Pictures from a Walk

November 7, 20132 Comments

Occasionally it is fun to take pictures of what has gone horribly wrong in landscapes. These pictures are from a walk a couple weeks ago. It is far easier in my community to find pictures of blunders than to find a unique, good looking garden. All of these pictures happened in a two block radius.

So here, are the my top five landscape blunders where I live, with a few extra bonuses thrown in.

1) Pruning
I have no idea why everybody hedges everything. If you are buying pruning equipment, it is far more beneficial to buy a pair of loppers than hedging shears, and actually learn how to prune a shrub. It is far less work. This pictures is an especially bad example.

2) Weed Trees
We have a lot of trees. The maples, london plane trees, fruit trees, are all nice. But there is huge prevelance of siberian elms, tree of heaven, and seedling locust. These trees are weeds. This picture is not especially good, but it is common to fine a back empty space covered in weedy trees. My current home has a Siberian Elm, my last had tree of heaven.

3) Lack of Mulch
Bare soil surrounds flowers, and then up comes the weeds. Or it is just bare soil, like this picture, which is not especially lovely. What happened to using a good organic mulch? Wood chips, leaf mulch, pine needles, compost, anything. It will keep the weeds down, and make the place look much better.

4)Weeds
I think foxtail barley is in heaven here. I am pretty sure it thrives in the irrigation water. It was a battle to fight with it in my garden, but if it is continually allowed to go to seed, it will always be a problem.

5)Landscape Fabric
It will just look awful in a few years. And it doesn’t necessarily keep down the weeds.

Bonuses:

Cement tree ring: No idea why these exsist. In a few years they always look like this. A tree needs far more room than a two foot circle anyway.

Chainsawed trees: This is not how you prune trees.

Protected: New Home

November 5, 2013

Halloween

November 5, 20132 Comments

A witch came to our house and left behind an icky potion filled with eyes. PB and Mr. C fiddled with the potions and managed to turn Mommy into a cat, dog, wolf, and elephant. Luckily it didn’t last.

(Credit to Fun At Home for the idea)

The next day, a vampire left behind a gross treat of bloody animals. Even C thought this was icky. (Unflavored gelatin is disgusting.)

The kids dressed up, and ate too much candy. We went to four festivals/trick or treats, and one party at friends, along with traditional trick or treating.

The kids were excited the first time they put on costumes. They wouldn’t hold still for a good picture. But then we lost the robin mask, and PB only put on his costume when he had too. And really, these are the same costumes we used last year. My kids aren’t into dressing up, which mostly means less work for me.

Moved

November 4, 2013Leave a comment

We moved. And closed on our house. In that order. We had been waiting on a USDA loan, which was already going to take two months. And then the government shutdown, so it took even longer. We decided to just move so we could hopefully rent out our apartment sooner, and so we weren’t in limbo anymore. But then, two days after we moved in, the loan finally went through and we closed on the house.

We moved three blocks, and Joe and I did almost all of the moving with a pick-up truck and a day off of work. We worked our tails off for a few days to clean a house, apartment, move, and unpack.

Here’s the new house:

And guess what? Two of those awful arborvitae are already gone. And 33 cats from next door.

Picture Montage

October 24, 20132 Comments

At PB’s birthday party. C is holding tightly to that balloon. He likes balloons.

The garden is no more. The massive dirt play space is back.

Giant Lego tower built by Joe loved by PB

PB took this photo. Not bad. And you can notice my laziness: C is wearing two different shoes. They were out. Didn’t feel like going to the closet to get a matching set.

End of Garden

October 22, 2013Leave a comment

I got tired of waiting for it to freeze and went and ripped out the garden. Green tomatoes are now ripening more quickly indoors. The kids like the hills created to furrow irrigated the garden and drive bulldozers and dump tracks up and down them.

The garden was fun this year, but I was getting a little tired of weeds and cucumbers.

Screaming Toodlers

October 22, 2013Leave a comment

Yesterday, I was in the check-out line at the grocery store. The lady a couple people behind me had an older toddler that was screaming. When I put my groceries in the car, she was actually parked next to me and came out, still with a screaming toddler in tow. We had a short conversation.

Mom of toddler: “I’m sorry about him.”

Me: “My kids do it to. It’s hard.” (And in fact the only reason they were currently behaving is they were given candy.)

The whole experience got me thinking. I have been on the other side with a kid who is making this gigantic scene while I am surrounded by strangers. I have tried to be the best mom I can be and sometimes all the kids do is complain and throw ginormous fits in the worst possible places, or not listen and call me names. It’s embarrassing, disappointing, and even thinking about it now makes me want to cry. For me, children have brought out a new intensity of anger, frustration and sadness than I even dealt with as a teenager. Sometimes, being a mom just sucks.

And I realized that it’s normal. No one thinks you are a bad mom (and if they do they aren’t right). Being a mom is super hard and there often isn’t anything different you can do that you aren’t already doing. Children are just sometimes a pain, because they haven’t grown up. Yet we have to develop expectations and limits because we do love them. And that can lead to demoralizing situations, as our kids call us poopy yet again, fail to listen, or scream for almost an hour.

I drove home. Mr. C had been whining all day. He continued. But I was able to deal with it because I had realized that it wasn’t my fault, and it is just hard sometimes to raise children.

Sometimes moms don’t need advice on how to deal with kids, but simply a reminder that kids are hard to deal with. And we love them anyway. It is super awesome to see a person grow up, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. The good sweet moments do come along with the hard ones.

Anyway, I am grateful to that mom with a screaming toddler. She helped me be more able to deal with my own rambunctious kids, and remember why I am doing what I’m doing.

10 Things to Do with Fall Leaves

October 16, 2013Leave a comment

Whatever you do, don’t leave them out on the curb in big black bags, or put them in your trash can. Fall leaves are free fertilizer and organic matter, and are beautiful.

Give them to a gardening friend (like me)
Shred by going over them with a lawn mower
Leave shredded leaves on lawn
Use shredded leaves as a mulch for planting beds
If they are in a planting area, you can leave them be
Till or dig them into to an annual planting bed
Add to or start a compost pile
Take to local green waste
Let your kids jump in them, or better yet, go jump in them yourself
Make fall crafts featuring leaves

This picture is from a few years ago. In this area, I mowed all the leaves and simply left the leaf mulch there. You can see this area was thickly covered by leaves. Super thick piles might need to be used elsewhere, but I found that by doing it a couple different times over the course of leaf fall meant no raking. Leaving the leaves there without shredding/mowing can result in lawn death. Which might not be a bad thing, I’m a big fan of reducing lawn.

Sometimes

October 15, 2013Leave a comment

My children

excited for mac and cheese, yell and clap their hands in excitement.

wrestle, and run around the house in giggles and sometimes tears

create odd situations, like stickers on the toilet

forgive quickly and effortlessly.

help pick garden vegetables

smile and laugh at crazy dance parties.

play joyfully in the car when it breaks down

My toddler

kisses by licking my face and blowing a raspberry.

cleans up every spill he sees

repeats about any word he hears and understands: the best one was a perfectly clean, “Happy”

does somersaults off of exercise balls with mom, again and again

My preschooler

loves when he gets a simple matchbox car

performs puppet shows narrated by mom over and over again

stays up late in anticipation of his birthday

tells grandma he hates the puppets she gave her, but then plays with them anyway

got a new book he’s read before and said, “I always wanted this book!”

asks so many questions, and wants to rate everything

reads books over and over

I get bogged down with things to do, with car repairs, closing delays, with children who can be exasperating just because they are children. But life is good, and full of sweet precious moments to treasure.

Wanting Faith

October 10, 20132 Comments

I thought I would share some thoughts I have had recently about my faith: my beliefs that comes from membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

I don’t know 100% that the church is true. I have felt a feeling that mirrors a loving hug when I needed it the most, which I believe comes from a loving Heavenly Father. My life goes surprisingly well when I follow it’s teachings. (Although never exactly what I plan.) But I do not have all the evidence or experiences that clarify every question, dispel every doubt, or prove that all the doctrine is true.

To me proving that this church is absolutely true is not that important anymore. It is answering the question: Do I want it to be true? My answer is yes. I would rather believe in God, and Christ, and prophets and covenants than any other beliefs.

Sometimes I think people let doubt get in the way of their faith. I have. I have not wanted to believe. But those times are usually accompanied by blackness and not a lot of happiness. The best, happiest times in my life are also the ones accompanied by increased faith, and obedience to the doctrines of the church.

I want the church to be true. A reoccurring, upsetting theme in my dreams is scenarios where the church changes its doctrine, basically meaning that the church is not true. I much prefer the consistency of the church and the happily ever after promises.

(If you want to know where some of these thoughts came from, watch Life of Pi, or this talk.)