Memorial Day fun

We enjoyed some family time on Memorial Day weekend.  I especially liked sharing time at the cemetary with grandparents.  They shared stories of those whose graves we were visiting.  Grandpa G was a good man who loved people.  He treated everyone well and especially loved his family.  Debbie was a sweet, perfect sister who taught patience, endurance and faith in the goodness of God and the blessings yet to come.

 There was also some cousin time.  The girls came with us and the boys went to my sisters house.  While the boys set up a tent and slept outside the girls enjoyed Jaxynn curling their hair, popcorn, and watching a movie.

S, J, Q, and D

New gardening hopes

A blogger introduced us to this film called Back to Eden and we are excited to make some improvements in our garden.  On that web site there is a how to tab with a little more information.  I couldn't get it to embed but here is another woman with a similar method.

a close up of our peas.  We had tilled and don't really have the supplies to do the other method but we are collecting and doing what we can.  I really liked using the hula hoe on a daily basis.  You just spend 15 minutes in the morning going over a section of the garden, kind of like vacuuming, sliding it over the soil between the rows and the tiny weeds never get a good start and you stay on top of things.  I'll keep doing that on the ground that is showing but we will start to make the transition as we can.

 We have grass growing in our orchard.  I thought it was nice because it cut way down on the mud and weeds. No one was willing to mow it but that was okay until the nursery man came by.  He let me know that the grass takes a lot of water and is competing with the fruit trees for water.  That convinced me that we could kill the grass.  We pile up yard clippings and an old bale of straw.  The second tree we put down card board boxes first.  They will not only kill the grass but they will keep the soil damp and the water that is there will be much better used.  As it breaks down (composts) it will just add goodness to the soil.

 I am adding a little of the straw to the rows as they come up and am hand watering with a hose.  It has worked well.  Very few weeds have come up between the rows because they don't get water and the hand watering seems to be enough because the straw keeps things moist longer.

We also were able to get some raspberry starts.  Thanks J and L. and we planted them on the north side of the greenhouse but behind the sprinklers  I have not watered them for well over a week and the soil under the straw is still moist.  We like in the desert valleys of Utah and are in a bit of a drought. 

We had a very mild winter.  When we don't get enough mountain snow we don't have water for our gardens. I am praying this will be an answer to helping our plants grow healthy and well without the water that is traditionally needed.  This summer we will work on getting a source of wood chips.  We found a newspaper source from the local newspaper office.  They have leftovers of adds each week free for the taking.  Blessings are opening up and I am very grateful.

looking up and going up

We have been going up and looking up with lots of fun activities.  First it was a hike up to Timpanogas Cave.  Great hike, fun cousins, and an amazing cave to learn about

Then we had our local scoutarama which is always a lot of fun for the whole family.  The kids loved the rock climbing and this year they had hot air balloon rides.  That is one thing I have never done but now my children have.

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Tall One climbed it in cowboy boots and only used one color of grips(?)

 Last week we also had an interesting evening of cloud cover.  Mr. O and I enjoyed laying on the trampoline and watching the interesting shapes and changes they made.  I don't remember ever seeing the sky look quite like this.

 Sunday evening we had received our solar shades and enjoyed watching the eclipse.  I'm not an accomplished photographer for that kind of picture but with our shade is looked just like the pictures now on the internet.  We wandered our neighborhood sharing our glasses and oohing and aahing.  Ike noticed the interesting shadowing of the trees that looked crescent shaped.  I do wish I had taken a picture of that.

Renaissance Festival

Went to the Utah Renaisance Festival and Fair.  We enjoyed our visit.  Saw some fun things, but didn't care for the many people offering to accept tips and selling their wares.

 fun music greeted us at the entrance

Jack Sparrow along with a few other pirates and belly dancers wandered the area and did some shows

For the  jousting contest each knight gives a flower to a young maid. Doodle was chosen.

We watched vaulting which is gymnastics on horseback. Pretty good.

 A long story telling which we were held as his captive audience.

 And a place for lost children.  Mine look a little sad but their cousins seem to be quite content to be in the charge of this angel.

Videos for mother's day

For the mom's.  Take time to enjoy the moments.  Live on purpose.  Be present.

To the Dads who have so much power and influence on future mothers and can truly help and bless the mothers of your children.

Mother's day thoughts

Sometimes (maybe often) my thoughts are unusual.  I'm feeling a little different about Mother's Day. I am very grateful for my mother.  She is amazing and good. She not only gave me life but also gave me abundant living.  She continues to love me unconditionally (as well as others) and she continues to support me and think I am amazing.

bunnies, finally another successful litter

I have also been wishing I knew a bit more about my grandmothers - for generations.  I remember fondly my immediate grandmothers and appreciate them but wish I knew more of their thoughts, their dreams, their love and testimony.  When I try and go any further back, there is almost no more information than major dates and names.  It is hard to get to know someone when they don't share their story.  I am hoping and praying that my children are developing positive relationships and happy memories with their grandparents.

The unusual part of my thoughts are that for Mother's day I was more excited to get something for my daughters than my mothers.  I love my mothers (my own and mil) but I feel such amazing gratitude for the opportunity to be a mother.  I have given birth to 8 children. Some might feel that is a burden and it is truly hard work at times but I have no regrets in the sacrifices that are required in raising a family.  My family is spread out.  I have been having babies for 21 years.  Now my first baby is 27 and my youngest is almost 6.  I have spent more than 27 years raising a family and I LOVE it.  I don't look forward to an empty nest.  I don't have some big agenda just waiting until I get free of this obligation.  This is my purpose and I make plenty of mistakes along the way.  It is not always easy to see the rewards.  Sometimes it is down right hard to keep the long term goals in sight.  It is getting down in the nitty gritty of daily living.  It is providing the menial tasks and the thankless jobs because I get to serve some of the most amazing spirits to ever come to this earth.  It is planting tiny seeds in the mud and yuck with the hope of miracles.  I can't see all the potential in each seed.  It takes years to grow and become all it was created to become but I get to watch and help the process.  I get to rejoice with each new shoot the plant sets off.  I get to see each bloom open.  I get to endure the storms with them, the pruning, the blossoming and finally the bearing fruit.

This year as I think about Mother's day I feel grateful that a few children where willing to come to my family and allow me to be the mother.  I feel to celebrate that I have daughters just beginning that  path.  They are just watching those little seedlings breaking forth from the dry ground and things may look a little difficult, even overwhelming but they are willing and so very much more capable than I was.  They will make mistakes and together they will learn the things they need to.  They have been given their own purpose and plan and they are embracing that role of woman.  It includes wife, mother, nurturer.

My thoughts turn to celebrating their journey.  My desire is to do all I can to encourage, support, sustain, be a listening ear, a cheer leader, a shoulder to cry on.  I feel an overflowing gratitude for my family and that mothering never ends.  I continue to need my mother.  I wish and hope to know the many grandmothers.  For now I will seek to be the mother others in my life may need and I hope to recognize and appreciate the many women that mother me in my journey.

Some favorite links on mothering

• http://www.aholyexperience.com/2012/05/the-habit-of-a-mother-who-changes-the-world/
• http://www.aholyexperience.com/2012/05/what-every-mother-has-to-know-before-mothers-day/
• http://momastery.com/blog/2012/01/04/2011-lesson-2-dont-carpe-diem/

Staying odd, weird, or peculiar

I recently had an interesting discussion about alternative health care.  The majority of the room felt like responsible parents/people rely on traditional medicine.  I don't.  I feel like too many people turn their responsibility over to an "expert".  They want to find a doctor who will sympathize, give them a quick fix, or be willing to put them on a path of experts, medications, side effects and more medications.  I am not anti-Western medicine.  I am pro - think it through, study it out, take responsibility for your self, learn to handle things at home, trust the creator, seek to understand the body.  Ask more questions.  Seek  answers from a variety of sources and make an educated decision.  We are each different.  Doctors don't know or understand everything.  Drugs can't fix everything.  I think anyone would agree.  The scary part comes when we admit that there might be another way to take care of an ailment, a discomfort, a problem.  That is when we may need to do things differently than the popular norm.

I came away realizing again that I am odd.  I like questioning tradition.  I don't want to do it just because that is the way it has always been done or everyone else is doing it.  I do believe is respecting civil decency, high moral standards, customs. . .  I also believe in personal responsibility, personal revelation, and personal mission and purpose.  I believe that there is more than one "right way".

One of the many ways I choose a less traveled road is in education.  We homeschool.  Many people are beginning to look at the possibility of doing it or at least allowing others to do it.  I am grateful for choices and for those who take the time to consciously choose their course, their path.  I'm always looking to understand better and learn from others who have divergent thinking, new ideas, different answers to the old questions.  Some recent sources that I highly recommend.

1.  Tall One shared this book, insisted that I read it and is anxious to get his friends and eventually someone at the local high school to read it.  It is called Stop Stealing Dreams and is a free online book about learning, education, and  the real needs of education.

2. Ken Robinson on TED has some interesting ideas about education, creativity and how are schools are doing.


http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms.html

3.  Other recent Eye opening reading was The Alchemist.  I actually got it in audiobook form and enjoyed listening to it.

Back to the original health issues, I believe that we just have to get smarter.  There are people on every side of things that have had success, been deceived, have spent way too much money, or been able to improve their standard of health.We must be willing to seek out what is best for us. And then to trust those answers.

Recently while discussing menapause a family member said that she had taken a particular drug because she had been having hot flashes.  Yes, it could give her breast cancer but she didn't care.  To me that does not make sense. The point brought up in the discussion the other night is the "proven scientific results" of drugs or diagnosis.

Doctors practice medicine.  They spend a lot of time becoming qualified and then they try to remember everything they were taught and please the patient.  The pharmaceutical companies are there to educate them on the newest drug options, offer samples, and hope for the best.  The number of side effects that require additional treatment can be staggering. Doctors can't fix everything. I am grateful for what they can do and especially for their willingness and efforts.  If we would take better care of those things within our ability maybe they would have more time to figure out the big stuff.  If we would take time to learn from our challenges, maybe we would become better, find ways to help others and discover that God has provided many answers that are often safer and healthier.

I guess my goal is to make choices with my eyes wide open, be willing to trust my instinct and be willing to admit that sometimes we get to do leave the norm and find something better.