Lisa Zahn

Back yard at 7 a.m. Same spot as yesterday's photo of garden, dirt then, now snow. Several more inches at 8:20 a.m. The birds were looking hungry. George spread some birdseed under cover of the patio table so the Juncos could eat. Boy, are they mean though. Only one gets to eat at a time, we noticed! No school today! George is hanging a grow light above a shelf so we can start seedling this weekend. It's nice to have an "extra" day.

Today I finally sat down to plan the garden. A lot of people talk about doing this in January, but here in Minnesota it's hard to get into that when it's just so.far.away yet. But now it's April, it's snowing like crazy, and it is time to put the plans that have been formulating in my head down on paper. Above is the front yard garden. This is the sunniest side of the house, so two years ago we put in these 4x4 foot square boxes. We have always followed the Square Foot Gardening method , but in our 13 years of marriage these are the first "true" SFG boxes we've done. They even have the grid made of lathing strips to mark off each sqare foot. I was so proud when we put these in. My anal retentive tendencies have a field day with this sort of organization and planning. Thanks, Mel Bartholomew! You can see in the picture there is an apple tree in the middle of the four squares. This is "my" apple tree (Regents) and it was planted last summer....

Yesterday I added a bunch of new links to my sidebar, as well as some more current books we're reading--also with links you can click on. These are some of my favorite, check-often sites and blogs. Some crafty, some homeschooling, some gardening, some "end of the world" news, some others. I read a lot and check these regularly. I have too much going on in my brain to limit this blog to one topic, or my links to one theme. Check some of them out! We're off to Orchestra for Eli and the library today. More tomorrow (maybe). Have a good one! Lisa

I've seen a few crafty blogs ( here and here ) where they've made books lately. I decided to try my hand at it for three reasons: 1. I wanted to buy sketch books for the kids and me for Nature Journals and such, but it's Buy Nothing Challenge month. 2. I have the materials on hand. Plain printer paper, embroidery thread, etc. 3. It's a way to artfully use the kids' and my watercolor paintings (from way back in Waldorf preschool days...) Kitty helped! The finished books. Aren't they lovely? Thanks to the kids' beautiful watercolors. They helped pick out their favorite watercolors for book covers and saw the process, but the sewing was kind of hard so I did that. I'm glad to have them see me "making do" and making it beautiful, too. One of my favorite sayings is this... Use it up Wear it out Make it do Do without A good old Yankee verse, I think. Probably got a lot of use in the Great Depression, and perhaps will come back in vogue in thi...

Elijah's really into swords, archery and other things Medieval right now. He's been reading The Ranger's Apprentice series and loves it! Rose joined him for an outdoor battle. Soon Rose's silk "warrior princess" cape became the wall of a fort, joined by other silk squares, clothespins, rocks, string ties, chairs, etc. Rose is our "figure-it-out" girl. She spent quite a while making the fort. But alas, the breeze (though warm) got the best of them. So they ate their lunch in the shade of the big golf umbrella...