Birds and Blooms

One thing we have enjoyed since the day we have moved in is watching the birds. Often in the morning the Blue Birds perch on the deck looking for a nice juicy worm. We also see a variety of finches and in the winter several Juncos visit our feeder. It has been interesting trying to spot birds that aren't regular visitors. In addition to the birds, this year we have spotted three nests in use. One in the rose bush, one under the deck and one in the gutter!

Blue Bird

Indigo Bunting

Female Hummingbird

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Northern Flicker

Eastern Kingbird

Nest with Robin Egg and Cowbird Egg

Another interest has been watching the garden grow. We are getting excited because our crops are starting to mature, so we will probably get to enjoy them before we move out. We are still uncertain of the exact closing date of our house, but it will be in the next week or so. After that we have 14 days before we have to move out. The timing will be just right.

Green Beans

Tomatoes

Bell Pepper

Garden's Goodness

We have been enjoying some strawberries from our garden and last week we finally had enough ripe at one time to make a strawberry rhubarb pie. It was delicious! Here are some pictures of Mark's masterpiece.

The berries and rhubarb

Rolling out the crust

All that was left after we brought it to our friend's house

Next week we will be making another pie, it probably won't last long! Our garden is continuing to grow, it has been enjoying all the rain we received recently. It is fun to watch the plants mature, even though we don't know what will be ready before we move out.

The first bell pepper

Tomatoes

Spinach...not sure how it will taste with all this hot weather

Green beans

Flowers

Our snake friend, he didn't want to stop and pose for a picture. He is about to hide in our compost box.

It is easy to be impatient after planting a garden and want results right away. Gardening can teach us not only patience, but to remember to watch for beauty and little changes along the way. Each step of growth is important and should be celebrated.

1st Stages of Garden Growth

Our garden has been growing for two weeks now.  The beans, zucchini, and flowers have sprouted and the first leaves are up.  It is exciting to see the plants coming alive.

The flower of the rhubarb plant has continued to grow taller and is about done blossoming.  We have heard that the flower may make the rhubarb more bitter, but others say it does not.  We haven't harvested any yet, even though it is ready.  We have been waiting for the strawberries to be ripe so we can make strawberry rhubarb pie.  Yummy!

Here are the bean plants in different stages of sprouting.  We planted more beans than normal this year so hopefully this variety tastes really good.  

The first tomato!  It helps when you buy plants that are already blossoming :)

The bud of a pepper plant.  These are bell peppers and will be used to make red pepper hummus and other tasty things.

These are some flowers.  Not really sure what we planted, they were leftover seeds from a previous year.

Strawberry!  We have two different varieties of strawberries and the earlier variety is done blossoming and starting to bear fruit.  It won't be too much longer before we'll have to get out the row covers to protect the berries from the birds.  

There is nothing better than homegrown produce straight from the garden. The taste is amazing and you don't have to worry about e-coli or what toxins are on the produce. Gardening is also a chance to remind us about what is important.  In our own life we too need the proper nutrients, sunlight, water and to be free of weeds that threaten to choke us out.  It is a joy to see the wonder of God's amazing creation and stand in awe of His mighty works.

Planting Our Garden

Ever since we have lived at our house we have enjoyed having our own garden.  This year we weren't planning on planting anything new because we thought we'd have sold our house by now.  Since we haven't had any bites on the house yet and we don't know when God will move we decided to go ahead and plant anyway.  The weather has been very nice lately and there hasn't been any frost for a while, so last week we went to it.

Since we don't own a rototiller and our garden isn't all that big, Mark decided to plow it up using an old fashioned wheel hoe.  It was hard work but was fun at the same time, and it was very satisfying to see how nicely it worked.

We planted lots of beans, as they are one of our favorite garden vegetables.  Mark dug rows and laid down some home-made compost.  Rebecca spread the seeds over the compost and then Mark spread another layer of compost over the rows.  Mark had made a compost box (which you can see in the first picture) a few years ago and we have been filling it with yard and kitchen waste.  It has turned into some very dark, rich soil that will really help the plants to grow.

We also planted three tomatoes, two bell peppers, two zucchini, some spinach, and lots of flowers.

This is one of our two rhubarb plants.  It has a huge flower stalk, something we've never seen before.

The rhubarb flower.

There are also lots of strawberries in the garden.  What started out as eight plants has spread out and they now take up over a quarter of the garden.  We are really looking forward to making some strawberry-rhubarb pies, Mark's favorite!

Some of our asparagus came up this year too, but there were only a few stalks and we didn't catch them in time to eat.  Bummer.

It was very fun planting the garden, and now watching the plants grow.  If our house sells soon as we hope it will then whoever buys it will have some nice veggies and flowers!

Wrapping Things Up

The last few weeks have been very busy for us. Since we are leaving tomorrow and we will be gone for 5 weeks, we have been trying to get together with our family and friends, so we've been on the go a lot and have had a lot of people over. We have really enjoyed seeing everyone, and we're going to miss everyone when we're gone. We are so appreciative of all the support we've received, and we know that we will continue to feel that while we're away.

Sam and Jaden playing together in our basement

We also completed the basement work so that Dave and Holly would have everything they needed while we are gone. The main thing that was left was the bathroom, so we tackled that and finished it not too long ago (you can read about the beginning of the bathroom finishing in a previous post). Our friend Dan came over and we installed the vanity, counter top, and toilet. Dave and helped but left the plumbing up to him since he used to do that as a living. Dave and I hung the towel bars and then Rebecca helped me put up the big 48" X 30" mirror.

Dan and Dave working on the plumbing of to the sink

Me working on helping the vanity to fit by taking off some baseboard

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Dave was so happy to finally have a finished bathroom that he hugged the toilet! Actually he was installing the tank, but hey

Dan and I standing in the finished bathroom, minus the towel bars and mirror which were put up later

It feels great to have all that done, and it is so nice for Dave, Holly & Jaden. The basement is now mostly done and all of the important things are finished. So we can have the peace of mind of not leaving any big projects behind.

A mostly good weekend

Last weekend was a project weekend with a few free moments thrown in. On Friday we worked on installing some things that we bought on Wednesday for finishing the basement. We put on doorknobs and hung some blinds, both which had their own challenges. The doorknobs had square edges on the strike plates and by the latches, so Dave had to chisel out the existing slots to get them to fit. Then one of the blinds didn't fit the window, even though they were custom cut. It was just a hair too long, so we decided to take it and have it re-cut.

Saturday my friend/co-worker Dan came over to help install the vanity/counter top and toilet. The vanity went in nicely, and looked nice too. Then we put on the counter top and found out it was a terribly warped piece of junk. There was no way we could work with it, so we finally gave up on that. Then as we were installing the toilet Dave noticed that it wasn't what we ordered, so we had to take that back off. Thankfully we didn't go as far as hooking up the plumbing so it wasn't that bad. But we did feel pretty frustrated that we weren't able to finish, and of course the place wasn't open, so we'll have to wait until later in the week. Holly took the blinds back to have them re-cut and had a terrible time with unhelpful workers. They couldn't figure out what to do, saying that the only person who knew was busy. Finally they asked someone else and he was able to figure it out in a matter of minutes. I cleaned out the garage and reorganized using some shelving units that Dave and Holly had. There is so much space in there it is really nice.

Saturday night Rebecca and I watched our favorite show, Iron Chef America. We watched two big brothers beat Bobby Flay, which is pretty hard to do. I always wish that the TV would provide tastes and smells because that food sure looks good. Sunday was busy too, shortly after church I went to Jail for the church service there, and after that we spent a lot of time looking through years worth of photos so that we could back them up on disks.

Living Out Acts 2 Community

Well, this has been an eventful week! Our friends Dave and Holly and their son Jaden moved into our basement, their new apartment. They had just finished living on the Cornerstone University campus because Holly worked there and they lived in a dorm/apartment. We had been talking about the possibility of them coming to live with us for a while, because it would help them save up for their own house since we wouldn’t charge much rent. It will be a help to us too having a little extra income. It’s quite a radical thing to do, in this day and age when houses are getting so big and the families in them are getting smaller, sharing a “starter home” with another family is almost unheard of. But we are all about being abnormal, as there are a lot of things in our culture that we don’t agree with or do differently.

We had been working on finishing our basement this whole winter and spring. When we bought our house it was new and the basement was only framed in. I had heard that dry walling was a pain in the neck so we had our builder hang and finish the drywall, so it had been at that point for a couple years. Rebecca’s dad is a painter and general handyman, so he has been helping/doing most of the finishing, such as hanging the doors, putting up trim, molding, painting, etc. I installed a beautiful laminate floor, which was fun and now I can say that I at least did one major part of the finishing. Plus I added a closet in the bedroom so I did get to try my hand a dry walling. The last main part was the baseboard, which was finished on Friday, and just in the nick of time, too.

Later that night was when the real busyness began. Over the weekend we moved all their stuff in using the shop truck and a borrowed covered trailer, which worked out great. A few of their friends and family helped, which was awesome because it would have taken forever otherwise. The funny thing is that I underestimated how much stuff they had, and they underestimated the amount of room we have in our house for storage. So now, after a week of unpacking, things are looking great down there. It is apartment sized, and only lacks a kitchen, so they’ll be sharing ours upstairs. Amazingly there is still room for more storage, which we hopefully won’t need to use.

The last thing to do is finish the bathroom, it has a working shower but no toilet or vanity. That will be a project for tomorrow, and I’ll post some pictures of the whole experience then.

We’re exited to have new house-mates, we are great friends and I can only see that friendship deepening. This will be an interesting chapter in all of our lives, and I think one that will enrich our life experiences.