With the birth of baby boy number two looming in the near future, we decided to plant our garden this past weekend. It was looking to be a pretty weekend and planting would give us a good excuse to be outside all day for some family time.
Because we started many plants from seeds this year, we didn't have too many to buy to have our complete plant collection. Friday morning I went to the feed store and picked up a couple of tomato plants (in case our seedlings aren't strong enough to survive), bell pepper plants and one tomatillo plant (something new to try). They didn't have much else. Then after Bible study I headed to the plant nursery and bought a couple of okra plants, one each of zucchini and squash, and a couple of strawberry plants. Neither place had cantalope or cucumber, so we'll just add those later. On to Walmart where I stocked up on potting soil for my raised bed herb garden and bought a couple more herbs and flowers. Nana and Paw brought us a couple of herb plants when they came out a few weeks ago, and thanks to them I was able to convince Dalton to go ahead and build an herb garden for me.
Dalton building the raised bed
That evening Dalton looked over my purchases and approved (whew). The next morning, after the boys fed the bulls and I watched Pioneer Woman on Food Network we headed outside to start our planting. Dalton and Cooper got the tractor and used it to scoop up dirt from the horse pen, while I monitored our lawnmowers in the yard. For the record, they did great until about 2 hours later when Blondie found the lettuce. He nibbled most of it and grabbed a broccoli plant on his way out of the garden, so we may not have any lettuce this spring. The good news is that he didn't eat or step on any of the newly sprouted potato plants. We've found 11 and I'm so excited to see them growing!
Back to the tractor. Cooper loved riding in the tractor with Dalton. He said that Cooper would sit quietly and take it all in until they dumped a load of dirt. Then he would make the sign for more and point to the place where they were getting dirt. We may have a farmer on our hands.
The lawnmowers in action
After pouring dirt into my newly built herb bed, the guys began to shovel dirt into various pots and containers. Cooper really liked helping with this too, and he was pretty handy with his little shovel. It was so cute to watch them working together.
He got some in the bucket this time!
About this time I decided to grab the video camera and get them in action. Sometimes a picture just doesn't do a situation justice. I went inside, got the camera and was in the process of putting it on my hand when I headed down the back steps and wam, bam, thump....I fell to the ground. Don't worry, I didn't hit my belly or any of my upper body...somehow. I did scrape the top of my foot pretty good, and bruised my knee. Dalton was at my side in a hurry and helped me up. I limped to a chair and perched there for a while, feeling very clumsy, silly and irritated that my ability to help was going to be limited. Not to mention that I wouldn't be going for a nice long walk later (in hopes that it would help me get one step closer to baby time). At least I was able to still video the action.
Ouch!
The guys finished shoveling dirt around the herb garden and them moved on to some that they'd dumped by the yard fence. That's when Dalton started finding lots of HUGE grub worms. He piled them up and then he and Cooper fed them to the ravenous chickens. It was very funny...they'd throw one out and then the whole flock was on it. The winner grabbed it and ran as fast as she could away from the others to enjoy. Dalton even pretended he was feeding the chickens like cows, using the grub worms to get them to follow. They herded pretty well. Side note: even without grub worms the chickens really do flock to you when they know you have some scraps. Cooper and I will head out to the pasture and they'll see us and start heading our way...I've never had such tame chickens.
Me: "Cooper show me the worm."
Cooper: Too busy looking at the chickens to look at me
Chickens: "Hey man, we want more worms."
I was restless and my foot had stopped throbbing by this point, so Dalton and I planted the herb garden together. It looks so good! I hope that they all survive and thrive. I also planted a couple of pots of flowers to add some color around the house. Now when we have visitors to see the baby I'll know they have something pretty to greet them.
The Herb Garden, plus peppers!
This is NOT the most flattering shot, but at least my gardening is documented.
(P.S. I'm only wearing slimming black from now until I deliver..white is not for hefty ladies.)
Then we sorted all of our plants for the big garden. But before we started plowing, we decided to consult the almanac calendar (which looks at the moon phases...don't ask me how it all works, but I know that my PaPaw - gardener extrordinare - uses it). After looking at that calendar and the weather..which showed some really windy days coming up...we decided to wait and plant the 30/31st of this month. So hopefully when garden part 2 comes out there will be pictures of baby in it too!
After all of our morning planting and work we had lunch, took a nap (yes all 3 of us) and watched Cooper play outside that afternoon. I also finished a couple of things in baby's room, so it is officially ready for a baby.
It was a really nice day; we are so blessed to live where we can do this sort of thing together and enjoy the magic of God's creation in plant and animal life. He is an amazing creator!
"You are the only Lord. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, with all the stars. You made the earth and everything on it, the seas and everything in them; you give life to everything. The heavenly army worships you." Nehemiah 9:6
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