peas

I planted peas last weekend. It was a beautiful week, high 60's and low 70's. Completely unheard of for Maine...well not completely I guess. We have some strange weather in Maine. Apparently peas can take some light frost and snow, so I figured that it would be fine to plant them. This week, cold, frost and this morning a dusting of snow on the ground. Will my peas still come up? Nope, and not because of the weather. No, they will not be coming up because of the crows. I went out yesterday to check on them, see if maybe I should put a blanket on last night because I knew it was going to be snowing. What did I find? Holes...lots of holes. Large beak size holes...all around where I had planted my peas. I'm still hopeful that perhaps they missed one or two. But one or two pea plants really will not produce what I had hoped to produce. So now I am wondering if I can start the seeds inside and then move them outside. Any ideas out there? I have to say all of my seedlings are doing quite well...except for marigolds which surprised me because I thought they were really easy to start. Maybe I need to give them some more time. Needless to say, I hate crows, and we have maybe 20 that circle around my street all. the. time. So between crows and deer...and the eventual woodchucks coming to visit, i'm scared. Maybe someday I will learn how to NOT have these animals around. Yes, lovely to look at the deer in the morning, but not if they are munching on my veggies! Is anyone else gardening yet?

gardening!

I spent some time yesterday digging in the garden. It was very satisfying. I also started digging up some more grass to expand our garden. Well, I actually think that I am going to end up with little gardens all around the yard. I have a bunch of squash/pumpkins/melons that I want to plant, and I want to find a place that they can stretch out without attacking anything else I am planting...not sure where yet...I'll probably just keep digging up the yard until there is no grass left :-) Which actually works out since we don't use our yard because of one extremely nosy neighbor. He came out yesterday while I was digging in the garden.

"Are you planting a garden again this year" in my head I am thinking you have got to be kidding me...haven't I planted a garden for the past 3 years we have been here??? "yup, sure am, i love it" him: "huh, well ok i guess" Did I misunderstand when we closed on our house that we actually owned the land too? This is the guy that is totally obsessed with mowing the lawn, starting in May...and I think the last time he mowed last year...November...yeah...the grass stops growing in Maine way before November. I figure if I plant enough garden space he won't be able to mow our lawn. Most people would think it would be nice. I prefer to have green grass though, not patches of dirt and brown grass from mowing too short several times a week. Not to mention it is just awkward to have him driving by our windows at 7am with on a lawn mower...definitely want to get a fence. And here I am supposed to be building community.

Sorry for the little rant there! But, I am very excited about gardening this year, and I just hope that we get a little less rain this year. Of course we will probably end up with NO rain this year...We'll see how it goes I guess!!

could it possibly be spring?

It has been absolutely gorgeous out the past few days! I am afraid to write about it frankly, Maine is not known to be kind in the weather department :-) Yesterday it was 65 out. We were able to get a good portion of the front flower gardens cleaned out, and I was able to rake a bunch of crap out of my garden from last year. It was just wonderful. Although, I think we would have gotten more accomplished if one of us didn't have to keep dropping what we were doing to run after the wee one...man is she quick. My mom lives just down the street, and she just starts running yelling "NANA NANNY!!!!!" Which would be fine...except it is a road, and there is a big drop off into a gully right next to our road.

I started about as many seeds as I could possibly think to start on Monday...just to read yesterday that half the stuff shouldn't be started inside - such as green beans. Well, we'll see how they do. I still need to start my tomatoes, which I am not all that confident about since the lady at the greenhouse spent 30 minutes trying to talk me OUT of starting tomatoes at home...hmmmm. Well, the seeds and dirt were not that expensive, and if they suck, well I will just buy seedlings from the nursery anyways.

We are going to attempt to add 4 4x4 raised beds, plus a little pumpkin patch this year. The raised beds were Matt's idea, so I am just going with it :-) I'm hoping that will help considering I will be in my 3rd trimester most of the summer - hence not wanting to bend over and weed a lot. I am really really concerned about animals this year though. We have lived here for 4 years and never had any animal issues (they all stay at my mom's mostly), but in the past 2 weeks something has gotten into our garbage twice, and then the neighbors told us there were 10 deer in our yard/next to our cars the other night...hmmmm...I was thinking racoons, but maybe the deer knocked our garbage over? But what can deter deer from eating my vegetables! We live in town, so no shooting allowed...although I have to say if I wake up to no plants one day, I might be sitting on my porch with a gun overnight. I'm hoping my garden fence will be enough. Any ideas?

In completely unrelated news, we found out we are expecting a BOY! Yay! We are really excited to have a boy and a girl. Although, to be honest, I am freaking out a little bit as to what to do with a little boy. Matt of course is ecstatic. This will be the first grandson on both sides, so it is pretty exciting for us! Not much longer now! I unfortunately will have to schedule a c-section due to some issues related to a car accident when I was younger, but at least I can safely carry the baby! Yay!

Sorry it has been so quiet around here these past few weeks. I have been in a crazy spring cleaning/reorganizing/throw away as much as possible phase :-) I hope to start updating more frequently, but let's be honest...I'm not very good at that! At least I still have my faithful readership (thanks barefoot by the sea!)

books books and more books!

I have been doing a lot of reading as of late. I have always loved reading, unfortunately I got out of the habit when I was in college. I think the economics books and accounting books sucked the energy out of me, so I couldn't even pick up an easy book to read anymore! Plus, I would always run into the issue of feeling guilty if I was reading for enjoyment instead of studying something else. Luckily I took a few women's lit classes in college which allowed me some time with good fiction :-)

Emma loves reading, so we spend at least an hour every day reading as many books as she can get her hands on. Dr. Seuss is one of her favorites I would say. Green Eggs and Ham, One Fish Two Fish, Oh the Places You'll Go. All are read several times a day. She also requests the Hunchback of Notre Dame nightly, asking for modo, goat, and phoebus...where she got a love for this book I have no idea...in fact I'm not entirely sure it is age appropriate! But, she loves it, so I am not going to discourage her. I am definitely enjoying reading longer books to her though, the color book was not cutting it for me anymore :-) And she has the attention span to listen for a long period of time, always a good thing in my book!

I have been reading a lot of books on homeschooling, organization, and family life. I want to definitely suggest the book Spring Cleaning for Normal People. It is a quick read, and is really really good. Everyone knows how to spring clean, and probably most people don't have issues getting it done. For me, it helps to have everything listed out for me, and this book definitely does that. It is an e-book, so you have to purchase it, but for $7 I thought it was a good buy. I also just finished up Steady Mom, which talks about craeting steady days for our families. There are some good tidbits of information in this book as well. You can also follow the author of Steady Days on her blog Steady Mom Definitely worth a look!

So my days have been pretty full as of late. It's been nice to spend the time cleaning the house out too. Although, I have to say that it is already a mess again. I think the little one is anti clean :-) No matter how many times I clean up the cheerios on the floor, I always manage to step on one and it becomes dust...Has anyone else been reading as much as me? I also want to let everyone now I am not completely neglecting my family! I am blessed with the gift of reading fast, something my brother and I share...although I think he is even faster then me. Most of my books are read during Emma's one nap in the morning that she still takes :-)

As an aside, isn't it strange that she takes a morning nap instead of an afternoon nap? Not that I am complaining, I like the break up in the morning routine, but I always hear of rest time after lunch...not in my house! Tips welcome!