The Bartlett Family Adventure

The Bartlett Family Adventure is all about the moments that take my breath away as I grow in the glory of God, and live my life to the best of my ability while raising two rowdy boys. This blog is not just about me, it also includes stories of my family's daily adventures. We home school our boys, are trying to grow our fruits and vegetables, we are all on a journey to God, we are trying to live sustainably, and most importantly love the life we lead. Sometimes we stumble, but mostly I like to think we prevail. I am blogging to keep a sort of shared journal. Our life may be messy but it is perfect.
Showing posts with label pumpkin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pumpkin. Show all posts

Friday, October 21, 2011

Trama in the garden...

I know I said I would be busy doing school work but I took a break to water the garden. What I found is unspeakable, totally horrible, but I am going to share it with you. The cat, my Husbands Cat, has found a liking for Rats. Now I never know when I am going to find them dead in the garden. Last week I found the head of a rat, this week the back half of one. I have to clean them up so the boys won't mess with it. It is gross, very gross. I wanted to puke! My heart is racing right out of my chest. I think I need a sedative to calm down. I am forever traumatized.I did take some lovely pictures, and I did find some lovely squash ready to be picked. So one to the garden update.

This is what I picked today.

Hello Squash!

I love this kid.

He is cute.

He is still cute too.

I love him too.

We had a wind storm. It beat up the squash beds.

It is still going strong even though it is beat up and sad looking.

I don't know what kind of squash this is. It is happy.

Melon. Yum Yum Yum

A bigger Melon. I hope they make it to full size.

The boy's beans.

Acorn squash in the boy's bed.

Another squash bites the dust.

Baby Kale! I hope it gets big.

Surprise purple Asparagus. We thought this didn't make it but God is good.

Look! Look! A baby pie pumpkin.

We have a lot to learn when it comes to gardening. I am glad we are getting some squash. When these plants are done we are going to be making some changes in how we garden. We watched this amazing movie/film that changed how we look at the soil.  http://backtoedenfilm.com/  I want to encourage you to watch the film on this website. It is about the importance of trusting God, and mulch. I am simplifying it but it is an exciting movie on how to garden. You'll see as we get ready to set it up early next year. We will put it in God's hands.

I hope you have a wonderful week filled with love and Laughter. Be well my friends.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Meal Plans

I need to go grocery shopping. Which means I need to make a list. I also need to plan two weeks worth of meals. Unfortunately all of the above falls to me. The boys in my family don't care and never have any input in what we eat until it is on the table or when I should be making dinner. I am looking for easy meals. I have two weeks left of Science and ten more weeks of my Literature class which means the next two weeks are filled. Twenty page power point on deforestation, two labs, a discussion board post on forest products, and a final covering science and a 1200 word essay on the Aeneid, read the Aeneid, a discussion board on Sakuntala, read Sakuntala. If you can't tell my next two weeks are full, very full. So what is for dinner?

Two weeks of meals:
  1. Rosemary Chicken in the crock pot, with rice and a green vegetable
  2. Chicken and Cheese Enchiladas
  3. Tomato, Basil and Cheese Baked pasta
  4. Baked Potato soup-slow cooker style
  5. Huge pot of Chili that makes three meals
  6. Not to worry I will freeze the leftovers to have later
  7. in the two weeks. It will be vegetarian Chili
  8. Another Roast Chicken with mashed cauliflower, and corn
  9. Chicken noodle soup
  10. Lentil soup
  11. Vegetable soup
  12. Curry Pumpkin soup
  13. Butternut Squash Bake
  14. Broccoli-Potato Soup with greens
  15. Pork fried rice, with stir fried vegetables
  16. Pumpkin, Barley, and sage soup
Lots of soup for the month, but soup is easy and mostly does not require a lot of meat. We are trying to lower our meat intake down to about 5%. Basically just enough so that my husband doesn't feel deprived. We watched a documentary called Forks Over Knives and it changed the way we eat. It recommends a whole food diet and we aim for that but I really like to cook. . .Most of the time anyway. It is in the works, just small changes that improve our over all health. As soon as I finish up my science class we will start family walks again. Which might help my waist line slim a little but then again it will be just in time for the holidays. I need to learn to tight rope walk, or juggle, or just plain multitasking. I will get there someday.

I hope your week is filled with crisp fall mornings, hot chocolate, Love and Laughter. Be well my friends.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Garden news. . . October 6

So for our weekly garden update I have lots of pictures. Some of them good, some of them okay, and maybe a few that are not. Believe it or not I am not posting all of the pictures that I took of the garden this week. I went a little crazy with all of the baby squash that we have growing. It is exciting to see something growing that we will be able to really eat and maybe we will have enough to freeze some for later meals. I hope you don't mind my excitement. We may not, will not retire here so it is encouraging to grow something in the mist of the worst drought in history, and in clay soil with nothing living in it except for ants. I have also noticed bees flying around and landing on flowers in the garden. I did not take pictures of that yet. It is nice to see the yard slowly transform from the barren landscape we bought to a garden. We still have a lot of work ahead of use in the three years we are for sure going to be here. So I hope you can join us on this journey, and that you might be encouraged to plant a vegetable garden of your own. If we can do it here, so can you where ever you are.Now for the pictures of the garden.

First up is the boys' garden bed.
 Peppers
 I spy a carrot top.
 Radishes popping up
 Jelly bean Tomato
 More radishes they are happy little plants
 Green beens I think.
 Here is a picture of their whole bed. A lot has grown since this picture.
 Now to the squash. I just love this picture.
 This is all from one plant!
 Even with so many squash growing I still love little baby squash
 Almost as much as these big squash. I might start picking them next week or so.
 Zucchini. You are lucky that I didn't post more then this picture of these lovely plants!
 Our melon patch has flowers, I hope that they will fruit for us too.
 They are creeping out into the path
 This is a female flower. The only flower that has the potential to fruit. I hope that is a baby melon.
 We had a storm roll through here and we lost one melon plant.
 We have two grapes growing on this arbor. This grape is happy, the other one is growing slower.
 This crack is in the middle of our yard. We have a lot of them hidden by the grass. It is from the drought, the deeper clay dries out and causes the ground to open up. All we can do is water, water, water. We found on next to the house. So our water bill will be going up. So we will be praying that it works. Praying for this drought to end. Praying for rain. I guess the frogs that live in these cracks are happy where they are. I would find them new homes.
 Remember the stick in the ground I claimed was a fig. Well this year it has grown branches and a few inches taller. When our grass isn't mowed for a couple of weeks it is taller then this poor tree.
 Bleeding heart amaranth and pie pumpkin plants
 Another sad looking tree, The Persimmon. Around we are growing onions. We did get on persimmon off of the tree this year. The boys shared it and loved it. You can see the vegetable garden behind the little fence. That squash looks nice from here too.
 This is a Pomegranate tree. It has grown but with the drought everything is slowly growing.
 We put this orange tree on a drip system and it just started to grow. It is still small but it is happy. After we got the snow last winter we thought it might not make it.
 This is some kind of winter squash. I let you know more when I know more. They are pretty.
 Pumpkin plant.
 Rob planted two new baby fig trees.
Now all we can do is fawn over them and water and hope.

We also planted the Gogi berry outside and it seems to be doing okay. I didn't feature our pear trees. This winter Rob is going to take out our Bartlett Pear because the fire blight is in the lower branches. It can't be saved. Really the only reason it is still there is because I wanted to give it a chance and I thought it had survived the attack. I am a hopeful soul and I always try to think of the best of everything. Also I can be a little looney and I didn't want to kill the tree. I wanted it to grow. We ordered a mulberry tree which will becoming in December, we are planning to plant another persimmon, a couple of lemon trees, and pomegranate in a hedge row along our fence line. We also want to add a nice deck where our patio is now, and more importantly a sprinkler/water system. We have big dreams and plans. We are going to try to do as much as we can before we have to sell the house. Like I said before we are guaranteed to be here another three years and we could end up here longer then that. It all depends on what the Air Force decides for us. For now this is home.


I hope that your week is filled with lovely fall colors or bright yellow squash flowers, and as always Love, and Laughter. Be well my friends