Recent Happenings

First, I'm going to forewarn you that this post is long. 

Now that I've started feeling a bit better and getting a little energy back, we've been a bit busy.  We did go in for my 12 week doctors appointment and he said that baby isn't quite bit enough to move my due date forward...BUGGERS. Oh well, its just a date and most babies aren't even born on their due date anyway.  We did get to hear babies heartbeat again although he was having a hard time finding it because he wasn't over baby.  He kept looking for it really low but baby is sitting higher this time around so it was very faint. We are going to have our ultrasound right around week 19 to find out if its a boy or a girl. 

I've loved the sunshine and to be honest, it has helped me feel a bit better.  Unfortunately, most of the sunny days I've ended up sorting through a bin of rocks we've picked up on the beach trying to find unique ones that would fit into the wine bottle tiki torches...and I've ended up sun burnt.  

 

We also started making some really neat driftwood wind chimes and mobiles.  Below is just one of the ones that we've made.  

Since we've had fairly good weather, we've had our 10x10 tent up on the weekends working on selling some of my crafts. Its felt good to actually watch things sell.  We are working on switching to more 'beach' like items so that people will buy them as souvenirs.

Last week Alex got a call from Service Live, a company that contract out work for other companies.  We ended up taking a little trip yesterday.  We drove up to Lake Quinalt area.  It was very wet (imagine that, a wet rain forest). We wanted to hike the falls but between it raining cats and dogs and not having the cash for a (state) park pass, we decided we wouldn't go hiking but I did get some really pretty pictures.

 

On our way home we made a side trip out to Ocean Shores to see what was out there.  It reminded me a lot of Long Beach.  It made us grateful to live in such a tiny town.  While it would be nice to have a little more traffic through here, it also is nice not to be a bigger town. 

When we got back into Aberdeen we stopped at the Home Depot to pick a microwave since ours started smoking all of a sudden.  We found the one we wanted and headed back over to Walmart to pick up the couple things we needed and drove past Safeway...State Bomb Squad truck?  Caution Tape? It was a little scary.  Apparently they had recieved a bomb threat shortly after 10:30 in the morning and evacuated calling in the WA state police and bob squad.

Once we got home we plugged in our brand new microwave and guess what...it didn't work, at least not like it should.  Ugg we called the company and they told Alex he could repair it as long as he didn't break anything.  Sadly we didn't have the tools to do so so Alex called up home depot and the manager was great.  She told us to bring it back and we could exchange it for a new one and she gave us a $20 discount off because we had to drive all the way back.  We really didn't want to but we drove all the way back in.  Safeway had reopened after nothing was found and we got our new microwave which we tested before leaving the store.  :)

OUR GARDEN

 Because of the mosquitoes, we don't spend much time in the garden on cooler days but when it gets hot I try and get out there for a little while because they all seem to disappear. Here are a few picture from this morning...

Here is our cabbage.  Our broccoli and cauliflower are about the same size.  They are growing quickly which I'm so grateful for. I'm hoping that it will keep growing at this rate because I love munching on fresh veggies.  

This was Luke's favorite...our pumpkin plants are growing in leaps and bounds considering they were one of the last things planted.  As soon as they get a little bigger I'm going to build them a trellis to climb up so they aren't on the ground.  

This is one I'm excited for...our lettuce all of a sudden got its second leaves and now they're getting big.  I may have to thin them just a bit.  

I've never had swiss chard but I've heard a lot of people talk about it so we're trying it along with Kale.  Both are doing really well and getting big. 

These were the first things to come our...our beets and I thought after they got their first leaves that they were never going to grow but this heavy rain has done them some good.  Their leaves are now 2+ inches long.  I am kind of miffed that something has been nibbling on them though.  

Here is our one large bed.  Our strawberries got so big they started climbing out through the tops of the bottles so I had to take the bottles of and pray that they could fend for them self.  Our carrots have started growing really fast on top.  I was really hesitant to even plant tomato after all the things I've heard but so far they are doing well and growing quickly.  I had to thin them out yesterday because they all came up and they were bunched.  Our artichoke came up recently and I was shocked to find it growing so quickly even though it took so long to get started.  The tiny little bell pepper plants just came up.  I don't know how they'll do but its our first year and everything is trial and error.  the back row is our butternut squash and its doing quite well.  I'm hoping we get a lot that we can freeze and can so that we can make our own fresh baby food next year.  Its a little hard to see but in the back the pop bottles are now protecting my sunflower plants...something is eating them and I'm just waiting till I can catch what ever it is.  I doubt its a bug since they all had their tops last night and by this morning, the top of the one I couldn't over is totally gone. 

Our green bean plants are looking good although I've found something munching on them.  The cucumbers are taking a little longer to get started but they're hanging in there and our corn, well some of it is growing quickly and some is taking its sweet time.  

Here is one of the corn plants.  Its one of our larger ones and I'd say its about 6 to 8 inches tall...if you held all its leaves straight up, I'd guess it would be close to 10 to 12 inches tall.  

Here is our bed a pea plants, corn and pickling cucumbers.  The pea plants took forever to come up, once they did they've taken off, especially with the rain.

Here is Luke's garden.  Its coming along slowly because he likes to mess with the plants...a little tribulation will only make them stronger, right?

Last but not least is our zucchini plants.  They ended up in one of the big buckets outside of the garden because I thought I'd planted some but realized I hadn't.  They've come up and have grown really fast, probably because Luke is obsessed with watering that one bucket.  :) These I'm not going to thin.  They do get bushy but we got a ton of zucchini off the ones we had a couple years back and we love zucchini.  

 This morning I got a weather alert saying that we might be getting temperatures well into the 80's and 90's and even possibly over 100.  I'm praying it doesn't hurt the garden. 

Bigger by the day

On Monday as I was heading into work I heard my phone ding so I picked it up to find a voice mail but no missed call...so I called my voice mail to see who it was, "hi this is ____ from Grays Harbor Hospital calling to remind you about your ultrasound tomorrow, June 11th".  Um what?  My ultrasound wasn't until Tuesday, at least thats what the lady at my doctors office put on the paper.  Alex dropped me off at work and I started trying to get a hold of my doctors office to get the number for the hospital.  It took me calling over and over again but I finally reached someone who gave me their number.  When I called up to the hospital, the lady verified that it was on Tuesday and asked if that would still work...um, sure, I'll be there.  I was so excited Monday night that I had a hard time sleeping.  Actually, to be honest, there was a lot of anxiety mixed into the excitement which is what really kept me awake. 

Tuesday morning we got up and went up to the hospital.  I checked in and got everything needed filled out.  Lucky for us, there wasn't a long wait because I was anxious...not to mention the full bladder they make you have.  So we go into the room and get situated and she starts the ultrasound.  I can see the top of baby's head and I couldn't help but smile.  She checked on everything and then went to looking at baby.  She got a couple pictures for us and then started measuring...12w 1d. Oh wow, apparently one of two things have happened...baby is either slightly bigger than he/she is supposed to be, OR I'm a week ahead, which doesn't hurt my feelings.  A couple different times, baby would start waving at us.  At another point, you could see baby wiggling their toes.  She gave us a whole bunch of pictures to take home with us which made me totally happy, especially since you can see baby's toes in one of them. 

 You can kind of see baby's toes on the picture below.

When we got home I scanned all of them into my computer and let Luke pick out the one he wanted to put in a picture frame that GGma gave him when he was born.  We were kind of shocked when he pointed to one and said "heartbeat, baby".  He recognized the heartbeat lines from on the ultrasound screen.  We printed it off and put it in his frame which he likes to carry around and tell everyone "baby, heartbeat". 

Luke also loves to listen to the recording of his first heartbeat that we have now that he's heard baby's.  We're excited to find out what this little one is in Late July or early August.  We're also excited to welcome him/her into our family in December. 

One week down, so many more to go...

Gardening is not something to do while pregnant...not because its harmful but because I CAN'T REMEMBER ANYTHING.  Seriously, I know I have a bad memory but this is bad.  I have had to map out the garden square by square.  A few days ago we picked up some herb seeds to plant amongst the garden.  I went out yesterday afternoon to do just that and by the time I was done, realization hit me, I'd already planted pumpkin in the same (cinder block) holes that I just put chives...so I'm hoping that the two can get along, at least till I know what is what coming up out of there. 

We've had a few things like lettuce, spinach and a few other things coming up but tonight when I went out to water, I was shocked to find so much stuff. 

RIGHT BACK BED

The back half of this bed is onions.  None of these have come up yet but the front half has lots of beet sprouts that have popped up.  I love the bright green leaves with the dark reddish purple stems.

RIGHT MIDDLE BED

This is one of my favorite beds, not necessarily because of what is in it, but because it was the first one to start sprouting.  It made me happy to watch these tiny little plants pop out of the ground.  In this bed we have three squares of beets (we really like beets), two squares of spinach, one swiss chard, two lettuce, two kale, and two celery.  Everything but the celery has started sprouting. 

RIGHT FRONT BED

This bed has broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage in it.  I'm excited that all three plants have come up.  Around the perimeter we've also planted dill which is supposed to help with a cabbage beetle or something like that.

MIDDLE BED

 This is our middle bed and its a little bigger than the rest.  Since it was the last bed planted, nothing has come up quite yet but it contains two types of carrots, four types of tomatoes, artichoke, bell pepper, and butter nut squash.  In the back holes we planted some mammoth sunflower seeds.  Apparently I wasn't paying attention when we picked these out because they can get upwards of 12 feet tall, but they are supposed to produce lots of sunflower seeds.  The pop bottles up front are covering our strawberry plants since our fencing isn't quite done yet and I didn't want to invite the deer in.  They actually seem to be doing quite well under there.  Down each side is some basil and chives.  

LEFT BACK BED

 LEFT MIDDLE BED

LEFT FRONT BED

Each of these beds have one corn per square.  I was worried about them being too close but apparently many people have had success with Square Foot Gardening and corn.  Around each corn is four green bean or four pea plants.  They will use the corn as a trellis. There is also one cucumber (regular or pickle) in each square.  These will wind around the base of the corn and help with predator prevention (racoons don't like the spiny vines) and they also help to crowd out the weeds.  Being that by the end of summer I will be over half way through my pregnancy, I see this as beneficial.  

Last but not least, Luke's Garden...

Up until tonight, there hasn't been anything.  I was rather shocked when I started watering and there was three different sprouts in his garden.  Sadly I don't know what they are because he was taking random seeds from me as I planted in the other beds.  His garden is our mystery garden and probably will be until things get much much bigger.  

Along with growing plants, we also have a growing baby.  I'm very excited for this week.  Tomorrow is my last day of work with WSU until next October.  I have mixed feelings about this because I've fallen in love with teaching the kids and it makes it even harder when you're walking through the store and all of a sudden a child yells out "HI MRS. JOHNSON".  I am excited to get a break before next falls packed schedule.  It will also give me time to start organizing and working on our property.  

This week is also our first ultrasound.  We wanted to put it off till week 12 rather than going in at 8 weeks along for medical reasons.  They got us in towards the end of this week so I'll be about 11.5 weeks along and baby should be big enough.  Baby is between 1.5 and 2 inches long right now and I'm so excited to see him/her.  I wish we could find out the gender but we can't find that out till late July/early August.  My morning sickness has subsided for the most part but I am dealing with some horrid heartburn now.  Most nights I have a hard time getting to sleep and I often wake up earlier and earlier.  I will post pictures this next week from the ultrasound if we get them. 

Red Neck Garden

Here in Westport, we have an over abundance of deer.  Because of this, we've been having to find a way to build a fence without breaking the bank. A few months back I'd seen a post about using pallets for all sorts of things.  It was crazy the things they used them for, building full sheds, chicken coops, and even picket-like fences.

Hers looked all nice and pretty but we've been taking what we can get for right now because we've been approaching June quickly and that is when everyone starts planting around here.  Our fence is a mish-mash of pallets, all different shapes and sizes but we' have found a few really nice ones and as we find more, we will replace the older ones.  Here is a picture of our garden all fenced in with pallets.

I know that its not very tall but we're working on the top part now that the bottom is done.  

On Saturday I planed what I could in two of the beds after laying out the grid. I used sticks and twine.  On wooden raised beds, most people will staple or use nails to hold the string but using concrete blocks makes that harder. Our back right hand bed has onions and beats.  The middle bed has beets, Swiss Chard, Spinach, Kale, Lettuce, and Celery.  

Today I went out and finished up that side and planted the front bed which contains Broccoli, Cauliflower, and Cabbage. 

After doing the first three beds I ran out of sticks.  I was desperate to get our corn in the ground so I came up with a new idea...using sand dollars to make my grid.  

 

While there weren't any strings, it gave me a nice, unique grid that I was able to plant in.  I planted corn, green beens, cucumbers in the back bed.  The front bed has corn, sweet peas, and pickling cukes, and the middle is half and half.  

We also finished planting in Luke's garden.  He has squash and pumpkin in the front bed, peas and pickling cukes in front of the trellis and carrots, celery, and zucchini behind the trellis.  He was excited to help daddy water his bed afterwords.  I will say that it is going to be interesting to see what pops up since he has taken other seeds from me too.  

 
Our last bed is a little larger than the rest but still uses the SFG concept.  I ran out of sand dollars though so I didn't get it planted.  If the weather permits we may go to the beach tomorrow to look for more sand dollars to use in that bed and to replace the other beds that have the twine.

 We're hoping to have a fruitful year and be able to preserve many of our own fruits and vegetables.  It will be nice to have lots of fresh produce.