Our Work is Paying Off

Our first productive garden in the making. The boys promised to help make 2 squares to start with and help keep them also. In return for helping I promised to help them with getting a chicken coop started. I thought I would be the only one out there tending the garden but they really want chickens.


This was a real hands on experience for them. They helped in preparing the squares. We got out the level, hammer and screws. I let them use the screw drill. I love power tools but I was able to share with them. LOL

We read two books. Both by Mel Bartholomew called Square Foot Gardening and The New Square Foot Gardening. I just had to go over both books. It had such good information in both. While mixing our soil medium we talked about peat moss, compost and vermiculite. They loved the mixing part. What boy doesn't like playing in dirt?

After getting it all ready we planted. This was the best part. We had our squares done and we planted. We all just sat back, watered and waited.

We had sightings of our veggies. Little things popping up from the ground. This time around we just watched as each seed popped out of the soil all curled up and then opened up with one then two leaves. They were excited as they eagerly watched every day at what else might pop up from one day to the next.


Then we went on a last minute vacation. Can you imagine being away from your garden for two weeks. I made arrangements with my brother and nephew who live next door to come over and water while we were gone so imagine every ones surprise when we got back and saw our garden.

Our two squares are filling in nicely. The boys promised to help prepare two more squares sometime soon.

I asked my middle son what each plant was just by looking at it now and he identified just about every plant in the garden. They all can't wait to enjoy their hard work when we sit down at the table.

They also added the garden to their nature journal.

How does my garden grown?

Driving back home we had to do a little stop. Can you see why? I've seen some bluebonnets in my day but this was incredible. We stopped on the side of the road and I could not believe the smell. It was such a sweet smell. Like I said we have seen some but not in this amount and not that you could smell just by standing there.


It was truly amazing to see and smell this. The bluebonnet is the Texas flower and I think it is a beautiful flower. If you drive along the highways of Texas, down south anyway, you will see lots of wildflowers including the bluebonnet. This makes the drive a pleasant one.

Now that we are home after two weeks being gone we came home to an amazing garden. Our garden has grown so much. We have corn, yellow squash, lettuce, bell pepper plants and green beans in one box. The corn was small when we left but now it is big.

We also have carrots. Can you see them in the picture? There is also some spinach. We will be making some good salads. Yum, can't wait.

We did two 4x4 squares this time around but we might get 2 more ready for our late season planting. Living down south we don't have much winter time so it will be great to have plenty of fresh veggies.

What do you think of my garden? This is the first time we have had a garden that it has gotten so big and has been so easy to do. We are having fun but it will be nicer when we start eating our labor.

Oz Land

After leaving Colorado we spent a few days at my brothers house in Kansas. While there we went to a place called Old Cowtown. It's an old town and you get to see what people lived like way back in the old days.

Hubby had to take this next picture. We visited the funeral parlor. What do you think? Would you have gotten in there for a picture?

The funeral parlor was very elegant. Lots of wood work and beautiful wallpaper on the walls.

There was even a place for bowling outside. That was fun. We got to play. If you notice one of the rails has two boards in a V shape and one end was higher than the other end. The person at the end of the pins would roll the ball back on that.

Hubby now wants to do one of these in the back. hehehe It would be fun. It would also make for a great learning experience for the boys. I'm starting to like that idea.

This was the boys first and last experience at a saloon. hehehe

It was fun although the day turned out a little hot. Imagine that....we were in snow a few days before that and then it was hot. Crazy!!!

Leaving Beauty Behind

We left from Colorado and took a picture of the mountains in the background. It is so awesome to see Pikes Peak with all that snow. All the snow was almost all melted that we enjoyed and had some good snowball fights in.

On our way to Kansas we saw some interesting signs. I should have taken more pictures of all those signs but didn't think about it till too late. I did get a few pictures and thought I would share.

We even passed by the Garden of Eden. I tried to get hubby to take a detour to see it but he wouldn't. Now why wouldn't you want to go to see the Garden of Eden? hhhmmmmmmm I have no idea.

We ate at this wonderful steak place called Whiskey Creek. Oh, yum is all I can say about it.

As we got closer to Kansas we saw different things on the way. I saw these lumps from far away and couldn't tell what they were till I zoomed in. Don't forget to click on the pictures to make them larger.


We are done with vacationing for a little while. Now it's back to regular school. We love being able to learn even on vacation. We had lots of fun. Hope you enjoyed seeing our fun. I still have a few more posts to do before I am all done with our vacation though so be prepared for a few more.

Colorado Snow

We are in Colorado and were hit with a big snow storm. Some places got over 2 feet of snow. This was heavy wet snow. Perfect for snow ball fighting and for kicking. The little one had fun kicking it. We went up to the mountains and saw so much snow. I took plenty of pictures to last for a while.


Of course we don't have clothes for this type of weather but we still had our fun in it. The last picture is of my post is the Colorado Amphitheater. It's a place they have concerts in the middle of red rocks. The benches were actually made of red rocks but are now being replaced because of time and deterioration. It is so cool.

That is just a little taste of our fun. Hope you enjoyed seeing it. I wonder what I will post about tomorrow????

Another New Bird

This is the first time I have seen this bird in person. It also made such a cute sound. If you go to that site and click on the second bird sound then you will hear what I heard. It would go down the tree head first. It was neat to see and hear.

It's a white breasted nuthatch. How cool is that. There are several birds that I would love to see in person and seeing this one was great.

I'm keeping my eyes open and hope to see more birds.

Snow Day

We didn't just stay in our room and call it a snow day but it was a snow day. I just wanted to show you some of these pictures. The boys were so happy and excited to play in snow. For those of you that have snow this is not exciting but for us this is a treat. The driving was crazy. The snowflakes were huge. We are in the room now and will stay here tomorrow for sure. Snow is expected all night and this is the biggest snow storm this season and we are here to enjoy it.

This is the first time that I have been in a snow storm that there was thunder. I'm used to thunder with rain but not snow.


I'll post again soon. I have a ton of things to show you all of what we are doing and what we have done. For now this will have to do. I'll take more snow pictures in the morning and see how much snow we got.



For now enjoy these pictures.

Buffalo Bill Day

We went to the Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave today. Have you figured out where we are now? So let me tell you the thing I found the most interesting. It was what riders for the Pony Express were issued and had to carry with them. A gun, a knife and the bible. Isn't that funny? I would have never thought of those three things going together.

There were several pictures of
his indian friends. There were also different clothes that were worn by the indians and in the Wild West shows. It was very interesting. I didn't think it was going to be that good but I was surprised.

This visit will go great with our lapbook on A Historical Look at American Indians from HOAC. I have some pictures that I would like to make copies of and have the boys put them in their lapbooks. For this lapbook, first came the field trip then comes the actual lapbook part. This was a very hands on type of day.

I'll try to post more but this is it for now. I am so tired today.

By the way....we are under a winter storm warning. There is supposed to be a dumping of snow over here. The boys are doing the happy dance. hehehe I'll keep you informed if we get snow.

Our first vacation bird sighting

I saw this bird once before in my life. It was in Canada when I was visiting a friend. Although I didn't get a very good look at it like this time. What a beautiful bird. I know some say this is more of a pest but the colors are beautiful. I made hubby stop so I could take these pictures. Good thing we were in a parking lot and out of traffic.

This was one of the birds Lewis and Clark saw on their trip through South Dakota in the 1800's. They mentioned that these birds were very bold and would enter their tents to steal food.

I think this is a beautiful bird no matter what anyone else says about it. hehehe Can't wait to see what other animals I come across in these parts of the woods.

Van Gogh

We are on vacation. Yep, having fun and seeing some neat sites. A friend looked up on the computer on some site that people post some off the beaten path things that you can see in any state. So on our way out of Kansas we stopped by Goodland, Kansas to see this. This is one big easel. Don't you think?

For those studying or those that have studied Van Gogh this will be an interesting site. To my surprise as I looked around on some blogs I came across a blog or two about Van Gogh.

Hope you all enjoy my posts while we are on vacation.

Guess What's Next

Well something is coming up on Monday. I wonder if you can guess? We will still be doing some fun schooling but ssshhhhh don't tell. Monday we are starting something fun with our group. We are doing a co-op even while I am on vacation. I hope we can work on it a little each day like the rest of our group.

Do I have anyone wondering? Wanna know more? Stay tuned for more info on our activities.

One Big Baby

I had someone complain that I didn't show any pictures of the baby and what a baby this is. So here is to my friend that wanted to see the baby.

I even took a picture of the white board with the information on this baby. This baby is 8weeks old. Can you imagine? Enjoy the pictures and a little more of our trip to the zoo in Houston.

A Nice Cool Corona

What kind of blog do you think this is? hehehe Were you expecting me to talk about a nice cold one. Well, it was a little cool today but not like that.

So what was it that I saw....scroll down......








A corona in the sky. It was a complete ring around the sun somewhere around noon. A little after noon maybe. We were driving home from our Sunday meeting and the boys said, "look mom, at the sun" now this was while driving. So I asked what they were looking at. As soon as I got home I got my camera out and took some pictures. I took a few pictures from the bottom half cause you can see the colors around the sun. It was almost like a rainbow around the sun.

A corona is the result of light bending by diffraction in the presence of small, spherical water droplets of ice crystals in high clouds. In its simplest form, the corona appears as a colored disk surrounding the sun or moon whose border is bluish, merging into yellowish white, with a brownish outer edge at the width of one or more moon (or sun) diameters.

We read up on what this was called and now we have one more thing we have learned and it's Sunday. The learning never ends.

For those that came by in hopes of learning more about a nice cool tall one....sorry to disappoint you. You still got a lesson about a corona though.

Time Out or is it?

We have been busy this week and the week is almost over. I can't believe it. Here is what we have been up to.

Monday: We use this day for volunteer work for myself and the boys. It is also our day for groceries and getting things done in town before we get home late in the afternoon. We are always very tired but a happy tired.

Tuesday: We were going to make a trip to the zoo but changed it to Thursday because of rain. So we did school. We did our math and reading. We are also working on a few lapbooks.

Wednesday: I had a friend from out of town come over in the morning. We talked homeschool stuff while the kids played. We had lunch together and the boys went out to play and run around and just have a great physical ed. type of day. All we did that day was continue on our reading of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.

Thursday: Zoo Day!!!! Yippeeee!! We made a trip to the Houston Zoo. Well, we had to go an hour later because they were going to have some bad thunderstorms early in the morning in Houston. So instead of getting there at 9am when it opens we got there at 10am. Glad we missed all that yucky rain. It turned out to be the most beautiful, cool, breezy, low humidity type of day. It was like the best day to walk around. Well, except for the public school field trips that morning. Have you ever been trampled by a bunch of 6yr olds. Oh, my goodness! My boys just stayed by my side and kept asking me why they were acting like that and why did they all have to yell? Even the teachers and parents were yelling but that was, I imagine, because they had to so they could be heard. Oh and everything was don't touch this or don't do that or stay in line or where is your partner or let's keep up with the group. Anyway, enough of the complaining.

It turned out to be great after lunch because most of the kids left. It was much more quiet and peaceful. We read about different animals. My little one loved the day and would run ahead to see what was next. My middle son loved to listen to me read all the info on different animals that they had. There was a new baby giraffe. At 8 weeks that baby weighs 181 lbs. Wow!! It was soooo cute. They also had a new addition to the zoo. A Red Panda. Now I thought I would see a panda like I saw in the San Diego zoo. Wrong me. It was cute though.

Since it was a windy day we heard the bamboo. Yes, I said heard. They would bang against each other and you could hear a hollow sound. It was so neat to hear that. Reminds me of those bamboo wind chimes that cost way too much money for being bamboo.

After the zoo we went to the Health Museum. It was free admission after 2pm. So we got there at 3 and had fun there too. We saw lungs, the heart, this big boy that if you go around him you see his teeth and on the floor is the tongue with spots for the taste buds. You are actually in his mouth. It's a neat museum and can't beat free!

Finished up the day with dinner at Olive Garden. I love their peach tea. Yum! Oh and we did make a trip to Barnes and Noble but I came out with not one book. *shock, disbelief* We got home at 9:30pm. I am tired and need to finish up here so we can do school tomorrow.

Friday: We will start up our second part of the zoo lapbook now that we did our trip to the zoo.

So no time out for us. All this is learning time.