Weekend Projects

I am quickly learning that if you want a beautiful garden and animals, there is no end to the amount of things that need to be done; the weeds will always return, the animals need to be fed and the list goes on.  I will admit, it is worth every minute though.  I enjoy watching the ducks frolic in the kid pool, the humming birds and butterflies fly through my garden and the sight of all of my flowers.  I even enjoy my poor molting chickens, however ugly they may be (I promised both the molting chicks and chickens I would not post any pictures of them right now).  So pardon me if I brag about the projects, because the ability to share what is going on in the backyard keeps us going. 

For starters, my wonderful husband sent me to the gardening store to pick up the last few things I needed to plant the rest of my vegetable garden and pick out some flowers for his project.  My garden is not all that exciting yet, since my starter plants are small and the seeds have not germinated yet, but check out what my wonderful hubby made for the patio. 

Andy also finished putting the chicken wire on the duck run and the ducks are happily enjoying the great outdoors, complete with their own bright blue swimming pool (they have not yet let me take a picture of them in it).  Little Man's new job is to herd the ducks outside in the morning.

I can't do a blog about my yard without showing off my flowers. 

Four Year Old Explorer

In order to hike with a four year old, you need a short hike with a big reward.  I have managed to find several  for this summer and am looking forward doing them all with Little Man; if he does not give me a heart attack first (note to self: strap a parachute to Little Man the next time we go hiking). If today is any gauge on the rest of the summer, we are quickly cultivating an adventurous little boy, although I think it may be hard to tear him away from his new favorite spot. 

To start our little adventure, we drove through Smuggler's Notch.  For anyone who has never been in this area, let me provide you with a little history.  Smugglers used to hide in the many caves in this area and now there is a road that literally snakes around boulders with a parking lot at the top for hikers, rock climbers, tourists and excited little boys.  He did not take his eyes off the road the entire drive up the mountain and I thought we were going to have to pry him out of one of the many caves when it was time to go.  He made sure (before he started his descent off the mountain) that I promised that we would return, SOON!!!!

Our other bribe to get Little Man off the mountain was the promise of a Nutragrain bar when we reached the waterfall at our next destination.  Yes, we were crazy enough to fit two small hikes into one day.  While the view was amazing, there were plenty of rocks to throw into the river and he was able to eat his bar, Little Man let me know as often as he could that his favorite spot was the caves, or in his words they are "so amazing" and that was the location we should return to on our next adventure, no side trips to pretty waterfalls. 

Overall a good day, and both Andy and I did manage to actually get our workouts in tonight, although I am almost 100% sure we both wanted to bail.  I actually had to force myself back onto the treadmill after getting off and saying I was done after one lap. 

Ethan Allen Homestead

I am feeling the need to take Little Man new places to explore a little further from home.  Yesterday I took him to Ethan Allen Homestead, a place that Andy and I used to ride our bikes through prior to Little Man.  He had never been there before and can not wait to go back again. 

The park used to be one of my favorite places to ride because of all the wooden bridges and flowers that lined the trails.  The place is stunning.  Little Man liked the same things, but for different reasons.  It meant that we could throw "helicopters" off the bridges and watch them spin into the water.  Chase the butterflies down the trails and turn our arms yellow with the many buttercups that lined the trails.

While I have been through the park many times; it has always been on a bike.  Since we were on foot this time, it meant that we were able to go down some of the trails that bikes are not allowed on.  Little Man was determined to take me down the marshland trail, and I have to say it was totally worth it.  Between long walk ways that snaked through the wetlands, to the many different types of birds, frogs and whatever else we could find, we had a blast.  Little Man is already planning our next trip back. 

Activity: 5.5 mile run, followed by my husband losing his mind and letting me go to the garden store by myself. 

In The Garden

My first Iris and Lupine for the summer bloomed on Monday. Now there are about fifty of them.

 Anyone know what these are?  I planted them on the edge of the yard a few years ago and they never really took until now. 

Activity: A walk around one of the local parks with little man and a 2 mile run. 

My Little Cowboy

Grandma brings him cowboy boots from Texas and now he thinks he is a rodeo cowboy.

Workout: Short and fast, it was the only way I could convince myself to work out.

Almost There

I ran my last long run today; twelve miles in the hot sun.  Two weeks before Covered Bridges. 

Tasks Completed!

When we moved into our house, I inherited an incredibly overgrown and neglected perennial bed.  I spent the past two summers pulling Bishops Weed and every other possible unwanted invasive plant and weed out.  After four long summers of pulling and mulching, my garden is finally in pretty good condition and I am ready to start playing around with my yard a bit.  So much so that I have determined that we are not leaving New England at all this summer and the few times that we actually go some place will only be for weekend camping trips.  I am ready to immerse myself in my garden.

This past week, I did several little projects I have been wanting to do  (hence the lack of blog posts). I have been playing in the back yard whenever possible. 

For starters, the boys in the house went and bought me two strawberry pots for Mothers Day and I in turn went out and bought strawberry starts to plant in them.  I can not begin to tell you how happy I am about these. 

 I finally filled the window box on the garage. 

 My dad gave me this hook weeks ago, and I finally have a good spot to hang my humming bird feeder.  I spent much of this afternoon sitting in the Adirondack chairs watching butterflies and hummingbirds fly around the yard. 

 And what you ask were the boys doing while I was basking in my garden project? Building a playground for the ducks. 

Activity: 2 miles today, long run tomorrow.

Crazy Week!

Outside of work, track and trying to spend some time with some very good friends who are moving next week to California, this is what the rest of our week has looked like........

We moved the ducks out of the brooder and into their own home.

  We went and picked up our new chicks and moved them into the brooder. We have four Buff Orpingtons and two Barred Rocks. 

My cherry blossoms opened! Thus begins the two weeks I look forward to all year.

Little Man helped daddy fix the broken things around the house.  The lawn mower, the garage door and just about every other thing they could get their hands on. 

Andy ran the first five mile run of his life and did not finish last place.  Although I think he may already be making vacation plans for that weekend next year. 

Activity for the day: Partners race with my wonderful husband followed by hiking and spelunking with the youth group. 

Thank You

To everyone that has been reading my blog, thank you for the accountability.  This was my longest milage week for the year so far, but 7 miles. 

Green Up Day

Ever since Little Man's pre-school talked about the three r's: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, he has been determined to pick up every little piece of trash he sees on the ground no matter how nasty.  While I do think this is a wonderful trait, there are times that what is on the ground does not pass the mommy germ standards, so I have been telling him about this wonderful day in Vermont, when we will go around with gloves and pick up every piece of trash we see on the ground.

Today was that glorious day.  The first weekend in May every year is Green Up Day in Vermont.   There are several different things that go on in Vermont, however, the biggest consists of people from every town going around with green trash bags and picking up the trash along the roads.  So at 8:30 this morning, Little Man and I walked down the street to the Community Center where several people from town were sipping on coffee, socializing and eating breakfast.  We were directed to the map, picked the quarter mile stretch between our house and the community center and set off with our green trash bag. 

For Little Man this was one of the most glorious moments of his life; he has been waiting for this day for a while and was not going to miss one minute of it.  My first thought was, OK walk along the road, pick up a few pieces of trash, fill our trash bag and life is good.  This was not going to be sufficient for Little Man, we were up and down the embankments, in and out of the marsh lands, through pricker bushes -we were going to find every little piece of trash, even if that meant we got wet, dirty and cold doing it.   He was a very happy little man.  When we were finished and our bag was full, we dragged our cold, wet, satisfied, bodies home and Little Man took a warm bath with a cup of hot chocolate.  (A little more info: a frozen Little Man was pampered. He was drawn a warm bath and served a granola bar and a mug of hot chocolate, both of which he enjoyed from the comfort of that hot bath! -AC)

Activity for the day: 11 miles: Little Man ran the last quarter mile with me. (And Daddy ran two miles out with her, ran back two miles pushing the stroller to get the bike and trailer, and biked several more miles pulling Little Man so that we could serve as her support crew...)

Wonderful Greens!

At the beginning of this week, I had eagerly prepared a few blogs ahead of time with the plan of adding my daily activity and posting them.  However, as the week went on, I really was not loving the blogs I had prepared.  Then comes today, I am ready to go and though I have never posted more than one post at time, I figured it was time to play a little catch up. 

For starters, my cold tolerant plants are in.  Not in the originally planned location but in the ground.  This year I am doing Kale and Swiss Chard. 

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As for where they were supposed to go along with cabbage (not my favorite, but I am planting it for my southern husband) and potatoes; lets just say we were a bit lazy with this particular plot.  You see in the fall all of the leaves were dumped in the nicely fenced in area with the hopes of turning them, composting them and then tilling them into the ground.  We did not turn or compost them and the tiller is currently not working. 

Since the chickens have managed to nicely till up the ground in their fenced in area, I decided to enlist some help.  A win-win situation on both ends; they get the bugs and a new area to hang out in and the leaves and ground it tilled and fertalized for me, for next summer.  All walk away happy. 

Activity: 2 miles today (long run tomorrow), 3 miles yesterday, Day Off on Wednesday

Animal Prep/The Art of Being a Boy

With the imminent arrival of this year's batch of chicks, the ducks need to vacate the brooder this weekend and enter their new home; formally the old tractor shed.  In order to make this happen, some doors need to added to the shed.  Andy was going to do this alone, just him and the power tools, but last night Little Man begged and pleaded to go outside with daddy and help.  Daddy finally relented and out they went to make a door out of some scrap wood found in the barn.  Little Man came in twice to use the potty and gave me full and detailed updates about everything he and daddy were doing outside.  He was very proud of the "man" work going on outside and was very bummed out at bath time, when he had to leave daddy and the power tools. 

Fast-forward to this afternoon.  All the way home, Little Man asked if he could go outside and see what daddy had done the night before while he (Little Man) was taking his bath.  As we were pulling into the driveway, Little Man spotted daddy attaching the door to the shed and wanted out of the car.  He quickly ran over to join his dad.  I foresee a lot more projects happening over the next few months. 

 Mommy's contribution to the project: a frog hanger repurposed as a door handle. 

Flowers

My tulip bed

 Marsh Marigold, a wildflower that grows in the marshland around our house.  I love the sea of yellow flowers.

Feed My Starving Children

When Little Man was smaller, I can remember other moms talking about how they could teach compassion to their children.  When Little man was two I quickly realized that compassion is not taught, it is already there; as parents all we can do is water and nurture the little seed that God planted long before the child was born. You see, when Little Man was two, we went on a long road trip to Michigan and back.  While on this trip we stopped to see Niagara Falls.  At Niagara Falls there is a boat called the Maid of the Mist that comes pretty close to the base of the falls. As soon as we saw the boat, Little Man became extremely concerned about the people on the boat and what was going to happen to them (he was worried that the boat would sink under the falls).  It was at that moment, I realized children already have compassion, it is what we do with that compassion, that determines if that compassion will continue to flourish.

Fast forward two years later to a church service about a month ago.  A few women who are planning a Feed My Starving Children event presented at our church.  Little Man immediately made it his own personal mission to feed the starving children.  He has a jar on the kitchen table that he is collecting coins in, has done a few extra chores to add money to the jar faster and last week when our church launched the fundraising campaign, he got up and spoke in front of the congregation about his jar; the little man is on a mission.  Our response as parents? Join the planning committee for the event! This fall Little Man and I will be hunting for volunteers to donate 2 hours of their time to participate in a MobilePack event.  Be on the look out for a very zealous pre-schooler who is very hard to say no to.  Better yet, just plan on attending the event, the official date will be posted on the website soon. Meanwhile, start your own jar for there is a young man who is trying to feed the starving children.

Activity: 3 mile speed workout (I even managed to run a lap at a 7 minute pace!)