Planting The Garden

Well it seemed like a long time in coming but spring is here!!! Lately we have been enjoying the warmer days, getting lots of yard work done, the busyness that comes with seeding, playing sports and long evening walks.

Even though the pace of life picks up a bit in spring...OK it picks up a lot..it's still such a refreshing time of year. My heart is happy as I see the green grass and leaves starting to form on the trees. I know I wouldn't appreciate spring near as much if it were not for our long cold winter. And this past winter was especially cold and long so that means I am especially happy!!

And what a better thing to do when your feeling happy than to plant a garden!!

Let me just brag on my husband here a bit :)
My man is a Godly, hard working man and I love him to bits.
After a break in seeding, he could have done many other things, (as his list is long) or even enjoyed a bit of down time. But instead he jumped off the seeder and set up the tiller and then proceeded to till our garden! 

Here is Jesse. 

He hasn't really helped much with the garden in previous years because he is always out in the field during this time. But this year he was home and was eager to help. 

Must be the farmer in him!

We started by planting peas. Peas take a little more time to plant because we double row them and put up a trellis for them to climb. It takes more time now but is so much more enjoyable and less back breaking once picking season comes around. Here is Kerri and I putting up the trellis.

And of course when you garden with lots of boys there is always lots of goofing around.
Yes Zach, we can still see you!

Josiah shares his love for dirt with his Daddy and farmer brothers. On a side note: you may think that all of our boys are farmers at heart but not so. Even though they do help around the farm when needed only three of the eight are die hard farmers. (By that I mean they are up at dawn and stay up until the days work is done (not always possible, but they try their best to convince us to let them :) and even when they are sleeping they are still farming in their dreams :) Our farm boys? Joshua (obviously!), Jesse and Josiah. We are pretty sure that Eli is headed in the same direction too, but time will tell!

A fresh tilled garden is so fun to play in! But the fun is usually short lived as momma thinks that a hard packed garden is not fun to plant in!

Our sweet Joey

Mikaya is a huge help to our family. She is often found entertaining the little ones and is usually asking throughout the day, "Is there anything I can help you with?"

Here's our sticks to mark the rows. Exciting...I know :)

Homesteader Lincoln peas. We decided to plant way more peas this year as we always seem to run out in the winter and you just can't buy them in the store as good as our own home grown. So, knowing that this is going to make pea picking season very, very busy, we figured it would be worth the effort. We will tell you if it this was a good idea after the season is done! We planted double the peas that we did last year.

We love to have little helpers in the garden but it's always a little hard for them to know how far apart to plant the seeds. So we give them something to mark with. This year I labeled a straw with inches so they could measure out their seeds. Here is Brooke trying it out.

Brooke is also a huge help to our family. She is learning how to bake and cook and keep a house neat and clean. Its always a hoot working along side her as she likes to laugh and keep things light hearted. She is a lot like her papa.

And of course only Jaden would come out perfectly dressed for the occasion. We have had such a cool spring that the poor child is thoroughly confused on the appropriate apparel!

Poor sad little Eli.
He doesn't even get out of being potty trained when we are gardening!!

Oh, and a gardening trick from Jesse....it always helps to stick your tongue out!

My little farmer always seems to have a dirty face.

Buddies

This is Kerri. She likes gardening more than her mother.

Boys....

Boys.....

Boys!!!!!!
Never a dull moment with them around!

I told you she likes gardening!

Happy little gardeners. (I am starting to think that all of our kiddos have dirty faces...hee hee!!!

Gardening: 

A perfect mother/daughters bonding time.

Silly kiddos!

I would like to say that we got the garden all planted but the reality is
the garden tiller broke down.
Then we got lots of rain.
So we are waiting for a tiller and some dry ground.
But don't worry, we have lots of other projects to keep us busy.
And maybe you will even get to see a few of those projects because
 my dear daughter Jennifer got a new camera
and has been busy snapping pictures of our every day happenings.
(That's why you don't see her in any of these pictures :)
My girls have been telling me that my blog has been rather "quiet" (aka:boring)
 to which I give all kinds of excuses!
One of them being that Megan used to upload all my photos onto the blog
but now she's gone and gotten married!
So Jen decided to remedy that and has offered to upload pictures to the blog for me!!
I know....sweet girl.
So I hope to do a bunch more blogging and who knows,
you may get sick of me yet!!