We hiked up Waterfall canyon in Ogden. I did this hike last year with my two boys by myself. It went much faster with Joe along, even with another little boy in the mix. It’s a really enjoyable hike, not too long but still a bit of a challenge.
Learning
I wish this was a nice how-to post about how to have a good irrigation system. But it’s not. The biggest problem and workload in the garden is the irrigation right now. If anything is going to get watered, I have to do it. And I’m not doing so hot. Lots of things are drying up. The rainy month of May has turned into a normal hot, dry June. And the plants aren’t loving it.
Part of the reason the irrigation is so off is we have a weekly old-school water turn. I would like to irrigate just off of the water turn. Some places flood fairly well. The swales aren’t too bad. What remains are a bunch of areas that I’ve currently been watering with milk jugs turned into drip emitters. It actually doesn’t work that bad, but I just have too much to water. Over an hour twice a week of hand watering is not pleasant.
I still have no idea what I’m going to do everywhere…but if I don’t figure it out, I’m not going to have a great garden. I think the first (and easiest) step is to just go put some more mulch on everything. I’ve even got a big pile of straw that needs to be used.
Picture updates:
This is my inter-planted spring crop. Doing okay, I’ve had tons of lettuce out of there, as much as I’ve wanted. I could have been picking more. There are a few beets and carrots that look good in there…nothing has germinated in my straw bale gardens, so I think I will be planting something new there.
I watched this video about planting potatoes…and thought I would go for it. It was easy and turned out successfully (well, judging by the plants, but I assume I’ll get potatoes as well). I just threw the potatoes on the ground and buried with straw. I didn’t dig in the soil at all. They are interplanted with some onions.
The herb spiral looks great…only wish I would have actually planned out the herbs better instead of just filling it with what I had.
Swale mounds are planted up with veggies. Hard to tell in this picture. Some are doing well, some need more water. Next time, I would have planted everything close to the water line–the tops of the mounds get pretty dry. I seeded some things in. They weren’t marked, which was a mistake, because I haven’t been able to watch them to make sure they didn’t get buried in mulch and they were watered well. I don’t know if I will ever seed straight into a chop-and-drop cover crop again, but if I did, it would need to be marked!
Everything is going alright in the garden. I’ve realized I’m experimenting a lot (about everything is non-traditional) and really learning a lot from doing so. But I should have done some of the garden normal too. Then I could compare to my experiments, and also so if the experiments fail (which is fine, learning comes as much from failure as success), I would still have some produce to eat.
You know if nothing works out this year, at least I have learned a ton!
Willard Falls
The canyon is deceptive. One normal trail goes on a nice hike up to a couple of small waterfalls. But the canyon is also home to several other smaller trails that lead to eroded cliffs, dangerous creek crossings, and steep climbs. The first time we hike here, back before I had children, I was nearly crying because I was scared of falling down the steep hillside we were trying to hike across. We realized later we were on the wrong side of the creek.
Several years later we hike without incident. This time (as you can probably tell by my preamble), we didn’t start on the right trail and had to do a lot of scrambling to get back on the right one. Scrambling involved crossing bloating creeks, going up extremely steep, eroded hills, and bushwhacking through grass and sage brush. In some ways, it was a lot of fun. It had the benefit of being far shadier than the correct trail, and had almost as much thrill as a good roller coaster. The kids didn’t mind too much as well (minus the one creek crossing that scared Curtis to tears, but was actually easily crossed).
If you are ever hiking there, stay on the north side of the creek. And cross the creek right by the parking lot. Unless you want an adventure.
Stages of Early Childhood
Just wrote this one day, thought I would share.
- Cuddly newborn: Enjoyable very tiny, snugly baby.
- Sleepless baby: Just wishing they would sleep a big longer.
- Settled baby: Seems to have sleep figured out. Isn’t mobile yet. Just kinda a cute lump.
- Mobile mess: Learned to crawl. Not a good thing.
- Adorable toddler: Begins to do things that are just so cute.
- Wild thing: Does not have any boundaries. Constantly getting into everything.
- Terrific two: Starts to say things like, “I love you,” and wants to help all the time
- Terrible toddler: Doesn’t ever want to listen. Becomes very frustrated. Lots of tantrums. And they are supposed to get potty trained.
- Discovery: Starts to listen a bit, and becomes semi independent. Loves to discover and play.
- Inquisition: Won’t stop asking questions.
- Growing up: Almost fully independent and begins to understand things and self regulate.
Pictures from Peter
Remodel Update
We have walls! Having the walls up is a great first step. Joe’s work hasn’t been that busy, so it’s been nice to have him home more to get it done.
For the first time since we moved in, the bathroom has a proper door. It had a bifold door when we moved in, and after one too many fingers crushed inside that, we removed it and put a curtain on. We finally got the hall moved giving us the space we needed to get a door on the bathroom. It’s still a funky space, but that is just the nature of an old house.
There is still so much to do downstairs, but it is progressing. And it’s actually almost livable if you don’t mind plain Sheetrock and unfinished floors.
Uphill
I stated planting my hugel mounds. It felt and looked weird. It wasn’t clean bare soil, just chopped down cover crop. It is normal to plant in tilled bare soil, but I haven’t tilled at all this year. I’ve planted in soil that was mulched with leaves over the winter, soil bare after the chickens had scratched for a few weeks, tucked in plants next to existing ones, planted through sheet mulch and now hugel mounds with a chop and drop cover crop. I’m not in a hurry to get out the tiller: everything I did was much simpler.
It didn’t feel wrong. In some ways it felt and looked more right than what we normally do. So often in gardening we are trying to move against succession. We try to maintain sterile mono cultures of annual plants, where nature wants to progress into perennials. Nature avoids bare soil and monoculture, so I’m avoiding it in my own garden as well.
I might be stuck with small unproductive plants and weeds come summer. The rain and hail that has been pounding us since I planted isn’t helping either. But if it fails, I’ll just adjust my system. But for now I’m enjoying the experiment. And wondering why in the world I own a tiller.
Photo Dump
Eating a tiny ice cream cone with a tiny spoon.
Playing the floor is lava for Family Home Evening
My hot husband building walls
Guinea pigs are not good baby toys
Tower of cars
This is how my kids feel about peanut butter playdough.
Look who’s sitting by himself!
Having fun at the fine arts center
Haphazard
The irises actually bloomed for the first time since we moved in. They’ve been neglected in the back corner of the garden. I think they are probably like 30 years old. Irises are good at surviving neglect. But not necessarily blooming through it. So I moved some this year.
I tried something new this year. Instead of seeding all my plants in nice little rows, I seeded everything together. It was a good way to get rid of old seeds, and I’ve got a lot coming up. But if I were to do it again, I think I would do it a little differently and only seed the things together that I wanted primary for greens. Others, like carrots and beets that need better thinning, would be seeded separately so I could keep a better eye on it. 
The hugelkultur mounds are about ready for planting. The cover crop started to flower, so I started cutting it back. My transplants are hardening off, and I’ll plant them in a couple days.
The herb spiral has been planted. A bit haphazardly. I’m pretty good at making planting plans for others, but haven’t got around to do it for myself. this whole spring I’ve just been randomly planting things, and I’m starting to realized a planting plan might make more sense.
Soccer
We’ve signed PB up for a lot of activities. Not because I want to do a lot of activities, but just trying to find something he likes. We’ve done t-ball, that was mildly okay, swim lesson that were decent but uneventful, karate that he tolerated but never liked, and yoga that was also a flop. So finally, we enrolled him in soccer.
And he liked soccer. Hooray! The first few games he played goalie, even though there isn’t a formal one. Then he got a little better and started to score lots of points. It was the first activity that he decided to do by himself at home too.
Liz Braithwaite 