more to build but the new beds are already producing squash and cucumbers!

Strawberry fields forever!

2010-05-19T18:41:00.003-04:00

We have been picking wonderful strawberries for the past three weeks. As of today, we have picked over 60 gallons of berries. They are almost over, but we should get a few for the next week or two. We have really enjoyed them with a wonderful sugar free strawberry pie, berries with yogurt, and berry smoothies and just plain berries. We have also shared a lot of them with others. I think I could eat them every day! We hope to at least have them every week as we've put about 42 quarts in the freezer.