Compost Bins, and Babies....

Well, the first bit of news of the week.... Tuesday, May 13, 1:49 pm Brooklynn Danielle was born. That is, my new niece: my SIL's daughter. (That is, the hubby's sister.) She was born a couple of weeks early through c-section, since my SIL had already started showing signs of impending labor and vaginal delivery isn't an option for her.

Had a bit of a chuckle when Tay went with my MIL to see the new baby at the hospital on Wednesday. She came home all giddy over how her new cousin already likes her and kept smiling at her and even grinned when she heard Tay's name. I decided I'm not going to tell my poor child that at a day and a half old, any "smiles" she saw out of Brooklynn are because the baby had gas. I think that'd kinda sour Tay's opinion of the baby if Tay realized that the baby was farting on her. *wink* Naw, we'll go with the "she likes me already" reasoning.

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We had some friends over for a bit of a cook-out last night, as well as my dad. This may well be the last time Dad comes over for supper on Saturday evening. He is going to be flying some of his belongings down to the my baby sis in Spokane next weekend. Then he's planning on starting his drive out of Alaska on Tuesday, June 3. It's just crazy to think that he's already at the point of leaving Alaska. He's been talking about it for years, but it's taken SOOOO long to actually make it happen, that I was wondering if it was ever actually GOING to happen.

Anyway, the friends we had over last night have 4 kids. Tony, a 5th grader. Aurora, a 3rd grader. Vinnie, 3 years old. And Emmy, 10 months. They are some CUTE kids. But dang could that Vinnie give Dennis the Menace a run for his money. Oh, they've all got good attitudes, but Vinnie has an ornery streak a mile & a half wide.

Emmy was the cutest baby, though. She & her older sis both have their mama's strawberry blond hair and very fair coloring. We were told by both M & B (Dad and Mom) that Emmy is usually rather reserved around strangers. She took to Dad and I like she'd known us since birth. *grin* Cuddling with both of us and grinning like a crazy fool when we'd talk to her. Dad was in 7th heaven, getting to cuddle a little one. I maintain that this tidbit is why she liked Dad so much, she intuited how much Dad likes babies. But ooooh, she was a cute one. ALMOST enough to make me wish for another. Almost. *wink* They got here at about 5, and she spent the next 3 hours being sweet & cuddly and VERY good humored, only starting to get fussy after 8 pm when it was time for "B.B.B." as her Daddy put it: Butt, Bottle, Bed. *smile* So B. and I came inside and talked for a bit longer while Scott & M. stood around outside battling mosquitos & goofing off with Vinnie.

I hope we get to hang out with M & B more often. They're kids would be good influences on Tay. They homeschool with the same program we'll be using. And their senses of humor and morals & values seem to line up with mine & Scott's pretty well. (Well, at least, Mine & B.'s line up, and Scott's & M's line up. But, in those same ways where the things that bug me about Scott will also likely bug me about M. But at least M. has to go home with B. *grin* I only have to put up with ONE of those bone-heads on a day-to-day basis.)

Just because I can, this is a pic of my little birch in the front yard. Scott wants to completely remove those supports, but I'm nervous that if we do we'll lose the little guy in one of our really strong winds. I think the compromise is to go ahead and losen the supporting strings and let the tree stand on it's own basis, while still keeping the strings and metal supports intact in case we need to give "him" a little extra support during an especially windy day.

Oh, and all pictures taken today were with my new camera. *grin*

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There seems to be so many little things that happened this week that I wanted to talk about here, but I just can't remember what they all were now. *sigh* Go figure. So I guess I'll get on into my "Independence Day Challenge" run-down for the week.

Planted:

Five small seedling pots, two with cucumbers (the front two), three with tomatoes. I'm keeping these in my kitchen window which gets nice afternoon sun. These plants will be staying over here, though I'm not sure where all of the tomatoes will go, if they all come up.

Harvested: Well, I'd heard that fireweed is an reasonable substitute for asparagus when picked when it's still teeny tiny red-colored little sprouts. So, I figured I'd give it a try. *sigh* Can't say I was at all impressed with it. I may have steamed it a bit too long, as well. Anyway, it wasn't something I'm looking forward to trying again. I'd still like to try some dandilion green salad, though. And we're far enough behind everybody else that the dandilions still haven't started blossoming.

Tended: *shrug* My chives and rhubarb plants. Kinda. I REALLY need to get out & pull weeds and get my section of trellis where my bean-patch goes weeded so it's not so hard to plant in the next couple of weeks.

Preserved: Nothing.

Make Preparations: Does it count that I'm almost done with another afghan finally??? Another couple of rows of edging, and it'll be done. It's a nice long skinny granny-square afghan, perfect for covering up with when stretched out on the couch. I'll post pics as soon as I'm done with it and have it washed.

Cooked: I think the fireweed shoots also qualify for this. Not that I'll be making them again if I have any say in the matter.

Managed: Just the usual stocking and re-stocking of our canned goods and supplies as we use them.

Local Food Systems: Got to the farmer's market yesterday. Took in 3 empty egg cartons for one woman who sells home-grown eggs. Bought a cake and a couple of cream rolls from a woman who owns a local small bakery. She sells only at the farmer's market and makes the BEST cakes. And those cream rolls..... Damn!!! They're little waffle cone "rolls" (like canneloni, I think, but with "waffles") filled with a whipped cream mixture that is either lemon flavored, honey flavored, or vanilla flavored. She alternates back and forth between honey & vanilla, and always has lemon. I could eat 2 or 3 of the lemon rolls all by myself. *grin* I also bought a couple of bars of soap from a local soap-maker. Her soaps are good, but her hand-cream is better. She makes it all with goat's milk from her small herd of goats kept on her property up in Ester. So, yeah..... I supported local food (and crafty) systems this week. Oh, and I bought a bag of kettle corn. *grin* It's hard to pass up the home-cooked kettle corn from the Farmer's Market.

Composted:

These are pictures of my new compost bin! Scott helped me build it last Sunday night after we got home from my Mother's Day Dinner. (More on that in a bit.) It's a half-pallet, so it's like a foot & a half or 2 feet wide, and 3 and a half or 4 feet long. (Not sure of the exacts.) We nailed a piece of chicken wire over the bottom, to keep the compost IN the bin, then nailed more chicken wire in a ring around the whole bit. Filled it with a small layer of leaves.

Then I put in the bucket-full of composting goodies that I'd been "saving" all winter. It was pretty ripe. Anyway, covered THAT over with another layer of leaves, soaked it all down, then mixed it up with a rake. After adding more composted "goodies" all week, I just covered it last night with ANOTHER layer of leaves and soaked it down more, and mixed it up a bit more. I need to figure out how wet I'm supposed to keep it, though. I read it's supposed to be something like a wrung-out but wet sponge. Well, I am NOT sticking my hand in there to test that. *grin*

Learned a new skill: Does that include building the compost bin??? Between that and composting in it, instead of just tossing my food-scraps into a bucket on the back deck, I suppose that does qualify as learning a new skill. *grin*

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So, Mother's Day was pretty good last week. Besides the camera, Tay also gave me a new copy of that movie "P.S. I love you" I haven't watched it yet. And we went out to dinner at Two River's Lodge. I had shrimp scampi. It was VERY yummy! And Tay gave me a couple cute cards, one of which was made in school and had some flowers that you pulled out that were "coupons" for things she'd do for me around the house. I had to chuckle because on the inside of that one she wrote "I don't WANT to do this, but I'm doing it because I love you. Your wonderful daughter, Taylor." *grin* And one of the flowers had written that she'd do her math homework without whining. Ironically, she gave this to me one week before school ended. *wink*

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And yes, thankfully school has ended! We're all very happy about this. Between that and hockey ending, we've now got about 2 weeks with nothing going on except work. Then soccer starts for the summer. And we will eventually have to do some paperwork and orientations for the homeschool program, but not for a bit.

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Ok. I've gotta get off here and get heading to work.

Have a Blessed Day!