Today

Sometimes driving with dad I see my life flash before my eyes as he whizzes through traffic on the freeway just squeezing between semis and other vehicles at 75 miles per hour. Tonight I was nearly sure he was trying to run the semi in front of us off the road! We made a quick trip across the mountains to Renton this afternoon to pick up a riding lawn mower to replace the one we just killed last week, I was along in case he needed a hand with loading. My payment was a chocolate milkshake at the end of the day. Yes, I know the tires are flat...we had to let the air out so it would fit into the back of our mini-van.

This past week we had quite a load of entries at our local fair. It took about 10 hours on entry day to gather all of my entries and fill out the forms...thankfully it only took one and a half hours to remove the items from display. Not counting anyone else in our family I entered about 75 items, mostly vegetables from my garden. Rivers and I both won the vegetable combination exhibit for our age groups! They kinda look sad after a week on display...

Though veggies are normally where I have the most fun, my favorite entries this year were my sewing projects. I didn't win all blue ribbons but it was nice to get the feedback from the judges on the forms.

Take a walk with me

Every day the first thing I see when I come out my door is sweet little Mimi laying on the back porch.

...the bird bath rock garden that dad built

some echinacea...
and my first greenhouse habanero

From the back yard it's not far to the goats and the orchard...as we walk along the east side of the orchard you can see how dry our property gets in the summer when we don't water,

that dead tree on the hill used to be a play fort for the children. When I turn around I see the green grass of the orchard and the cool shade.

North side of the property we have a lovely shaded walk way.

Some things you just have to give up on...the photo of the 2 wild overgrown trees used to be the entrance to the rose garden.

Bonato tomahto is CLOSED....The ducks come waddling especially if it's breakfast time.

Now on to the food section of the garden. Purple snapbeans and parsley.

Interspersed with the veggies are snapdragons, cosmos, marigolds, nasturtiums, and many other flowers and herbs. I thought with our cool summer this year I wouldn't get much but I see that I've got some lovely melons on their way.

We've already picked a lot of cabbage, green beans, green onions, leeks, cucumbers, zucchini, acorn squash, tomatoes, peppers, swiss chard, kale, lettuce...did I miss anything? Praise be to Yahweh for His abundant provision!

Gardening season has been coming in very slowly this year. With our last frost coming two weeks late, many people had damaged plants including me...I've been dragging my feet but somehow I managed to fill quite a bit of the garden with the help of my mom and my hard working employee Rosie. Here are a few new shots I took this morning in the garden.

This one is my indoor garden, it gets quite a bit warmer in the grow tunnel so I'm hoping to boost growth of my melons, tomatoes, and peppers.

Here we have 39 cabbage...more to be added soon. Next year I'll remember that cabbage plants aren't as popular as I hoped.

Yum Strawberries!

And last but not least, here is a shot of my plant sale after we arranged it in a new area. There is still some work to be done sooo... I may post up a new plant sale photo later if I can make any improvements.

Happy Spring and happy gardening!

What's up!

Wow! I haven't been on here for a long while. The spring rush hit me in April and I've been buried ever since. I've wanted to come write for so long now but when I think about it...there's just never any time. So now I've found a few minutes to write. Dad and Mom are out of town for the day and here I sit eating Dad's ice cream with my strawberries doused with chocolate for breakfast. :) I should be outside working but I'm sure the work will still be there when the bowl of ice cream is gone.

Alright, what I've been doing all spring is gardening, gardening, gardening. I filled my greenhouse with thousands of seedlings to repot and sell at a plant sale. I named the plant sale Bonato Tomahto, you can visit my Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002323334012 I use FB to post all my plant photos, so if you want to see photos, go there.

Mmm, this ice cream is too good!(good thing I've been walking 3 times a week)

I'm still keeping up on the violin like I should. I knew that staying motivated would be difficult over the spring and summer so I made the commitment to stay in lessons and I practice each morning before I head out to care for the garden. I am getting better but I still sound pretty beginnerish...too busy so far to post another video though. I'm working on a few Pleyel duets and trying hard to master 3rd position, vibrato is coming slowly but it is coming, yay!

Well the ice cream is gone so I guess so am I.

Thanks for reading, hope you are all doin great!

Shabbat Shalom!

Shabbat Shalom my dear friends! I spent a good portion of this week sewing garments for myself so I'm uploading a photo to share with y'all of me enjoying one of my new modest garments this lovely Shabbat evening.

Mom also got a new dress, so we both got dressed up. :)

Yep, we're goofing off, I love attacking mom with an almost too cozy hug from time to time... It may look like she's trying to choke me but she actually pushing me away before the slobbery kisses start, heh.

The fun has begun

Mom has been having the patience test of her life as I filled her kitchen, dining, and laundry rooms with dirt and pots and seeds. I've been having a blast doing it, well, most of the time anyway. Here you can see my babies are already sprouting. These are the laundry room plants.

More photos to come soon as the project expands. :)

These are zinnias. I have also started some of my peppers, chrysanthemums, petunias, lupine, eggplant, shasta daisies, and who knows what else...I forget.

Purity

Purity has been on my mind lately as many friends around me have had questions or concerns arising in their own lives or in the lives of ones dear to their hearts. I have see many wonderful examples through the years, of couples striving to keep their relationships pure and right before Yahweh at all times. I'm thankful for each example and greatly encouraged. Today's world does not value purity in the way Yahweh desires for his beloved to value purity.

There are two books I would like to recommend to any single person who values purity, singles who aren't happy with the worlds way, or who are simply curious, or for parents who desire their child to remain pure through thick and thin.

His Perfect Faithfulness, The Story Of Our Courtship by Eric and Leslie Ludy

The Magic Touch, A Jewish Approach To Relationships by Gila Manolson

Though these books are geared toward singles, I would definitely recommend them to all. Both are easy reading.

When I first read "His Perfect Faithfulness" I was only 14 years old. My mom had brought the book home and dad still likes to recall that the first time she handed him the book, he threw across the room and said "why do I need to read a book on courtship? I'm already married!" He must have had a change of heart because he read it and shortly after we had a pile of copies to hand out to other families we met. A while has passed since then and the book has been collecting dust on my shelf till a few weeks ago. I picked it up and was uplifted once again by this couple's story of how Yahweh directed their steps in purity. Now it's loaned out, my only copy, so coming this week, I plan to put in an order so I'll have copies on hand once again.

As for "The Magic Touch", I think it's a good read for anyone but especially for you singles who may be a little skeptical about pursuing purity in relationships with the opposite sex. Are you wondering if you are missing out on something special by not partaking in the worlds version of building relationships? I would hope that "The Magic Touch" will help you to see that it is the world that is missing out on Yahweh's plan for building good relationships through purity.