Ways We Like to READ!!

I am tickled with all the different ways I find my kids reading. I really don't care how they read, but just that they read and enjoy it. Here are a few ways we like to read.....

 

 

 

 Since Miss Julia is not reading yet she's working on a maze book while everyone else reads.......

 I TOTALLY  LOVE it when this happens.....reading buddies!

 Besides reading we have practicing some life skills as well.....BEEKEEPING!

The Monday following my Bee School, I taught the kids most of what I learned. They thought trying on my BEE jacket was really fun. Of course we had to pretend to smoke the hive as well. (I forgot to take a picture of Lance..oppps!)

 

 

They all seem to be very interested and excited about the bees. I think they will continue to BEE excited as long as they watch from afar and don't get stung.

We have less than 40 days of school left here at our house, and we sure are EXCITED about our upcoming summer break!!!

Another Productive Week!

I spent my week bringing in my first bouquet, planting, transplanting, weeding, tilling & plowing. It has been truly joyous to be playing in the dirt and having dirt under my nails. We are  in awe of the mild and warm weather we are getting so early in the year.

 I cut any blooms, and the ones that were budding. Then I transplanted the rest into my garden.

I cut these last Tuesday and they are still gorgeous! I've changed the water twice and re-cut them once.

My mother-in-law thought she needed to take my picture so I can actually put a picture of me on the blog.

 Here I am transplanting some tulips, they used to be over in a weedy part of the woods. I think they will be happier here.

Squinting from the sun...See I told you I am SUPER HAPPY to be in the DIRT!

Another project in the garden this past week....

 I uncovered my two strawberry patches. I cover them in the winter with 3-4 inches of straw to help insulate them from the cold winters we usually have. I'm  amazed and how green and bushy they look already since uncovering them.

 My garden has been tillable so I worked up a little patch and planted some of my cold-weather seeds.
I had this cute idea that I saw on Pinterest to mark my rows, but after running it by the Hubby he made a couple of good points so I decided to mark my rows by simply using rocks and a permanent marker. Nothing fancy, but I wanted something to mark them until the plants came up.

I planted THREE rows of carrots, ONE row each of Romaine Lettuce, Spinach, & Mini- Head Lettuce.

Then this past weekend we had the excitement of plowing up our main veggie garden/ butterfly garden. 

 We borrowed my father-in-law's tractor and 2-bottom plow to make this an easy job.

 Here we are part of the way done....

 Here is a view from the second story of our house. Do you think it will be big enough?

 Since I was up there, here is a shot of our fruit/cutting (flower) garden. We have purchased adorable red cedar picket fence to go around this garden, and I'm excited to get it up. (It's on the "list"!)

I think that pretty much catches up all up on what we are doing here at The Gaertegang Homestead. I hope you have been enjoying all this dreamy weather doing something you love.

I'm linking this week to Homestead Revival.

Work Around the Homestead

This past weekend was pretty hopping busy around the Homestead! Here is a little recap of how things went. Friday night, Justin's mission, to remove the radiator from our new (to us) tractor...I guess it needs a new one. Bummer! I'm thankful to get it done now, before we are needing to use it. My mission, to reorganize, and take inventory of our canning jar supply. Both missions were accomplished!

 All nice & organized....

 My pantry...

 I simply used masking tape to label where I plan to each item.

 This is all we have left...a few cans of tomato juice, apple sauce, apple pie filling, peaches, spaghetti sauce on the bottom.

SATURDAY

Hubby spent the day on the road with the kids...picking up a part for the tractor, then picking up our new (to us) garden shed. Again, thank you Craigslist.

I spent the entire day at Beekeeping School!

 I started off the morning putting together the hive kit. It was great to see all the parts of the hive and exactly how they go together. (Above: the bottom board, the hive box.)

  I have all the frames built, and ready to go, I was so proud of myself! 

I forgot to take a picture of the completed project with my top & all..opps!

Then the morning session was finished off with a demo on using the smoker. Then the whole afternoon was spent consuming an ENORMOUS amount of instruction. I took three pages of notes. I plan to teach all the great info to the kids as a part of our garden study.

Shortly after arriving home from "school" I saw this in my driveway!

 My new Garden Shed!! (This is the back.) The previous owner built it for his daughter as a playhouse.

 We went to work prepping the site. It's a little hard to tell, but there was lots of brush in the way.

 Caleb & Zach helping to move things our of the way...love my helpers!

 My good looking Hubby, and my father-in-law clearing the brush...

 All cleared out, tree branches trimmed, now time for the machinery!

 My awesome father-in-law leveling up the ground ...

 After leveling, we laid cement blocks.

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Then after more time than we planned on, and executing Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, Plan D...you get what I mean.... we finally got this HEAVY beast in the spot we wanted. I LOVE IT!!

While the men all worked on the shed positioning, the kids and I played outside.

 The kids were enjoying some chips for an afternoon snack.

 I was admiring the blooms on my thorn-less blackberry and all it's buds....I can hardly wait.

Then I moved on to check out my blueberry bushes....Look at all those gorgeous buds!

My raspberries look like they wintered very nicely as well. Many of the perennials I transplanted are starting to come up. I'm very excited about the peonies peeking up through the ground. Okay I think it's safe to say I'm just excited about everything around here these days!

 I'm linking up to Homestead Revival this week!
You can go check out what other Homesteaders are up to.

Old Hymn Book DIY project!!

We've had an old hymnal book for awhile, I think we got it at an auction..imagine that! The covers have fallen off, some of the pages have fallen out, but there was no way I was getting rid of it. I saw an idea (although I don't remember where) a long time ago where someone hung sheet music on the wall of a room. I thought that was a fun idea and maybe someday I would be brave enough to try something different like that.

WELL GUESS WHAT I DID TODAY?

 It's rather hard to see it, I did it in our half bath, which is pretty tiny & not camera friendly.

 Hear is another angle...you get the idea, right? I really LOVE it! So many wonderful hymns!

 I framed "In The Garden" it's a special song here at our house.

 Here are a few more that I really love...The Rugged Cross

 Jesus Loves Even Me....

There is Power In The Blood

I have plenty of extras still in case any get ruined for any reason. I love the floor to ceiling look! I used Stampin' Up mini glue dots to fix them to the wall. They will remove will no problem and not leave any marks if I choose to ever remove them. This makeover took about an hour. I did a totally random layout...no planning involved. I really like thinking outside the box when it comes to making your home your own. 

The real test is if the MISTER likes it....

First Sale of the Season!

It's the beginning of March and the first "sale" in our area was in the paper. I went for mainly one thing they had in the add....canning jars. Not only did I score what I went for but I grabbed a few other goodies too!

I scored 4 dozen quart jars in all. (One box not pictured.)

I love the trough looking wood thing in that back, I plan to plant some pretty flowers in it!

The spreader was a huge find...it still has all the seed plates!

Want to guess how much all my treasure cost me? ~ I love that game....

 I'm smitten with this super old wire basket.

I'm not sure if you knew this about me, but I LOVE galvanized anything!

~All my loot was $20! ~

$3 a dozen for the jars

Then I bundles together the spreader, the bucket, the basket, and the wooden trough.....$8

A big thank you to AMERICAN PICKERS for teaching me the bundling trick!

I don't know what you think, but I'm tickled pink with my first garage sale of the year!

Zach.....

I don't know about it you, but I have this weakness for a little shavers who is missing their front teeth.

 Zach has joined that club as of this morning! He's so proud.....I JUST LOVE IT!

Two More Added to the Homestead

Lance has been wanting to add to his duck collection. This week were purchased two baby ducks from our local TSC store.

 Meet Junior & Speedy..don't ask which is which we can't tell them apart yet.

 They are both Mallard ducks, and there is a lot of holding these cuties going on these days. The plan is to take one of them in 4-H, but we are still looking into that.

 Two new ducks equals one really happy young man.

Over the next couple months we plan to add four 4-H pigs, two pet rabbits, a batch of meat chickens, two sheep for 4-H, possibly a couple baby cows,  24,000 honey bees for our new hives, and a puppy!

Like I mentioned before, we will not be bored here at the HOMESTEAD this Spring!