It’s kinda hard to see in the picture, but the light is suspended above the plants by a lightweight chain. The grow light is screwed to two pieces of scrap wood with two cup hooks so I can adjust the chain as the plants grow.  I wanted something that I could easily take apart when I’m not starting seeds because space is limited in my house. 

The only thing I don’t like right now is that it is in my kitchen and the grow light is kinda annoying to my getting-old-eyes.  I have another room I could it in, but it’s carpeted and I don’t want the children or me to accidentally get dirt and water on the carpet.  The garage is too cold for starting seeds right now,  so that’s out too.  But at least with it in the kitchen I don’t forget to keep it well watered and turn the light on and off.  Stay tuned, we’ll see if this project works!

 One of the things I noticed when we first moved here, was the lack of worms in the soil.   Worms are an indicator of healthy, active soil.  Not a worm in sight, not even in my compost pile.    My compost pile has  finally reached a point where worms are naturally attracted to it and can  help speed up the composting process with their digging .  They will also add to the richness of the compost with worm castings.    In turn, the worm-filled compost I just added to my garden will help turn my pale, sandy Texas soil into a dark, rich, fertile loam.   I’ve been working on this soil for 5 years, so I’m hoping that these worms will love their new garden home and give me lots of worm babies! 

(Sorry, no worm  pictures!  I was tempted, but I decided to quickly get my worm friends to their new garden home before they decided to leave!!)

~E. G. White

Evening worship in our home is focused on our three year old.  Our format is pretty simple:  one or two songs, a Bible story and prayer.   We are reading through the series, My Bible Friends. ( My mother read these same books to me as a child)  We read each story every night for a week, so that our preschooler really gets a grasp of the story.  We rotate reading/telling  the story, so he gets to hear from Dad, Mom, and Big Sister and Brother.  Sharing in the storytelling keeps up the interest for our 11 and 10 year olds.  It’s fun to hear how each person puts their own personality and creativity into telling the story.  Since we started having evening worship this way, our preschooler’s interest in worship has increased 1000%.  What a blessing.

 I stood in our front door yesterday and took this shot as the snowflakes started falling. Snow again?

 

 

I print pictures of common feeder birds and tape them to the window that looks out on our feeders.  That has really helped with learning to identify new birds.

We have lots of hawks, but I have not learned to ID them yet.  I think a quality pair of binoculars will help.

Accepted Texas Species List -with links to photos to help with identification.  Try searching for “Accepted (your state) Bird Species List” to find a list for your home state.

The literature list for this unit inculdes  Hanna’s Girl’s: Ann by Ruth Merkel,  Rachel’s Journal  by Marissa Moss ,  The Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz,  Buffalo Bill and the Pony Express by Eleanor Coerr and Wagon Wheels by Barbara Brenner.  They are all true stories, with two of them written by descendents of the main character. 

We’ll do a bit of research and add some pioneer-themed  mini-books to our history notebooks and watch a few old history movies at havefunwithhistory.com.  Of course, we must not forget the old standby computer game, Oregon Trail!  We’ll see who can get their wagon and passengers to Oregon in the best condition.

I think it’s the colder-than-normal winter that has caused me to snap.   I’ve got the late winter blues kinda bad this year.   It’s a good thing because I’ve been purging the house of junk like a madwoman.  I’m showing no mercy on the closets– clothes, papers, books… clearing out and reorganizing.   I found plastic bins on clearance at Stuff-mart and I bought a ton!  Everything in it’s place.

It’s a bad thing because I now want to paint most of the house .  The walls were freshly painted when we moved in, which was nice, but that was five years ago.   I’m sick of all these white walls! Gimme some color!!
I’m blessed because although I’m a lousy painter, I’m married to a good painter.  All I have to do is set him up with paint and snacks and he’ll go to work. What a wonderful man!! I know we’ll paint my daughter’s room some shade of purple (her choice), my sons’ room gets a thick navy blue stripe (his request) and our former homeschool room turned office/craft room is going to be a warm, spicy color like pumpkin. Paint chips, here I come!

Is it really color therapy if I never actually hold the paint brush? 

Paint chips photo courtesy of Sherwin-Williams.com

Thursday’s snow was a pleasant treat, the additional six inches of beautiful powder on Thursday night was a total surprise!!  Hard-Working-Hero had Friday off, which meant that the children had a worthy snowball fight opponent and I could stay inside by the fire!

Fortunately/unfortunately, we came out of the snow “storm” with only one large tree branch down, but of course, it fell on our fence.  Considering that some folks in Texas are still without power two days later, a busted fence is okay with me.