A Blessed 4th of July

It has been about 3 weeks since I last posted. This is a busy time of the year for our family...just finished up school, working on paper work that has to be submitted to our school district at the end of the year, cleaning out the school cupboard of old materials, preparing this coming school years lessons, restocking our school cupboard and then that is done!! Hurrah!!

Our garden has been consuming a lot of my time also. Here in the northeast, we have been blessed with an enormous amount of rain, but not as much sunshine and warm temperatures. Today it is in the 50's. With this unpredictable weather, some of our plants have gotten a disease called Verticillium Wilt. This wilt develops more rapidly in cool weather. It is a fungal disease that attacks the nightshade family, so we lost 7 tomato plants and our potatoes. The conditions are prime for this disease.

As I think you know, with every trial there is "learning and growing" to be done. I have been thinking about how many times gardening themes are expressed in the scriptures.

I will try to write a post soon on what my thoughts have been in regards to the garden and the Christian life.

Until then, we hope your 4th of July has been filled with the many reminders of the mercy and goodness that the Lord has shown to us as a nation. May we continue to look to the Lord in prayer with heartfelt thanksgiving, giving Him all the glory.

A Blessed 4th of July!
Karen (and family)

Our recent trip

This past weekend, my husband and I had the opportunity to go to our annual Home schooling conference held, this year, in Rochester, NY. This is NY state's 25th anniversary year. It was an excellent conference with Paul David Tripp, as the Keynote Speaker. If you are not familiar with Paul David Tripp, he is the Author of "Age of Opportunity", a book on parenting teenagers. He has written other very helpful books as well. I highly encourage you to look at his books and materials. I was both encouraged and challenged to parent my children at the "heart" level instead of the "behavior" level.

Here's a quote from a book I bought at the conference, "the Pray! Prayer Journal: Daily steps toward praying God's heart" by Dean Ridings...

"The greatest privilege of prayer is that of coming into the actual presence of God to enjoy loving conversation and communion with Him. We are to pray frequently (1 Thessalonians 5:17) and openly (Revelation 3:20) and even 'with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need' (Hebrews 4:16). What an invitation! There is none other like it."

- Paul Cedar, "A Life of Prayer"

How very true! We have been invited to spend time with the King of kings and Lord of lords..none other like it..where we can ask the Lord for wisdom and guidance as we parent our children so that they will bring glory to His name.

To everything there is a season...

"To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; A time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted;..."

Ecclesiastes 3:1-2

I was looking at the date on my last post and was surprised that it has been so long since I've written anything!

Much of my time over the past month or so has been spent working toward our garden. Planning what we want to grow, planting seeds, ordering materials...it is more time consuming at the moment because we are still laying the ground work (no pun intended!) for establishing a permanent garden. It always seems the beginning stages take much longer than we were anticipating.

So far, we have planted Raspberry and Blueberry bushes around the edges of our fence, keeping in mind that they will grow and block sunlight. So we had to think about placement. For me, this can be almost as daunting as the rest of the project! Being sure that I want a certain plant in a certain area...perfectionism will slow you down! :)

Last year, we had two (8'x4') raised beds and we expanded this year, to six raised beds of the same size.

It is fun to plan out our garden and think about different plants and what they need to grow well. I feel like I'm back in school taking classes as I read and re-read sections from my gardening books, take notes and then work at implementing the knowledge.

In the background, we are finishing up our home schooling year and keeping our daily pursuits going in a good direction.

A "new-to-me" Blog

Good Morning!
I was just checking my emails, blog, twitter...and came across a link to a "new-to-me" blog! It is called "Teaching Good Things". While looking around on this blog, I came across some ideas for storing beans, which also included recipes. So I include this for my friend Sherrin. We had just been talking about bean recipes. I hadn't realized what you can do with beans! There are some unusual recipes to look at...like "Blueberry Bean Muffins"..:)
There are many other categories: Gardening, Sewing, Canning, Food Storage...worth a look!

Gardening: Where do I begin?

Here are two seed catalogs. Johnny's Selected Seeds and Territorial Seed Company that I have looked at. I have purchased seeds and gardening supplies from them and have been pleased.

Here are some of the gardening books that I have been looking through for ideas. Again there are many fine books on the market for gardening. These are the ones that I have found helpful, at this time.

Once you have bought your seeds, your trays and soil to start your seeds in, you will need to consider a warm, light place for them to germinate.

One bit of advice that I think is important to the success of your seeds, is making sure that your seeds and soil are moist, but not overly so. I have had problems with mold growing on the surface of my dirt and on some of my seeds as well (especially the beans and peas).

So I would suggest that you plant your seeds in moist soil, but make sure that the seed container has drainage holes that will allow the water to seep down to the roots and not "pool" on the surface. This is vital to your seeds growing and producing good healthy plants.

Are you starting seeds? Have you found some good tips on growing successful plants? Why not leave a comment sharing what you are doing.

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Note:
Melanie left this important and helpful tip: "Making sure the seedlings get enough (and natural) sunlight can curtail the mold." Thank you, Melanie!

My humble apologies...

If you are following my blog via the RSS feed, please forgive my children's prank...
I believe there were two posts one on "hot bees" and another pertaining to gansters?! Both have been deleted from the blog. When I'm not looking, my children enjoy teasing me with very odd posts. I've been busy for the past week or so with gardening thoughts and organizing bedrooms. I hope to have a "real" post soon. :) Thank you for continuing to stop by!

Show case: Watercolored cards

Yesterday, I showcased Elizabeth's Flowers and today I would like to show case "Graceful Designs". Hannah has a variety of fine cards that she has created...watercolors, photographs, stamped cards...why not check out her site!

I'm promoting businesses that I have found to create beautiful work and that glorify the Lord with their gifts. It is good to promote these businesses to see them succeed.
Enjoy!