Creatures in the Compost

This weekend involved a lot of destruction. Every year my gardening projects seem to get a lot bigger then I expect. Things started simple enough. Move the garden to a sunnier location which happened to have nothing in it. Once that was done though we had to clean up the side yard beside the garden. That involved clearing out a bunch of unwanted dirt. The best place for that was the location of the old garden as I'd dug out a lot of soil and it was a big hole. To do that I had to set the concrete bases for the shed Unfortunately the compost heap was in the way so it had to be emptied and moved over by about a foot.

Now I'm ready to move the compost heap to it's final location, fill the shed hole with dirt and then filter cloth and stones and finally move the shed. I manged to get the compost heap back in place but I had to add a bit of "creature defense" while I was at it. Let's just say that some animals enjoy the warmth of a warm compost heap and seem to move in every winter. I'm hoping the wire mesh will keep them at bay. I still have to build a lid for the birds.

We did manage to get all the flower baskets planted and the side garden in place. At least this portion of the yard is finished. (For this year anyways. I have longer term plans to redo everything in this area with some proper pathways, raised planters and a bit of stone work.) 

The vegetable garden is coming up nicely. I think everything has spouted and if we can get some warm weather it should really take off. It got up to 20 degrees on Sunday and you could almost see the beans growing. They came up about an inch over the course of just a few hours.

Next weekend I just have to figure out how to move a 6x8 cedar shed across the yard.

Callie's First Dance Recital

On Saturday I got to attend Callie's first dance recital and I'll be honest, I wasn't really looking forward to it. Sitting through four hours of kids hopping around stage so that I could see Callie for approximately 3 minutes was not my idea of fun. I did end up being presently surprised however. The entire event was themed around Alice in Wonderland and it wasn't just little kids. The teachers as well as some other semi-professional dancers were also involved. The music was also a very good mix with quite a few current chart songs which made it enjoyable as well. Overall I felt the event was very well done.

Callie started a bit slow mainly because the girl beside her stopped right in front of her at the beginning and it threw her off for a few steps. After that she did really great and you could tell which steps she liked the most. I went with Kerry and my mom and they both bought her flowers along with one of her friends mom. I was very impressed about how Callie did in front of such a big crowed. I don't think they can see much up there with the bright lights but she seemed to really enjoy being on stage. My favourite part was probably when all the dancers were on stage for the final scene and they moved to Katy Perry's "Firework". Callie was jumping higher then everyone.
If all these things are as good as this I won't mind watching her for years to come. (Once a year of course.)

You can view the Callie's Dance Recital Performance on YouTube.

Vegetable Garden Complete

This year I hope to get a much better crop from our garden. Last year the deck was in this spot and we've had the garden in the south west corner. With the 15 foot cedars behind our house this meant it only really got sun in the morning. Not very good for a vegetable garden. Now that the deck is gone I was able to move it to a prime location. It should get sun almost all day and it will be easy to water now that it's closer to the house. It also frees up a spot for me to move the shed to. It's in the way of a retaining wall that needs replacing. (There's always a project waiting to be done.)

Construction was relatively straight forward. About $30.00 worth of 2x10's and some left over stain from the deck. Most of the soil came from the old garden or the compost pile. I had a pile of wood shavings from the planer that ordinarily I would compost but I figured I would just add it as the bottom layer. It's only about half an inch with another 8 inches of soil on top so it should have plenty of time to breakdown before it gets tilled up next year. The kids of course couldn't pass up a new way of getting dirty.

The concrete feet came with the house and I've used them for numerous purposes. Here they make a nice sturdy clean path. (Good thing considering the kids like to check out the seedlings every day.) It would have been good to get it planted about a week earlier. We had nice cool weather with just a light rain the week before while this week has been hot and sunny and it's been difficult to keep things damp.  Hoping for potatoes, beans, lettuce, carrots, basil, chives, dill, radishes, tomatoes, broccoli, onions and strawberries. You can really pack a lot of food into a small space.

Child Development Center Run for the Kids

Today the family participated in the Child Development Center Run for the Kids. This was our fourth year participating and for the second year in a row Carter didn't fit into his shirt. Paired with the band-aid over his eye where he ran into the bed, we got a lot of smiles and sympathetic looks. I think it's because Carter's so small people think he's in need of the Centers services. Hopefully next year he at least fits into the kids small.

There are three options for the event and it only costs $20.00. There is a 2k around the track, a 5k and a 10k and all proceeds go directly to the center as everything is donated. Kerry was doing the 5k again this year and I did the 2k with the kids. Or at least I attempted to do the 2k with the kids. Callie wasn't too happy about Kerry leaving so I had to carry her the whole way. Carter was a trooper and probably would have walked the entire way but I was getting tired so I carried him for the last 600m. Carrying 40-65lbs for 2k was all the workout I needed this weekend.

For the $20.00 we got a great deal.  (Even greater because the kids were free.) We got a pancake breakfast, a shirt, balloon animals, Ronald McDonald high fives, lunch and face painting. The balloon animals were quite amazing. Carter got an elephant and Callie chose a lady bug. This will be an event we participate in for a long time to come.

Frost Road Country Fair

This weekend was very busy for us and in some ways it started over a month ago. Now that Callie is going to school we've got to start doing the parenting participation thing. The extra dynamic for us is that Callie goes to the same school where Kerry teaches. Kerry volunteered us to help organize the Frost Road Country Fair. My role ended up being a carpentry role which suits me fine. Rona donated some plywood and the organizers wanted me to cut some holes in it so that they could make one of those picture walls where yous stick your head through. I think they were expecting it to just be a few cuts however Rona only donated 1/4 inch plywood which wasn't even strong enough to stand up without bending. 

I ended up sandwiching two layers together with a core of random strips of 2x4. I also added a plywood base and bolted it all together. Total cost was about $30.00 and I ended up clearing a lot of scrap wood out of the shop. I didn't do the painting but they turned out really well. Callie's bright idea was to take her toy horse and get a picture with her head in the horse and the horses head in the cowboy.

The fair was a lot of fun and luckily it ended up being outside. Around 3:15 in the afternoon the power went out to the entire neighborhood due to a vehicle accident. It didn't come back on until 10 minutes before the fair ended. Callie and Carter got their first pony ride. Carter still remembers his ponies name. Sabrina. The fair had all sorts of fun for the kids including bouncy castles, face painting, games, a cake walking contest and last but not least a pie eating contest.

This is where the odd dynamic of being a parent and a teacher comes in. Kerry was one of the organizers and was in charge of organizing the pie eating contest. This is difficult to do without participating yourself. There were a total of eight teachers and they sold tickets so that people could guess who they thought was going to win. Kerry is still coming down from the sugar high.

I'm not sure how much money they raised but they ended up running out of tickets. Unfortunately they couldn't photo copy more due to the power outage so they had to resort to making them by hand. I'm not sure what next years theme will be but if it's not cowboy themed I guess we'll have to repaint the picture wall.

Happy Mother's Day!

Nothing says Happy Mother's Day like feeding goats. I must say that I suck at Mother's Day. Since the kids are still young Mother's Day is pretty much still my responsibility. I tried to make breakfast but Kerry decided that she wanted Eggs Benedict. She bought the ingredients and told me what she wanted but she forgot to get ham so we were sunk.We settled on fried egg sandwiches but apparently "breaking the yolk" is a major sin and I wasn't entrusted with that portion of the meal.

The goat feeding took place at Port Kells nursery near our house. It's a great family run business and the goats were a new addition this year. They have fish in their ponds and lot's of chickens. (Carter does not like to get too close to the chickens.)

Back to Mother's day. The purpose of going to the nursery was so Kerry could pick out a plant for her present. This year she got a Yellow Rhododendron. The kids also made gifts for her at school/daycare. Carter made a cup of dirt with a wooden stick painted as a boy. (We think there is a seed in there too.)  Callie made some friendship bracelets, a card and some pictures.
For dinner we ordered Chinese food and I took care of the house hold cleaning for the day. Happy Mother's Day Kerry!

Express Yourself Finale

I had hoped to have a post after both the second and third "Express Yourself" days however day two ended up being absolute chaos. We had an additional 6 kids show up and we had to get them started from scratch and caught up with the rest of the kids. We were also down both our helpers but luckily Mr. Andres the Swiss French teacher showed up to keep the kids in line. One thing we didn't anticipate was the difficulty the kids would have hammering the nails. This was partly due to the folding tables we were using as a bench. Every hammer blow would cause the whole table to bounce. We had better luck on the floor or using the kids workbench that I had brought in.

By day three we were finally starting to figure out all the tricks including pre-drilling for the nails. We were using pine so it wasn't really necessary but it made it a lot easier for the kids to hammer. At one point I had three different drills going. One pre-drilling the nail holes. One pre-drilling the holes for the screws on the bottom and one driving the screws. (We installed the bottoms using screws to allow them to clean out the bird house between seasons.)

You'll notice I've covered the kids faces in the pictures. In the age of digital photography this is probably unnecessary but there are still guidelines about posting pictures taken in the school.
In the end we did manage to complete all the bird houses and I think the kids were quite satisfied with their accomplishments. Who knows, maybe we inspired some of them to take up woodworking as a career. Hopefully they do this again next year. I'm definitely signing up again.