On Friday we went to have our Friday Nature Walk, and decided to go document the garden.  The girls helped out there a little bit, but I can't take any credit for it.  Summer is quickly coming to a close here and we are hoping for a couple more weeks before the garden is finished!

I will share some pics of this years garden.  The first ones are of the raised beds.  They came out really well this year.  Our good friend Alan was in charge of them, and he did some nice horse manure tea for them.  I think this was an experiment this year, but it definitely turned out to be the way to go!

The raspberries are past their peak but there are a few jewels to be found yet!  Judy was in charge of the nonraised bed part of the garden.  A lot of it has already been harvested.  She did a great job, but unfortunately will be leaving the team at the end of the month. 

Next are the snow peas.  They are abundantly producing right now and love our cooler weather.

Potatoes:

Beets (as handsomely displayed by my dh, Tim).  We've processed loads of them already.  This is by no means all of them.

This is what is left of the broccoli.  It had recently been harvested.  It will continue to produce until the snow covers it up!

Cabbages.  Last year we had like 200 plants - this year we won't be buried in the stuff.  Many have been harvested already as you can see.

My cabbage patch girls!

Obviously this isn't the garden, but I am so proud of all the work the guys have put into our woodshed this year.  Do you see how deep it is?  It is so full they can't put anymore in!  Way to go guys!

In addition to these things, everyone has pitched in to help us process peaches and tomatoes from Sharing Ministries - we can't grow them up here.  Usually we have a truckload of corn to process, but we still have loads from last year.  The freezers are full with cauliflower, broccoli and, I assume, snow peas.  God is good!  Next year my dh, Tim, hopes to be working with Alan full-time in the garden, and possibly even get to be a part of one of the Farmer's Markets nearby.  Tim has a dream to someday be able to do that on our own property, and this way he can try it out first to see if it really is for him.

DISCLAIMER:  As mentioned in my first paragraph, I can take no credit for this garden.  It was done by other staff members here.

I hope you enjoyed sharing our year's joyful harvest.  Let me know if you were here.

Carol

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Nature walks and nature journaling are one of the funnest parts of homeschooling, I think. 

Last Friday morning we all took some paper, colored pencils and a hard surface and headed out on a nature walk to look for something to observe and draw for our "nature journals", which have not been actually made yet!  I have a watercolor sketching book and watercolor pencils I bought last year for this purpose for myself, and I am going to have the girls just draw on copy paper so we can put it in another book later.  I stapled three sheets of paper together for 3dd3, who won't allow us to leave her out this year!

We didn't get far when we discovered a lovely place right across the driveway full of daisies, ferns and other plants in front of "Duda Hall".  Here are some pics I took of the girls.

The first two pics are of 3dd3.  Doesn't she look adorable drawing her pics sitting on the rock among the daisies?!

The second two pics are of Snow Crystal (2dd8).  I thought she looked so pretty with her long flowing skirt.  Her drawings were very sweet too.

The girl in pink is Mountain Princess (1dd9).  She impressed me by observing and writing down her observations.  For example she counted how many petals she found on the daisies, details about the bees and even the grass.

This last picture is of my poor petunias.  Can you guess what their problem is?  If you look close you will see that they are being eaten by chipmunks.  Everytime they blossom, the chipmunks come and eat the flower.  None of these flowers lasted till morning.  Of the twelve or so tomatoes that we got on our poor pathetic tomato plant, we got maybe four.  The chipmunks harvested the rest!  One of them they cut off, and I chased it away and brought the tomato inside to finish ripening.  It was still green, but about a week later we got a tasty ripe tomato.  The cute little vermin have gotten all the rest since then!

I hope you enjoyed this little peek into our love of nature.

Carol

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