the garden has been started!

first grilled meal of the season! proud papa

zucchini, asparagus wrapped in proscuitto and chili lime garlic wings! yum

moved the tarp and ripped up all the dead grass and weeds!

he was calling to borrow his mom's wheelbarrow

can you see the caterpillar?

 i made a friend

 we had lots of these friends in the soil we were digging into

 all weeds removed and sand dug up and turned

 in comes the compost!

then my son was home from daycare to help!

this made me jump about 3 feet and then of course i got in close to take a picture haha

my little helper

he's going to be a gardener for sure, he said "this is fun mommy"

finding bugs

then a fence went up and we called it a day!

 these were out getting sun with us

 Evan got too much sun

I just came up with a new garden layout plan and will be planting tomorrow hopefully! Gotta get an all natural insect repellent ready and start collecting my coffee grounds and egg shells for the garden as well as collect pop bottles to place around younger seedlings for protection.

I also need to make some sort of row covers or entire garden cover for night time and pest protection with a large roll of construction type plastic I had left over in my basement since flooring was put down a few years ago.

almost ready to plant!

 Some soil on the floor from Evan dropping our peppers pot on the floor..had to replant them all haha. They have no luck those poor things. I read that I should probably keep all my peppers (sweet, jalapeno) potted and in this little greenhouse all summer or they may not fruit. So I bought some larger nursery pots today for 3.50 each to replant them in. I am going to try some in the garden as well though.

 A shake breakfast

 Might try the new workout craze Insanity...ugh haha

 And then I got some compost!

 it's not much but I can go and buy some in the store if it's not enough. I like to support local as much as I can afford first.

 Yes yes I should do Insanity. Here's me helping put together the tubing for our tanks' water supply

 Timing how long the stimuli will take to pass through the tanks by timing the appearance of food colouring out the bottom holes.

 Toddlers are fun!

Oh look you can see my horrible DIY air conditioning vent to outside. I broke my plexiglass so I had to tape the vent to it hahaha. Things will be like that around here until I'm finished school and can hire people to do things properly!

 He decided his tractor was a better container for his raspberries than the bowl I provided

 And then we put our grill together at 11 o'clock at night because that's the only time we can do anything uninterrupted!

 We came home to this today. King of the castle

 Let the grilling begin! He wrapped some those asparagus in proscuitto

 Ain't no thang

 He loves water!

 I can't wait to take him swimming

And wheelbarrows.

Today we are going to take the tarp off the area we want to put the garden and scrape off all of the dead weeds and mix in the compost.  We also bought a bag of mulch just to see how much area one bag covers.

 We thought it was going to rain today but the dark clouds passed. It would have been nice for some rain despite our outdoor plans, especially since today we are inundated with smoke from a forest fire in the States, not sure how far away, but from the smell it can't be too far across St. mary's river

Tonight I will review how to sow all of my selected vegetables in our "How to Grow Food" book, and look at my garden layout plan and see if I need to adjust it at all. Might be able to plant some seeds tomorrow before work.

day 3 with no....some....caffeine? hehe

Ok so I drank a Diet Pepsi last night and I had some Vanilla Chai tea this morning. But neither of those have as much caffeine as coffee, both have less than half in fact. I don't feel like i NEED it to get through the day but i crave enjoying a hot drink or a cold drink at certain times of the day. So its mostly just habit breaking that i need to do. I had some dizziness and headaches on the first day and after those went away i experienced a lethargic and groggy feeling, but that also passed. That will be the only caffeine drink I have today and tomorrow I may not have any. I upped my water intake by a lot as well.

 my hang for the next year..and my microwave...should i learn to play foosball?

 classroom door over there

 loungey

 mmmm tobasco jalapeno hot sauce

 came home to a crime scene yesterday.

 SOMEONE (my cat Loki i assume) pulled all my pepper plants that took so long to germinate out of the pot...sigh

But some new ones have started! Not sure if you can see that, this was yesterday

 This is this morning!

 I had one surviving plant in this pot so I literally taped the saran wrap down. I hope that deters her.

My tulle covering my perennials (which are amongst grass and hard to see). Can't tell if it stopped the insect damage yet or not, it's still too early. Will have to find a way to prop it up higher soon as the plants grow

I have two major assignments due by Thursday and the preparations for my experiment are progressing. Going to be a busy two days. And then its the long weekend. I will be working and then going to David's Bridal in Michigan to buy a bridesmaid's dress with one of my best friends and the rest of the bridal party!

We sort of hit a road block with using glass beads as a substrate (the ammocoetes cannot burrow into them) so we have to use sand and maybe make the tank thinner so we can see their behaviour under the sand. It's sort of neat to be involved in something that's not really been studied before (I have seen studies about ammocoete movement under sand with tracking devices but never their reaction to "danger" chemicals)