Garden of your heart

Wonderful 4th Weekend

Direct my footsteps according to your word. Psalm 119:133

Well, I was right, this last week was crazy busy!!  The first couple of days I tried to make sure laundry and regular stuff was done up.  Wednesday I started baking some quick breads, Thursday I did muffins and more quick breads, Friday I made pies and hubby got the cinnamon rolls started and I finished them.  Wow, that sounds so easy..........but it was a lot of work actually.  I wanted extra baked for Saturday's Farmers Market as it usually is a good one for us.  There was a car and tractor show downtown that morning along with the dog contest, baby show and other activities on the 4th.  July 4th is a big celebration in our little town every year.  One of the high school classes has a pancake feed in the morning, so that seemed to cut down on my cinnamon roll sales.  I sold out of pies, had some bread left and rolls.   But all in all it ended up being a good day for us.

I made cookies for the cookie contest.....but didn't win anything this year.  A couple years ago, Mom won first and I won 3rd out of 35 entries!

After Market we went home and started working on our float for the parade on Saturday evening.  We had quite a bit done, but needed to get it finished up.  Everything went smoothly and we got to town and set up in plenty of time.  We got honorable mention.......which would actually be 4th place, but we were surprised with a $25 prize even for that!  The theme was fairy tales, our float was The Three Billy Goats Gruff.  We made a bridge out of palets and had 3 of our goats on the float.  A friend of ours dressed up as the troll and did a great job!!!  I haven't downloaded pictures yet, but will try to post soon.  It was a lot of fun to do, and people enjoyed the goats.

We rushed the goats home and went back for the fireworks at the park.  It was a really nice display and there were tons of people there. 

Friday evening our church hosted a free bbq, it was the first time to have this event, but will not be the last.  It was an amazing evening.   We provided the hot dogs and hamburgers and everyone brought a side dish.  After the meal there was a Christian band outdoors, with homemade ice cream following the music and then fireworks at dark.  It was for our whole community and there was a great turn out, guessing over 200 people!   I worked really hard to make sure I finished my baking early that day so we could go and it worked out fine.  I made a couple of cakes after we got home.

The most wonderful thing about the weekend was the weather.......there was a threat of rain all weekend, but it didn't rain at all!  It was cloudy and very comfortable, in the 80's ............we so enjoyed it and appreciate it after the heat wave  last week!!  God is Good in All Things!

Tomorrow starts a new week, back to somewhat of a regular schedule around here.  I really hope we can get some fence put up so the goats can have a new area to be moved to.  Also need to worm the does and some kids.

Oh, one more thing to share.  A farmer friend called a week ago and had run into some turkey nests while swathing alfalfa, he wanted to know if I had any hens setting.  I had two, so we ran over and got the eggs and put them under the hens.  On Friday morning 9 had hatched out of 11 eggs in one nest!  The other nest has 11 eggs also, but no way to know how long that hen had been setting, so we will see if they hatch too.  The little ones seem to be doing great.

Country Blessings,

Marilyn~at Heritage Hill Homestead

Praise God for our country!

Hello friends! I couldn't believe it had been a whole week since I posted last -- shame on me! And I said I'd do better this summer!

Did you all have a good Independence Day weekend? My family and I didn't do anything very special, because Heather and Dan are sick with a bad cold. 

We did watch a patriotic musical on TV, and despite the off-and-on drizzle that had made us pessimistically stay home, our town did hold their fireworks right on time. I can't tell you how proud I felt when I heard those deep booms reverberating across the soybean field. I love our country so much. I love her history, her legacy, her heroes and her ordinary people. When I hear the fireworks, their muffled booms speak of our hard-fought freedom, the names of all the men and women who have laid down their lives in battles like Lexington, Yorktown, New Orleans, Gettysburg, Meuse-Argonne, Bastogne, and Iwo Jima. They remind me of ordinary people, each from different places with different accents and different customs, but every one American. They speak of rocky New England coasts, Southeastern sunshine, Midwestern fields, and Western mountains. Father in Heaven, thank You for our beautiful country and the mercy You have shown her! May we, Your people, seek Your face every day that You may keep our country strong!

Today was a good day; Dad and John went to church while Mom and I stayed home with the sick ones (and Nick). I finished my homework for the week -- yes, I know, finishing school on Sunday afternoon again. I'm irresponsible, I guess.  

I also worked on my second sweater for the Knits for Kids program. My camera batteries are dead, so I have no pictures, but it's looking really beautiful. The bottom border is garter stitch; the body will be in bee stitch (here is a picture), and then the yoke and sleeves will once again be garter stitch. I'm using Red Heart Super Saver yarn in the color "Ocean," so the sweater has beautiful waves of turquoise, lilac, and blue all over it. I hope some little guy or girl likes it!

Other than that, I haven't done much lately ... today I practiced an offertory for church next week, and helped Mom put up 6 pints of strawberry jam after dinner. It wasn't as productive a day as I would have hoped, but not too bad. I hope to get up earlier and work harder tomorrow. Do you ever get to the end of a day and feel like you could have gotten so much more done, if you'd only tried harder? That's my one deviation from a Type B personality; I feel like that every day. My mom works all day long and gets a million things done, and I only get three or four major things done every day; and I look at myself and think, "How on earth do I think I'm ever going to get married and run a house?!?" I think I need to work faster and more efficiently.

Well, this post is looking so long that nobody will probably read it, so I'll sign off for now. I hope you all have a wonderful evening and a great week ahead! 

Love in Christ,
Vicki
2 Chronicles 7:14

Sunday evening....

It's been a wonderful weekend, but like all weekends, they must come to a close....

We had a great time yesterday at a friends' cookout for Independence Day. Even met a new family...who is seriously considering home education for their five children! It was nice to be able to answer their questions about homeschooling in our fine state. I hope I was able to calm their fears and help them make their decision. We had a very pleasant hay ride too. Love living in the country where things like that are even possible! Like shooting off bottle rockets and other such booming things in the road! Not one car passed by while we were having fun!

On the way home, we saw some fireworks going off. Thinking there would be just a few, we slowed down to watch a bit. They kept going...so we drove down a back road and found a place to park. The children and I got out to watch. It turned out to be a 45 minute show! We so enjoyed it!!

This week is shaping up to be a busy one. Honey goes to the dentist to have the pins removed from his former crown. One of the pins is bent over and causing him to scrape his tongue with each bite of food. Not cool. I hate that this crown didn't work out..but it has been re-applied three times...there's just no keeping it in place.

Moms' night out is this week too! I missed last month, so I'm really looking forward to this month's outing! The new Mom I met may be joining us, so I look forward to seeing her....as well as my long time friends!

We have another creek day planned this week. Should be quite the crowd! The new family is joining us with some other friends. Looking forward to that!

After that, life should calm down a bit.

I had a cooking bug bite me today. So....simmering away on the stove is spaghetti sauce with meatballs. In the crock pot is BBQ pulled pork for sandwiches. We had a very filling supper of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, collard greens (for Honey) and peas & carrots. I totally forgot to make gravy until I was serving plates and realized I had nothing to put on the mashed potatoes! Oh well....they are yummy even without gravy....love potatoes!!!

Think I'll go do a bit of cleaning so I'm ahead of the game tomorrow. The kitchen needs to be swept and mopped, as do the living room, piano room and office. The vacuum needs to be run in our bedroom. Okay...that might be more than I want to tackle here at 6:45pm....

Guess I'll go see what I actually accomplish and what I leave for Monday morning...to go along with the normal Monday wash day....

Dealing with Moles in the Garden

Moles are such a huge nuisance in my garden. They dig tunnels all through and wreak havoc with my veggies, uprooting them and such.  The watering we do sometimes ends up down the mole hole instead of the plant roots.  I was getting very tired of fighting them for another year.  So I started doing a little research on how to get them out of my garden.  Poison was my first thought..  but I didn’t want that stuff in my garden.  Traps are effective but expensive. So I looked for more affordable remedies.  I came up with one that is easy to do.   You make a mixture of castor oil and Joy dish soap (2:1 ratio).  You add a few tablespoons of this mixture to a gallon of water and pour it down their holes. 

I have been doing this with some success.  The reason it can work is that moles have a heightened sense of smell and can’t stand the smell of castor oil.  They also don’t like the feel of it on them.  After a couple of applications some of the holes were not bothered any more but I still had some.  So the next time I put in more of the castor oil mix into my gallon of water and made the applications a little stronger.  I had been using 2 to 3T tablespoons per gallon..  so I doubled that.  Well I am happy to say that yesterday while in the garden I saw that all my mole holes had not been disturbed again..  so success maybe?  We will see.     

If my pesky mole just makes holes in other areas of the garden I will try another solution I read the other day and that is bubble gum.  You drop pieces of bubble gum (or Juicy Fruit I also read they like) into their holes.  The reviews I read said this was effective and will end the problem permanently!  I guess their digestive systems can’t handle gum..  they are eaters not chewers.. haa.. haa.  So if castor oil does not solve the problem..  I will try bubble gum.   

Just thought I would share this bit of mole info for anyone else battling them in their gardens this summer..  

Love, Love, Love Fireworks!

We saw our first set of fireworks tonight and looking forward to more next weekend!

Did you get to see some fireworks??

My Country, Tis of Thee

America the Beautiful

The Star Spangled Banner

Swallowtail butterfly

I missed the best picture. On my way in to the house there were 3 of these beautys on the same flower. I ran for my camera & when I came back only this one was left. But isn't he/she gorgeous?

"Tiny caterpillar, climbing up a tree

He wiggles & he wiggles & he wiggles back to me

I put him in a box,  "Don't go away" I said

But when I opened up the box, a butterfly instead!

I can never make one, even if I try

Only Jesus Christ can make a butterfly."

Blessings.

Price my $pace at Nesting Place

Ok, I know that my post is NOT really in line with what Nester is proposing - her main goal was to allow people to share how LITTLE they paid for their DIY/remodeling/decorating projects. Our bathroom remodel wasn't done on a shoestring budget in that sense of the word. However, after watching HGTV for the last 6 months and seeing people pay up to $25,000 for ONE bathroom remodel, I am very happy with what we spent on ours!  You can click here to see the before photo.

See, I needed to get the remodel "right" the first time because we are NOT going to do it again. The most change I'll make in this room from now on is a shower curtain and towels - LOL! We knew we wanted to gut the room, removing everything but the tub unit. We had a 12-inch dropped down ceiling above the sink area and I wanted it GONE!! I took my time looking at lots of pictures in decorating books and online pictures of bathrooms so that I would end up with exactly what I want. The bathroom has no window, so I opted for bright yellow paint. The dark wood and accessories complement what is in the rest of my house. I'm thrilled with the results and am happy to say that we stayed on budget as I had set aside $2000 for this remodel.

Here is where we are at this point (Sunday evening, July 5th).

We were hoping to have the remodel done by the end of my husband's vacation, but just about everything that could happen on Sunday did and so we still have a lot more to do. We hope to be done by next weekend and I'll post the final pictures when the room is all done and decorated.

I estimate the total cost for this remodel to be about $1915. The breakdown of costs for the bathroom remodel are below (retail only - no taxes. Taxes would bring it up to $2084). I think the best find was the vanity. I saw similar items online for 2-3 times as much as we paid for it. The marble top goes really well with the floor tiles.

- vanity $498 (Lowe's) included marble tile top and drop in sink

- faucet set $118 (Home Depot on sale - retail was $198) - the left hand is the soap dispenser which is refillable from the top (yea!) and the right hand side is the on/off lever.

- lighting $176 (Lowe's) including vanity lighting and fan light

- toilet $168 (Lowe's - Jacuzzi Era)

- travertine tiles $107 (Lowe's - 16 tiles @  $6.68 each which worked out to $2.97/sq. ft - I thought that was a great price for beautiful natural stone tile!)

- beadboard and all trim $186 (Home Depot - bathroom friendly PVC composite)

- floor air vent cover $11 (Lowe's)

- all other supplies $423 (for use in tiling, dropped ceiling and wall repair, installing beadboard, painting, updating electrical, etc)

- bath decor $100 (TJMaxx, Ross - shower rod and hooks, set of towels, vanity accessories, curtain (in photo below), toilet bowl cleaner, picture, peg board to hang over shower for wet items like swimsuits and towels)

- shelf to go over toilet (in the picture above), hand towel holder, & three-hook robe hanger $100?? (Southern Living at Home - I'm a consultant and get all of my SLaH at discount, so not sure what I paid exactly!)

- already own the mirror to go above sink (bought supplies to refinish it to match the vanity) ; still need to buy free-standing toilet paper holder (saw some at TJMaxx for around $20) and a towel holder. I think I'm going to get a double-towel holder by Moen at Big Lots for $7. I have a lamp to put on the counter - and I LOVE lamps in each room, but I'm not sure we have room for me to use it in this room.

So, there you have it - the honest truth of what our remodel cost. Although not exactly cheap, we saved up for this project and are very happy with the results so far. Final pictures coming soon!