Compost Pile Tomato Plants

This is a current picture of my tomato plants that I planted on the compost pile.

 Several weeks later they are looking lush and several inches taller than the plants in the garden.

 Sadly, one of the plants got stepped on by a little boy who was tearing past, but the remaining two look beautiful.

 The lush green foliage in the background is baby lilac bushes trying to take over.  The little things are EVERYWHERE!

Now go check out Smockity Frocks post on the importance of composting.

Vacation Bible School

  

I'm currently in the middle of Vacation Bible School at church and this year I'm teaching third grade. 

It doesn't take very long until you recognize the class clown in the group.  He's not really naughty he just likes to cut up, and enjoys every bit of attention he receives.

 Sometimes it can feel a little like you pour yourself into the task of teaching without ever seeing any results, but last night I got a question that took me off guard and almost took my breath away. 

I was in the middle of an explanation of why Jesus came to earth, and out of the corner of my eye I saw his hand shoot up.  This child has asked me pretty much every question you could think of, and rarely are they relevant to the lesson, but this time was different. 

"How do I get rid of my sin?"

I replied you tell Jesus you are sorry and He takes it away.

"That's it, I don't have to DO anything?"

"No, you just tell him you are sorry for your sin and He cleans your heart."

"Wow, that's cool."

The look in this child's eyes told me that rarely is anything in his life that simple.  I know that some of these children come from hard situations, but his exuberance over the simplicity of salvation knocked me off my feet.

 He went on to say he was going to go home and pray that prayer, and exclaim several more times how easy it sounded.

I've experienced salvation personally and I don't know why, but I've lost sight of how simple and amazing it is.  It took a third grader to remind me.

What Am I Doing

Just in case you were wondering.....


What I'm doing today!  :)

Fathers Day

In honor of Fathers Day I thought that I would share a little about the two fathers that I am closest to.

The first would obviously be my dad.

He is the first man that I ever admired. 

As a little girl I was sure that he could do no wrong. 

 Now that I'm older, and know that he isn't perfect I still love him just as much.

I think that I've inherited his love of words, both written and spoken. 

I grew up trusting him because he was a steady, dependable provider, and a man of few surprises.

My husband is the other man.  I first met him when I was fifteen.

The characteristic that first attracted me to him--is what continues to attract me eighteen years later. 

 He has a confidence about him that is steadying to me.

When I'm not sure about a decision I can trust him to give me a prayerful answer.

We waited a long time to be parents, and although I knew he loved children his love for his children took me by surprise. 

He is the perfect mixture of tough and tender for our two boys.

He expects much of them, but gives much in return, and they love him fiercely for it.

I feel immensely blessed to have these two men in my life.

Butterscotch Oatmeal

We eat quite a bit of oatmeal at our house.  It's a cheap nutritious breakfast food, and there's not many other foods can you call cheap and nutritious.  I usually serve it at least once a week  My children LOVE it. 

Whisk together in a medium saucepan.

2 eggs

3 1/2 cups milk

2/3 cup brown sugar ( You can use more or less depending on how sweet you like it.)

1/2 teaspoon salt

Cook over medium heat until boiling.

Add 2 cups Quick Oats, stir, bring back to a boil, and turn off heat immediately.



Let sit for 5 minutes and stir in 4 Tablespoons of Butter or Margarine.  Serve with a little cold milk.  This recipe serves 4-6 people depending on how much you eat for breakfast.

How Does My Garden Grow

 

The garden is progressing along nicely.  So far the only things we've harvested have been a few tiny radishes and a couple green onions, but it won't be long now until we will have more produce than we can keep up with.

Last year was our first year of mulching our garden.  Previous to that we had always just tilled between the rows every couple of weeks, and tried to keep ahead of the weeds.  After reading about some of the benefits of mulching rather than constant tilling I decided I wanted to try it.

We bought straw bales and spread them thickly over the garden.  I was amazed that we hardly had to water last year.  Our garden has somewhat sandy soil, and watering is a huge chore, but with the mulch keeping the moisture in we had very little need to water.  The only down side to the straw mulch was that apparently there were some weed seeds in the straw, and so we had an abundant crop of weeds about halfway to harvest. 

This year my husband has a lawn mower with a bagger, and we decided to use grass clippings for our mulch.  I'm hoping to continue adding to them all year until I have a mulch depth of about 7-8 inches.  Mulching with grass is a little harder than straw because it's green and heavy when we put it on the garden, but so far I've been pleased with it.

I'm open to advice about mulching.  It's a fairly new idea for me and I would love to hear from some of you who have been doing it for a long time.

Now check out how Connie's garden is doing.

Sensitive Subject

This year when I bought my plants for the garden at a local greenhouse they gave us a free gift.

A sensitive plant--pretty isn't it?

When you touch, bump, or blow gently on the leaves they fold up.

   Then a few minutes later they unfold again.   It's hard to resist touching it over and over and over. : )