Our Blog

A frog is born

Susan — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 21:39:44 +0000

We have a frog! I found this little guy swimming near the glass last night. We made quite a clamor, searching for a net and a suitable container. I am keeping a closer eye on the remaining tadpoles.

Now– what to feed Allie frog(named by Teresa)? Gaelen chopped up a worm for me this afternoon to feed to Allie. Every piece wiggled–ewww! Unfortunately, Ally was not impressed. I think we need smaller food. So we are going in search of bloodworms or mealworms.

The frog is so little and light that it reminds me of an insect when it hops. Its legs are so perfect, and tiny, and almost transparent. Amazing!

The other tadpoles are growing fat, chomping away on the little algae pasture growing on our driftwood. One has arms and legs, but still has a long tail. It seems happy, so I am leaving it be for now. As Blaise reminded me today, tadpoles know how to grow into frogs better than I do. So I am going to trust them to do what they were made to do.

Tadpoles!

Gaelen — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 01:20:42 +0000

Maggie and Teresa found some tadpoles in a pond recently, we are keeping them in the fish tank:

More pictures coming soon!

Goodbye Garden 2009!

Susan — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 05:31:35 +0000

In the middle of last week, we said goodbye to the garden. The kids helped me pick the remaining tomatoes. There were quite a few green ones! So we have lots of green tomatoes, little and big!

Maggie’s tomatoes are amazing– they are striped! I have never seen a striped tomato before! They came from heirloom seeds our friend gave us this spring. Amazing!

I have always wanted to cook with green tomatoes– I am excited! The southern girl in me (southern Wisconsin, that is) is doing a little dance.

Test for music blogging…

Blaise — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:27:17 +0000

I have a few ideas for blog projects involving sound and music files. This is a test:

schola-Agnus Dei

Hmmm. I would like it to play while you browse the blog. I will have to do some more research on this…

Agnus Dei -- Latin Schola Practice

0:00 / 0:00

Download

YES! This is cool. I will explain what I did later.

Caterpiller!

Susan — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 01:33:57 +0000

I was weeding and watering the gardens last night when to my surprise I came nose to nose with a nice fat caterpillar! It was scaling our tall Rose Milkweed, looking for a good spot to start munching. I think it is a monarch caterpillar. Here are some great photos Gaelen took of the little guy:

Check out Slings and More

Susan — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 21:22:54 +0000

Erin McSparron is the entrepreneur behind Slings and More. She designs and constructs baby slings, car seat covers and towels for babies. Everything she designs is innovative. For instance, she makes baby slings made of netting material for carrying baby while swimming.
Every sling she makes is custom made and she is extremely helpful when determining the size of the sling. You get exactly what you want — my husband surprised me with my new sling about two weeks after our youngest was born.
She delivered it to our home. It’s beautiful! It’s green, well-sewn, with little practical touches like a zipper pocket in the sling’s tail and a sturdy loop to attach a pacifier or toy (I fastened my keys to it!). Another nice thing about the sling is how adjustable and comfortable it is. Erin provides videos on her website showing several methods for using and putting on the sling.
We highly recommend her business! She is wonderful and the sling we have from her is skillfully designed and constructed.

Vegetable Garden 2009 Update: July 19

Blaise — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 20:58:15 +0000

Our two vegetable garden plots are doing well. Our oldest daughter takes care of one. About the only problems we have had are with the egg plants and carrots.

Garden 2009: Update July 19

Blaise — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 19:29:39 +0000

Our butterfly garden is doing very well. We have seen a few butterflies in the area, but not many. None the less the flowers are wonderful to look at. Enjoy the pictures:

Garden 2009: Update 5-24-2009

Blaise — Mon, 25 May 2009 17:45:58 +0000

We now have vegetables in our garden! We have two beds, each about 6foot by 10foot.
I have been learning about composting and discovered that used coffee grounds are a good mulching material and addendum to soil. The article I got most of my information from Starbucks “Grounds for your Garden” . Starbucks offers free one gallon bags of used coffee and espresso grounds. In Grand Forks, the Starbucks I visited places these out front for people to pick up. I also picked up grounds from my favorite local coffee house, Porpoura Coffee House, Grand Forks, ND. Our soil is clay rich — the coffee grounds cause the soil not to clump as easily, making it more permeable. Grounds are also carbon rich, contain some fixed nitrogen, and sulfur.
We also picked up six dozen (72) earth worms from Cabela’s, East Grand Forks, MN.
Coffee grounds are not as acidic as coffee. Also, earthworms love coffee grounds — and slugs hate them! This is pretty cool.
We decided to mix coffee and soil in a 1:2 ratio in a five gallon pale and then add two dozen worms. Three pales of addendum were made this way, one for each garden bed. For the butterfly garden, we churned up the dirt in between the flowers we planted on Saturday and spread the coffee/dirt/worms over the bed. For the vegetable garden we dug several trenches and filled these with the coffee/dirt/worm mix.
The vegetable garden, so far, has a row of carrots; two rows of alternating kohlrabi, eggplant and pepper; three small size tomato plants (Sweet Million, Japanese Golden Pair, Grape); and a row of mixed peas and beans. We also sprinkled basil, parsley and cilantro seeds between the plants. The idea here is to have the small herb plants displace potential weeds. These herbs also deter insects. We alternated the kohlrabi, eggplant and pepper in order to increase the diversity of these rows. Here is a good list of plant families: Canadian Country Woman. Well, we will see if any of this works by the end of the summer
Here are the latest pictures:

Mibeckland Garden 2009: Butterfly garden started!

Blaise — Sun, 24 May 2009 04:27:36 +0000

On Friday night we ordered dirt from Jet’s Black Dirt and Road Gravel (John Lutheran Jr., Owner/Operator). He delivered three yards the next morning — he is prompt and reliable. Before ordering from Jet’s Black Dirt, I shopped around for dirt delivery and spoke with three other businesses. Jet’s Black Dirt was the best deal in town. I highly recommend him.
We built another butterfly garden box, tilled around the base of the previous box and filled each up with dirt. We also tilled around the front of the house. We lined the tilled ground with Suncast Lawn Edging (USA made, recycled plastic). You can get a similar Suncast product here: Suncast Composite Edging

Here is a list of the Butterfly Garden plants we planted today. Latin name is followed by common names:

Rudbeckia fulgida, (Black-eyed Susan, Brilliant Coneflower, Eastern Coneflower, or Orange Coneflower)

Anethum graveolens, Dill

Bandana Pink Lantana

Asclepias speciosa, (Showy Milkweed)

Asclepias incarnata, (Swamp Milkweed, Rose Milkweed, Swamp Silkweed, and White Indian Hemp)

Echinacea purpurea, (Eastern Purple Coneflower)

Heliotropium arborescens, (Marine Heliotrope, Garden Heliotrope)

Verbena bonariensis, (Purpletop Vervain, Tall Verbena, Clustertop Vervain, or Pretty Verbena)

Not sure, verbena x hybrida? (Label says: Quartz Merlot Mix)

Aster x dumosus, (Woods Blue, Hardy Aster)

Tropaeolum majus (Garden Nasturtium, Indian Cress or Monks Cress) side note: Nasturtium literally “nose-twister” or “nose-tweaker”.

Tomorrow we plant the vegetables! The dirt has all been used up. And now pictures of the butterfly garden: