Tag: weather

Rainy Days and Sunday

On By debweeksIn Art, Cooking, Friends, Gardening, movies, storms, UpdatesLeave a comment

And now I find myself singing The Carpenters Rainy Days and Mondays.

For those of you who have no idea who The Carpenters are, here you go.

Years before moving to Texas, we heard much about the drought.  Since moving to Texas, we’ve seen more than our fair share of rain.  Last weekend was storms and today we had more storms – only your standard run of the mill thunderstorm.  Nothing severe at our house, fortunately.  However, according to my rain gauge, we got 1.5 inches of rain.  My pool will not need to have water added to it for a while, that’s for sure and the plants I have potted have more than enough water now.

The girls and I have had fun painting terra-cotta pots . . . .

. . . . and with all the pots I’ve purchased, we have planted tomatoes, flowers, herbs, strawberries and have Serrano pepper and sweet pepper seeds started.

Because it was a rainy day, we took the girls to see the movie “The Boss Baby.”

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It certainly wasn’t our favorite animated movie, but was entertaining.  When we came out from the movie, the rain had stopped and the sun was shining.  As I write this, it’s cloudy again with more rain in the forecast for tonight.

Our home school group is still trying to collect money to provide duffel bags to foster children.  Honestly, we had hoped it would be much more successful than it has been, yet providing duffel bags to a few kids who would otherwise leave their homes with nothing more than a garbage bag with a few items is better than no duffel bags at all.  Still, we would like to provide many more children with these duffel bags, so if you’re reading this and can donate anything at all, it would be greatly appreciated.  Click here to go to our donation page.

Naomi and I attended an Ethiopian cooking class yesterday.  It was organized by a fellow adoptive mom and attended by several other adoptive families as well as several Ethiopian families who live in the DFW area.  We learned how to make Lentil Sambusa,

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Shiro,

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Yeater Kik Alicha,

and Ye’abasha Gomen.

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were some other Ethiopian dishes provided as well as Injera.

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It was so much fun getting together with such a wonderful group of people, eating some delicious food and getting to know others in the area.  When it was time for us to leave (3 hours later), Naomi was not happy about going.  She made a new friend that I hope we will see again soon.

That’s just a little bit of this and that on this rainy Sunday.

Merry Christmas, Wicked Weather

On By debweeksIn Holidays, Snow, storms, Texas, Weather1 Comment

Guess we’re in Texas now :-0

Our first Christmas in Texas was really quite nice.  The girls were excited Christmas morning to discover gifts under our little tree.  Of course it meant more stuff in our small space that have no home, but I’ve managed to find places to put some things and today I’m off to buy a couple more storage items in an effort to get things a little better organized.

Christmas afternoon we me my sister-in-law, brother-in-law and niece at a local movie theater to see the spectacular movie, Chipmunks Road Chip.  Yes, it was your typical Chipmunks movie.  Good music, decent entertainment and an enjoyable afternoon spent with family.

The next day we got to experience Texas weather at its finest.  It was warm.  Quite warm in fact and then the rains moved in.  Shortly after dinner, sirens went off and we headed to the RV clubhouse to take cover.  Fortunately, the tornadoes that moved thru the area were east of us.  Unfortunately, the tornadoes were deadly and there are many families without homes.  I really can’t shouldn’t complain much about our little space knowing that others have lost so much.  We woke up to a dusting of snow, but we have a roof over our heads, heat on this cold day, food to eat and clothes on our back.  Maybe I don’t have as much room or storage space as I would like, but we’re safe and together.  For that I’m truly thankful.

In a few day we’ll celebrate a new year and I’m hoping for some really good things to happen in 2016.

Derecho

On By debweeksIn Gardening, Weather4 Comments

Recently, I’ve had a lot of complaint about our lack of rain.  I found some wide cracks in our yard because it’s so dry and every day I’ve been watering the garden.  I would much rather have Mother Nature take care of the watering for me, but today when I checked the weather they uttered the word “Derecho.”

For those who aren’t familiar with a Derecho, it’s basically wide (about ten miles wide) and long (about 100 miles long) clusters of thunderstorms that produce massive amounts of rain and straight line winds.  While I want rain, I really don’t want rain in the form flooding rain and if the rain doesn’t drown my garden, the winds associated with a Derecho could wipe out my garden.

I suppose I should be worried about my house since a Derecho can do significant structural damage, but somehow I’m more concerned about my garden.  It’s my first year of successfully starting my own seedlings and I’ve been thrilled to see little green tomatoes on my tomato plants.  I have a jalapeno pepper on one of my pepper plants.  I just planted my herbs in pots around the garden (I may bring those in the house tonight), cabbage which is almost ready to harvest, tomatillos with an abundance of flowers on the plants, grapes vines with lots of new growth, Lili’s first little watermelon vines growing, Naomi’s bean garden thriving, peas beginning to produce peas and little green strawberries that will soon turn red and be ready for consumption.  So much love and hard work has gone into my garden this year and I shudder to think that a Derecho could leave us nothing but a soggy mess.

For now I’m keeping my eye to the sky and regularly checking the national and local weather for updates.  Fingers crossed that all we get is some rain and a little bit of wind for a bountiful garden this summer.

Some Updates

On By debweeksIn Changes, Gardening, Pets, Remodel, Weather4 Comments

As usual, there is a lot going on in the World of Weeks and I’m not sure where to start with the blog posts, so I’ll just start and hope it all falls into place.

Watering the garden has become a daily practice around here.  There was rain in the forecast all week, but we only going a few sprinkles of rain.  Not enough to even soak into the ground.  So the watering will continue and maybe our forecast of rain next week will produce some nice soakers for us.  In the meantime, little green tomatoes are emerging and they need water, so each evening I’ll continue to give the garden a nice shower while I wait for rain.

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I moved my herbs to the green house and they are growing much more quickly now.

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I have more that I need to transplant into bigger pots and will move them out to the green house in a few day.  In the meantime, I’m getting their future homes ready around the patio and can’t wait to see how my few herb garden grows.

Can I just say that having a local homeschool group is AWESOME!!!  We had our weekly get together.  One of the moms brought supplies so the kids could work on a Sharpie marker tie dye project.  The kids and the moms loved it.  Sharpie markers will be taking up residence in our home in the not too distant future.

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Change is on the horizon for the Weeks.  We’re still in property shopping mode, but it’s all on-line shopping right now.  Hubby’s work prevents us from going leaving the area for more than an overnight and we need more than an overnight to look at property.  So, we continue to wait.  That’s okay though!  We have a lot on our plates and as anxious as I am to get moved, I have come to realize that for a number of reasons, the timing just IS NOT right at the moment.

I’m in the process moving things around in my house.  Our homeschool room went from the basement (because there wasn’t enough natural light) to the dining room (which is nice and bright).  Over the weekend, I decided we should utilize our family room in a different way and transition the homeschool room back to a dining room.  So we moved our t.v. out of the family room and into our living room, a room that has rarely been used since we moved into our house 18 years ago.  We will sell our family room furniture, paint the walls and 1/2 of the family room will become our space for homeschooling.  The other 1/2 will house the girls toys, but since I’m moving things around, we’ll begin sorting and ridding ourselves of all the used/unwanted toys.  A big job, but one that needs to be done.  Then it will be time to tackle the basement.  Another big job for sure.

There are other things happening in our lives.  Some bigger than others, but I’ll save that for another time.  For today, the big happening around here is Jagger’s birthday.  Jagger is Lili’s little Papillion and today he turns 2.  Happy Birthday Jagger!

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Hope you all have a glorious day and a wonderful weekend!!

 

Amazing Vegetable

On By debweeksIn Gardening, WeatherLeave a comment

After several unfulfilled forecasts of rain, we finally got a nice little shower yesterday.  We had above normal temperatures for several days.  Above normal as in 15 – 20 degrees above normal, which my cabbage plants were not enjoying at all.  On top of that, the ground was getting pretty dry.  With seeds in the ground I found myself watering the garden a little bit in the evenings, so a nice rain shower was a very welcome sight.

The sky was clearing, so after the dinner dishes were done, I headed outside to take a look at the garden.  Finally, my kale, spinach, lettuce and carrots are emerging.  The onions are growing well and with the rain and cooler temperatures, the cabbage and broccoli look happy and content.

Then I looked at the asparagus patch.  OMG!!!  This vegetable is amazing.  Just a couple of days ago I found the first little spears beginning to pop thru the soil and last night this is what I cut.

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As quickly as asparagus grows, there will be at least this much more to cut today and we’ll continue to have beautiful stalks of asparagus to cut for the next few weeks.  With a beautiful sunny day in the 60’s, I think some grilled hamburgers and asparagus will make a wonderful dinner tonight 🙂

 

 

The Start to Our Weekend

On By debweeksIn Gardening, Kid Stuff, Weather2 Comments

We had some big outdoor plans on tap for the weekend and since Sunday is calling for storms, today was our day to get as much of it done as possible.

My primary goal was getting all my cool weather vegetables in the ground.  It really has been cool here, unseasonably cool.  Of course the day I decide to plant, it’s in the upper 70’s, which is unseasonably warm.  Not to worry though, next week is calling for colder than normal temperatures and this afternoon I read that we have a possibility of a rain/snow mix early next week.  That should be cool enough for my onions, broccoli, spinach, lettuce, carrots and peas.  Once we get past the really cool stuff at the beginning of the week, I’ll put my cabbage plants in the ground.  I’ve never grown cabbage before and am very excited about my attempt.

After I got everything planted, hubby and I got busy working on our big landscaping project.  We are putting edging around the deck and patio.  It took us a few minutes to get our system in place, but once we got it going, it began going faster than we expected.

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Once we get all the edging done, I’ll come back and put more weed block down, with mulch on top.

The little plant in the corner of the first picture is a Mock Orange bush that I just planted a couple of days ago.  I have also ordered another Hydrangea which will be planted next to the Mock Orange.  There are two new Peony bushes by the deck as well, but you can’t see them in the picture, since they were just bare root plants that have not been in the ground long.

When the weather warms up, I will add pots of various herbs to help fill in the space.

We were able to make it over half way around the patio before quitting for the day and are very pleased with our progress.

During all the landscaping, the girls took advantage of our nice warm day by entertaining themselves with the hose.

They had a big Rubbermaid container and buckets for filling.  I also got one of their little sprinklers out and they played in the sprinkler for a while.

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Then they got creative.

We have a pile of sand they had been playing in earlier.  They decided to sit in the sand and then go rinse themselves off.

That turned into seeing just how much sand they could get on their wet bodies followed by a rinse off.

Before long, they were carrying buckets of water back to the sand pile, which is nothing but dirt underneath.

Here is the result of their creativity.

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I have a small, ornamental tree that should be delivered early next week.  I really should thank them for helping me prepare a spot for the tree.

They had an awesome afternoon in the sun getting dirty and even though it took me quite some time getting them cleaned and then cleaning out the tub, they made some truly wonderful childhood memories today.

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It’s Official

On By debweeksIn Gardening, Motivation, Seasons, WeatherLeave a comment

Spring has sprung!

The temperatures have been slowly rising, although for the most part they have still been below normal. Then overnight the rains and storms moved in and now we have the possibility of severe storms this afternoon and tonight. When the severe weather threats move in, I know spring has officially arrived.

Although today is a gloomy day, the grass is much greener and my tulips are working their way up thru the soil. I should see little green leaves emerge from the branches of the trees soon and next week I’ll move my pots of cabbage and broccoli outside during the day to begin hardening before planting them the following week.

Our long, cold, snowy winter is now behind us and I look forward to the new season before us.

 

Back in Business

On By debweeksIn Homeschool, Motivation, Organization, Projects, Weather, YogaLeave a comment

After a couple of days of some wonderful tinctures made by my friend Katie at The Garden Fairy Apothecary, I am feeling considerably better.  Last time I started using her tinctures at the first sign of getting sick and didn’t get sick at all.  This time I waited too long, but with hours of taking my first dose of Echinacea and her Cold and Flu tincture, I was starting to feel better.  I know not everyone is convinced herbal remedies work, but I am quite sure they worked for me.

Now that I’m back in business, it’s time to get caught up on some things.

Yesterday, we had a nice spring-like day, so I put on my jacket, grabbed my rake and headed outside.  Part of our yard is fenced off, primarily for the dogs and it was quite a mess from a winter of neglect.  I began raking and cleaning, then decided to spread some grass seed over some bare parts of the yard.  As I was throwing the grass seed, I realized that little to none of it may actually grow.  After all, dogs run and do their business in this yard, but not typically where it’s all dirt or in this case, mud.  It was worth a try and I’m hopeful that some pretty green grass will begin to change all the brown and black bare spots into a pretty green pasture of new grass.  If not, I’ll move on to plan B.

Last night we got a little rain, which I’m sure the grass seed loved.  Today we’ve had clouds and cool temperatures all day, so the girls and I headed to the basement and began tackling that mess.  The basement had become our rec, play and homeschool area, but I discovered that I really didn’t enjoy homeschooling the girls in the basement.  It was great space, but it’s not the bright and cheery area I wanted to create.  Eventually, I began homeschooling the girls in the kitchen and then we made our way to the dining room.  There is a sliding glass door that gives us tons of natural light and the table provides us ample space to do our work.  I have since brought the bookcases upstairs so their books and supplies can be put away instead of taking up space on the table or countertops.  Other bookshelves were put in each of the girls rooms and all their reading books are now at their fingertips.

I still have a lot of cleaning and organizing to do in the basement, but it will go back to being just a rec and playroom, with lots of room to run off energy on snowy, cold and/or rainy days.  It will also be a great place for me to spread out my mat for some yoga.

Apparently, being sick provided me time to focus on all the things I wasn’t getting done.  I have a better picture of what needs to be done and I’m motivated to get moving on things.  Guess something good came out of a couple of days of down time.

 

 

Record Breaking Winter May Cause Delays

On By debweeksIn Gardening, WeatherLeave a comment

Thanks to the snow storm that moved thru over the weekend, we have now broken a record for the most snowfall. The previous record was 52.5″ and this year we’ve now had 53.4″ of snow. Sadly, it doesn’t appear we’re done with the snow as we have more snow forecast mid-week and this weekend.  Ugh!!!!

However, this too shall pass or at least I hope so.

Yesterday I heard that we are on track for a colder than normal March. It also appears we may be in for a cooler than normal April and possibly May.  As I watch my seedlings emerge thru the soil, I begin to wonder when I will be able to plant them outdoors.  It’s not just a matter of the snow melting (although it will provide some good moisture for the garden), but our soil temperature needs to warm up as well.  That can’t happen if we continue having below normal temperatures for the next 2 months.  This record breaking winter may cause delays in my gardening plans and that doesn’t make me very happy. 

So maybe it’s time I fight back and build some tunnels to help warm the soil so we can get our garden planted in time this year.  Not only would tunnels help us get an earlier start in the spring, but they are also helpful in extending the gardening season into the late fall and early winter.  At the very least, I think garden tunnels are worth some serious consideration.

I supposed I should run this idea past hubby since he will likely be the one building them 🙂

So hubby, what do you think?  Can you build me some of these in your spare time?  LOL!!!

And to all the other gardeners who might be reading, do you use tunnels in your garden? Do you have any tips or suggestions?