Frugal Friday--Week of April 12-18, 2020

Hi Friends!

How are you all doing?  It has been a while since I did a Frugal Friday post.  Not because I haven't been doing everything that I can to save and bless my family with that savings, but just because I have been super busy--in spite of stay at home orders!  When you are a homeschooling parent, having the world close down doesn't really take anything off of my "to do" list.  I mean, our school goes on just the same, but there ARE other things that change and can add to being extra busy.  For one thing, my hubby is working from home currently, so that is that means another person in the house, more activity going on, a few more interruptions to my day, etc.  Now, I am not complaining, because I am thankful beyond measure that he still HAS a job, and that he CAN do a few weeks work at home during this time.  But I am still looking forward to things getting back to normal, whatever normal is and IF it ever gets back there.  But we will see.  One step at a time, and whatever each new day brings, I know my God will be there with me.

Another thing that has affected us is our community had a tornado rip through here just five days ago.  Our street was spared--we lost our electricity for several days, but did not lose a single tree.  Within walking distance of our house, I am afraid I cannot say the same.  Huge trees down, power lines were criss crossing the road everywhere, telephone poles snapped and leaning across driveways, roofs with huge holes in them from trees that had landed on them.  Just a few miles away, there are houses that were basically flattened, and a neighborhood where a four year old boy was hurt badly enough that he later died from his injuries.  My heart is so, so sad about all of this.

The above pictures are of our little public library.  It lost half its roof in the storms.  It could have been worse, but my heart is still sad.  It was bad enough that it was closed from the virus and not available to the children in our town, but now this.  I have not heard yet how much damage happened to the books inside. Trees are down everywhere.  HUGE trees, small trees, many torn right out of the ground.  

But we are still here. And we are trying to help those in need, while at the same time keep people safe and maintain what social distance one can when helping others in situations such as we are currently experiencing. I keep feeling this Bible verse in my heart: 

Anyway, all that to say there has been a lot going on around here!  A bit TOO much excitement!  So this post will include savings from the past couple of weeks.

*I found strawberry plants on clearance at Walmart for just .36 cents!  These are normally $3.47 each plant, so I was pretty thrilled!  At the time, I wasn't really sure where I could plant them, so I only bought nine plants and left probably ten more there. Later I wished I had purchased more, when I realized a few places I could fit them in our garden, but of course they were gone when I went back to the store the next day.  But I decided other people were blessed by finding some of them on clearance as well, so I am choosing to simply be happy at the nine plants I was blessed with! 

*I transplanted baby raspberry plants that had sprouted in our pathways back into their 4 x 8 raspberry bed.  One of the transplants looked like it may not make it, but all the rest seem to have survived the move just fine, so I am thrilled about that!

*I am carefully watching a blackberry baby that is also coming up in our pathway.  I am letting it grow a little larger, and then I will dig and try to transplant that back into it's 4 x 8 bed.  Our blackberries are looking very happy, and are covered with blossoms.  I am thrilled about this!  We do not have enough to grow a serious amount of berries, this is just for a hobby and to give our homeschooled daughter a chance to see how these plants grow, but any berries that we happen to beat the birds to will be much appreciated!  Our blackberries were my huge garden splurge last year.  I found them at our Walmart, and they were a thornless variety and were supposed to be appropriate to keep in a patio pot.  But they WERE more expensive than other blackberry plants--at $25 a plant!  I thought about it for a good long while, as it seemed just too much money for my budget to spend, but finally my hubby told me to just go buy one, and I did.  Once it was planted, I realized that our garden bed would easily fit two of them, and my husband is always looking for things that I really want as a birthday gift, as my birthday is in the summer and he never knows what to get me.  So he said he would get me a second plant for my birthday present.  I went to choose a second blackberry, and actually found one that looked like it had a baby coming up in the same pot.  So I bought that one, and before I planted it I cut the baby separate and planted it in-between the two large plants.  I am so glad I did, as over the winter it has grown and grown and grown, and is now almost the full size of the other two original plants!  And I feel like getting three plants for the price of two brought the overall price of them down a bit.  And now the baby in then pathway is coming along, and there is a second baby that is coming up still in the blackberry bed, so I won't have to move that one.  Overall, while it was expensive for sure to purchase the original two plants, I am VERY happy to have thornless blackberries, and so far they do appear to be a hardy variety so time will tell! 

*I started some lettuce, tomatoes, and collards using seeds that I already had.  Some of these seeds were between five and ten years old!  There were a couple varieties that did not germinate, but most did, so I was glad that I had tried to use what I already had.  I start my seeds in our basement on an old shelf unit, with just regular shop lights hanging from the shelves.  Nothing fancy, and nothing that is official grow lights.  

*When our plants were up and we were having some beautiful weather in the 80's, I took a chance and moved some of them out to our garden.  Then--just as Murphey's law would have it, we were going to have several nights with almost freezing temps.  I thought the plants would PROBABLY be alright, but worried since they were so small still.  So I thought about what I already had that I could cover them with, and realized I have a LOT of empty canning jars right now.  I used to can quite a bit of fruit each summer--sometimes over one hundred jars of each thing--but lately I cannot purchase the fruit in bulk cheaper than I can simply purchase the item already commercially canned.  No, it may not taste quite as good, but I really needed it to be helping out significantly with my grocery budget for me to go to all the work and effort to do serious canning.  So for right now, I am not doing a lot of home canning but I may sometime, depending on what I can get access to.  ANYWAY, so I decided my empty canning jars could be put to use as tiny greenhouses to protect my little plants! They worked great!  So now I know what I can grab if necessary.  About one more week and we will be past our average frost date, so we will see how things go after that!

*I have been staying completely out of the stores the past several weeks, but ended up needing to go to the Walmart pharmacy to pick up a prescription, so as long as I am in the store of COURSE I am going to walk through the Garden section of the store just to see what they have in!  There IS a reason that I typically park my car down by the Garden entrance! ;) Well, walking through the Garden area, I was looking for veggie plants.  They had hardly any of those, but they DID have some beautiful yellow roses that were all marked down on clearance!  I wouldn't have paid the full price for them, but a marked down price of $4.22 fit my budget pretty well!  And I have a place in the garden along the back fence that already has several roses from last Fall when I found some on clearance at our local nursery, so this little beauty can just fall in line right next to the others.

*My daughter is exchanging music lessons with a friend of mine.  My friend K inherited her grandfather's violin.  She doesn't remember him ever playing it, and didn't realize that he even HAD a violin!  But when her father asked her if she wanted it, she said "YES!" as she is quite the music lover!  So she would be receiving a free violin--but she had no idea how to play the violin!  K thought of my daughter, and offered to exchange harp lessons for my daughter, if my daughter would give HER violin lessons!  My daughter was pretty excited, but we had no harp.  Well, we had no harp until God sent her a harp to borrow from another friend, that is!  So my daughter is borrowing a small folk harp, and once a week has a Zoom lesson where K gives her a little harp lesson, and my daughter then gives K a violin lesson!  They are both thrilled with this arrangement, and they are both doing VERY well with their new music instruments! This has given my daughter a huge blessing, especially during this time when so many things closed or had to be cancelled.  It is extra special that God opened up this opportunity for my daughter to learn a new instrument, and one that she has been interested in for a long time now! 

Well, that is about it for our activities for the past several weeks!   What have YOU been up to?  And how are you blessing your family?  Remember to hang in there in the midst of all this craziness!  I have been studying Psalm 91 this month.  God is our refuge, He is our strong fortress!  Go read this Psalm for yourself--it is beautiful, and I pray that you will draw strength from it!

~Susan

What is it?

Hi Everyone!

Can anybody help me?  I was innocently inspecting my rue plant in my garden bed, hoping that I just might start finding some Black Swallowtail Butterfly caterpillars on it sometime soon--when I discovered this big thing.  I am suspecting it may be a Praying Mantis egg case, but do not know for sure. . . does anybody know?
If it isn't Praying Mantis, what is it?  And if it IS a Praying Mantis egg case, how long until it hatches out and what do they eat???  I really really really don't want anything eating MY butterfly caterpillars. . .
On the one hand anything from nature is potential good home school science material.  But NOT if it is something that is going to eat my butterfly caterpillars!!!

Whatever it is, does anybody know if it would be a good thing to bring inside in a container and watch for science class?  And how small would the critters be when they hatch--exactly how small do the air holes on my containers have to be to prevent escapees in the house?

Thanks for any help that you can give!

~Susan

Strawberry Pot

Hi Everyone!

Just thought I would take a minute and share a picture of our little strawberry garden!  Remember that big wash-tub container I used for my herb garden?  Well, I liked it so much that I got another one (Tractor Supply!) to use for my strawberries.  These were some berry plants that were given to us last summer, and I really didn't have time to do up anything fancy for them then, so just threw them in two pots and figured they would probably die on me anyway.  But they didn't!  Not only did they not die last summer, but they actually survived the winter in spite of my never getting them covered with straw or anything, and came back in full force this spring!  Which was wonderful--except that they were all a huge tangled mass, and waaaaaay to crowded in their two small pots!  So the time finally came a couple weeks ago when I thought I would separate them and give them a bit more space by planting them in a nice big wash tub.  Except that when I actually went to do it, their roots were so entangled that I was positive they would all die from the shock and trama of being ripped apart!  But they didn't!  Who knew strawberries could be tough little plants?  I usually contain my self to dealing with blackberries--because THEY can usually survive my "black thumb!"

Well, anyway, I ripped those poor little plants apart and put them around four inches or so apart in the new, bigger pot.  Except that the bigger pot ended up not really being big enough for all of them to be spaced out--so they sort of took over the new, big pot, as well as the two pots they previously were in!  Ah well--I figured all is well as long as we got strawberries!  That first strawberry started to turn red.  I was watching it in anticipation, just waiting for the RIGHT color red to pick it, when all of a sudden it was GONE!  :O  I couldn't imagine what had happened to it!  I have not seen any birds at all up near the strawberry pots, with them being right up against the house. And the pots were too high up for the bunnies to really bother them. . .   I finally figured it out--it was our DOG!  Bad dog!  Well, dog has good taste, but bad dog for eating my strawberries!  SO, my little collection of strawberry pots are now all clustered together along the house, and they have a piece of bunny fence surrounding them--which isn't really for the bunnies, but for the golden lab that likes to eat fresh strawberries!  So far, it seems to be working just fine--which is nice, but of course, our patch is to small to get any huge quantities of berries from it.  But it is STILL fun to be able to go out and pick a few to put on your breakfast cereal! :)

Hope you are all having a wonderful Spring!

~Susang

Herb Garden

Hi Everyone!

I thought some of you might enjoy seeing my very simple no-weed herb garden.  Alright, it is ALMOST a no-weed garden--I do admit to finding one weed in it this Spring, but it was easily pulled out.  :)  Basically, the secret is to plant your garden in a container.  I found this nice big wash tub type container at our Tractor Supply store last summer.  A few moments with hubby and his drill, and it had several nice drain holes in the bottom of it.

 Last summer I planted (clockwise from back to front) Rosemary, Chives, Parsley, and Thyme (we ALL need more thyme in our day, right?).  In the very center I had a nice large Basil plant.  Except for the Basil, everything else wintered over just fine.  This spring, all I had to do was pull out that one stray weed that had found it's way into my garden, and replace a new Basil plant in the center.  This garden is kept just a few steps away from my kitchen doorway, and I love being able to step out and cut something to use in my cooking.  I also have a separate container that holds my Oregano.  I USED to have the Oregano in my regular garden bed--in the ground--and it was happy.  So happy, in fact, that it took over half the garden bed!  So I pared it down to enough for my one container, where it now lives as an "only child!"

 I have really enjoyed watching the Chives bloom the last several weeks.  They were blooming at a time that not much else was.

 I think that is why this visitor found them so attractive.  When I stepped out with my camera, he flew away immediately.  But then he circled back around me very close and landed again.  I had trouble with getting my camera to focus, and he was VERY aware of my presence--he kept leaving every time I got close.  But he also kept coming back, almost immediately, fluttering right next to me.  I felt just like when you are in one of those Butterfly Farms, where the butterflies are fluttering all close to you.  I suspect he was pretty hungry and that is most likely why even though scared, he kept coming back.

He even stayed around long enough for the little one to come inspect him.  Home school science lessons at their very best!

Hope this gives you some ideas of how easy an herb garden can be, and that you are enjoying one soon!

Invisible Me!

Hi Everyone!

I'm still here.  Really.  Even if you are not seeing me posting on my blog very much lately.  "If only" I had a secretary to follow me around and take dictation on all the things I think about that I would love to post on here!  But alas, that is definitely NOT the case!  So therefore I will have to be content with just posting when I get a chance.  (I know you are all disappointed about that, right???)

So where have I been?

I have been out helping our daughter finally learn how to ride her bike.

I have been trying out new healthy recipes.  Found a low fat granola bar recipe I would love to post.  Sometime.  Also a Chickpea salad recipe that our whole family loves to eat stuffed into pita bread.  Someday it will appear here.

I have been finishing up some jammies for our daughter.  Smiling frog fabric--she picked it out.  It is a soft flannel.  I'm glad they got finished in time for her to wear them just a bit before the weather turns too warm at night.  Hopefully they will still fit her next winter as well--I did make them a tad big for that reason. . .

I have been compiling my "Wish List" for next year's home school curriculum.  Every year I write down anything at all that I would love to have.  Then when June comes, I have to get ruthless and start crossing things off.  But for now, I am still having fun adding things to the list!

I have been helping our daughter finish up our math book for this year.  Yea!  I always use the finishing of the math book to "officially" announce to our children that they have progressed into the next grade level.  When you basically home school year round, you have to have SOMEthing to mark off the accomplishments!

I have been praying for and trying to support our son as he finishes up this second semester in college.  I can't believe he will be done with his first year in 3 1/2 short weeks!  But between here and there come the hurdle known as "finals."  Much prayer is needed to help him think clearly and study wisely.

I have been taking walks with my sweet husband.  :)

I have been trying to push through and finish up a quilt that our daughter designed two years ago and requested that I make for her.  It's NOT complicated--I'm just busy!  But I really am making an effort to finish it up.  After all, she won't be a little girl forever--and some day her tastes will probably change and she may not even like these loud, bright fabrics she chose!  Maybe.  Then again, maybe she still will! ;)

I have been sitting at the side of the pool, watching our daughter at her Swim Club.  They had their meet last week, and today it was announced that she won first place as the Swim Club member who shaved the most time off of her own personal best which they timed at the start of the semester.  Large, happy smiles! :D

I have been growing tomato plants from seeds, under lights in our basement.  I have several different varieties--most of them heirlooms.  My problem is that too many of them sprouted.  And I have a REALLY hard time pinching out the extras, so usually will just separate and repot all of them!  I currently have 50 plants--I used to have more, but I really truly did thin out some of the scrawniest.  And gave away some.  I probably only have official room for 12 plants.  But I will ask my husband to help squeeze in more. It's all right. He's used to it! ;)

I have been researching and ordering a new bike for myself!  Yea!  Remember I said our daughter has learned how to ride her bike?  Well, now I can't keep up with her when I am walking! :)  Good problem to have, I suppose!  So I decided in self-defense, I needed to get myself a bike.  It has been around 25 years since I have had a bike--hope I can keep up with her!  Or at least keep closer to her so I can watch over her.  So glad God does not have a problem with keeping close to me, to keep watch over me!

I have been reading an ebook about letting God lead in your home school.  And rethinking all those things on my "Wish List."

I have been reading through the Bible again.  This time I am following a plan that takes you through the Old Testament and the New Testament at the same time, taking a whole year to complete each.  It is divided up into a morning reading and an evening reading.  I have discovered that I do not do well with the evening readings, as there are too many times I miss them.  Therefore, I have taken to reading both the morning's Old Testament reading and the evening's New Testament readings both in the morning.  This works much better for me, but to be honest I think at this point I really prefer just reading straight through, rather than be reading in both areas at the same time.  But I am this far into it, so will finish this reading plan this year.  But I think next year I will just start with the Old Testament and read through in the order the books come.

So there you have it.  A snapshot of where I have been.

What have YOU been up to lately????

~Susan

In a Jam!

Help!  I'm in a JAM!

Alright, alright.  Just teasing.  But I AM in a jam--literally!  But it's a very sweet tasting jam, so I don't mind. 

When we moved to our house five years ago, we knew we wanted to plant blackberries.  They are tough plants--just the kind I need.  They don't kill easily, and even if you WANT to kill them off, it's well nigh impossible to do.  That's the plant for me!  Our friends from California where we used to live think we are crazy, because back there the blackberries grew wild EVERYWHERE.  You hacked at them to keep them from taking over your yard--literally!  And whenever you wanted fruit, you just went out and picked.

Not so in other parts of the country.  So ever after, whatever state we moved to, we planted blackberries in our yard.  While we lived in Texas, I found a variety that was very much "Texas Tough," which is just what I needed.  No coddling, no spraying, no fussing.  Just throw them in the dirt and they grow.  O.K., the first year I did spray them with water occasionally.  But no watering after that--really, they need to survive my lack of care!  So, when we moved to THIS state, I actually mail ordered the very same Texas bread blackberry root cuttings--ordering them from a plant nursery in Texas.  Fortunately for me, they seem just as happy growing in this state as they did in Texas.

 Blackberries need around three years to start producing.  The third year, we got "some," but we knew the harvest the following year would be GREAT.  And it was.  For the deer.  We had deer eating the blackberries in California, but there was always PLENTY for us as well.  Guess there was just more plants growing wild in that area, because we never noticed a lack of berries for us.  But here in our yard we sure did.  Last summer we saw scores of blackberry blossoms, and new it was going to be a GREAT harvest.  Our mouths watered as we watched the berries turn a deeper color.  We got to eat a few.  But then would go out to pick and the berries had turned invisible.  They just. weren't. there.  But there WERE plenty of little green stems sticking out with nothing on the end of them.  DEER.  Those dear little deer.  I don't mind sharing some with the deer, really.  But they did not exactly leave any to share with us.

So this year we knew we needed to do something, but what?  The bushes are not really planted in an area where they can be easily (or cheaply) fenced.  Besides that, deer can jump fences--they have even been noted to jump six foot fences upon occasion!  Dogs help, a lot. But our dog does not run free in the front yard since it IS unfenced, so she would only be helping to keep any deer out of the back yard.  Finally a friend of mine suggested that we try bird netting.  I didn't have much hope, but it was worth a try.  Well, so far, so good!  Maybe the netting just is kind of scary to the deer, so they aren't messing with it too much.

SO.  Back to my jam.  First, you need to start with some blackberries rescued from the deer!

 I follow directions in the low sugar pectin box.  It tells how much crushed fruit for each variety, and how much sugar to measure out.  You take a little bit of that sugar, and mix it with the pectin and that gets stirred in with the crushed fruit right away.  You also have to add in just a tiny bit of margarine, to keep it from over foaming.  I forgot once--and was amazed at how foamy it was!!!  The directions say to add in 1/2 tsp.  I personally do not want to add fat to my jam, so I put in probably closer to 1/4 tsp. and it seems to work just fine.  I asked my chemist husband about it, and he said it worked as a surfactant.  He said I could also use soap, if I didn't want to use the margarine.  I think I will continue using the margarine!

Anyway, so you take the crushed fruit with the sugar/pectin mixture and the margarine and this gets brought to a boil over high heat.  You have to stir it constantly, and I will warn you that it will splatter hot jam at you, so I always wear oven mitts when I am stirring jam.  After it has come to a rolling boil, you add the rest of the sugar that you have already measured out and then stir it as it comes back to a boil again.  Things can get tricky at this point as you need to move fast, so have everything laid out and ready that you are going to need.

 I keep my clean, washed jam jars in hot water in the sink, where they wait for my jam to be boiled and ready.

 I have already boiled my lids, and they are sitting in their hot water just waiting on the counter where I will bring my hot jam.

 Then you ladle the hot jam into each jar, filling it to within 1/8th inch of the top.  Next you wipe off any jam that spilled onto the top part of the jar, and place the lid on screwing the band tight--but not over tight, just hand tightened.

I wish I had a picture of the next step, but my computer messed it up so we will have to do without.  But I use the "inversion" method for sealing my jars.  After the lids are hand tightened, you literally flip the jam jar upside down so it is sitting on the lid part.  You let it sit this way for five minutes, then turn them back right side up.  As the jars cool, you will start hearing a "pop" sound, which is a VERY happy sound, as it is the sound of the jars sealing.  If for some reason a jar does not seal, you can either stick it in the fridge to use right away, or you can water bath can it to get it to seal.

And there you have it--my assorted sizes of jam jars!  I was scraping all around in my cupboards for more jam jars to fill--almost did not have enough, as this canning session filled 27 jars of jam!

Praise the Lord!  A gift from above.  Only He can make those berries grow, I cannot.  We sure are going to enjoy this jam through the next year!  If you have never tried canning before, jam is a great item to start with.  You can even make freezer jam, which is even easier as you get to skip all the boiling and sealing part.  Freezer jam is uncooked jam, and ends up with a fresher taste, though it will also be not as firm and a little on the runny side.  Great to use as a fruit syrup on waffles and pancakes though!

 If you don't have fruit growing in your yard, go check out some farmer's markets.  I was even able to purchase strawberries at a discount grocery store this year cheap enough to make some of it into jam.

Hope I helped give you some ideas for summer canning!  It is so nice to enjoy frozen fruit or jam during the rest of the year, when it is not in season.

Butterfly Time!

Hi Everyone! 

Couldn't resist announcing it--it's BUTTERFLY TIME!!!!!  We got home this evening, after having supper together with friends and I went out to check my little garden bed one last time as the sun was sinking.  Checking it is a habit for me, and I am almost always only looking for one thing--butterflies!  Or perhaps I should say, caterpillars.

I LOVE butterflies, but I especially love raising them.  The first time I ever raised butterflies was in the classroom, where I ordered a tiny caterpillar for each student out of an educational catalog.  They each came in a little plastic cup with some green waxy stuff melted at the bottom.  That green "stuff" was some sort of concocted food, that the caterpillar would eat.  If you were fortunate, after they grew large enough they would attach themselves to the underside of the lid and emerge days later as a beautiful butterfly!  This was a fun activity, and my school children loved it.  But it was not cheap!

Years later, when I was homeschooling my son in Texas, I dutifully ordered a butterfly kit for him.  We "hatched" the butterfly, and it was fun, but--then it was over and it had been so brief.  We wanted to do more, but my budget did not allow "more" at the prices in the educational catalog.  So--I had to think of something else.  After doing a bit of research, I decided to try and attract some butterflies to our yard, and provide host plants for them to lay their eggs on.  Most butterfly species will only lay their eggs on a limited variety of plants.  I looked for butterflies in our area, and then surveyed the list of their preferred plants.  For my area, I found that the Black Swallowtail was probably my best bet.  They ate things like parsley, and I KNEW I could find parsley at any store selling garden herbs.

I planted some parsley, and I already had lantana growing in a near by garden bed.  The Black Swallowtail would not eat the lantana, but it sure attracted the adults to my yard--where I hoped they would then see the beautiful parsley plant I had planted especially for them!  Time would tell. . . . 

It worked!!!  One day, upon examining my little parsley, to my great joy I found these little black specks on it.  Since I had read up on what the larva looked like, I knew these black specky things crawling around were just what I had been hoping for. I had already learned about raising them inside.  Out in the wild, most of them end up as bird food.  Don't get me wrong--I love birds.  But in my opinion, the birds can eat other things.  Like worms.  Or the seed I put out for them.  So I dutifully started gathering every black speck I could find.  The only problem was, they ate like crazy.  And I only had one small plant.  But fortunately, they readily accepted parsley I bought for them from the grocery store.

Later, we took a trip to an Herb Farm, and I found them selling plants--one of which was a herb called "Rue."  I had never heard of it before my butterfly research, but I knew that it was also on the list of host plants for the Black Swallowtail caterpillars.  So I bought this tiny four inch plant and brought it home to plant.  It was happy in my yard, and I ended up getting more caterpillars crawling on this plant than I did on my parsley--though the caterpillars I collected and brought inside would readily eat either rue leaves or parsley, either one.  Butterfly hatching went well--at one time I had over thirty larva caterpillars living inside my house.  We ended up getting quite a collection of plastic containers to hold them, as too many caterpillars in the same container only leads to dirty living conditions and therefore your rate of successful hatchings decreases.  And I wanted as many happy butterflies as possible.  I know.  I am greedy about some things.

When we moved to another house in the same area, I collected some seeds from the first plant and got it to grow in the second house--yea!  Then we moved to another state--what about my Rue plant???  So I collected some more seeds--and managed to get two plants growing from those seeds--yea!

And it is these two seedlings that are growing in my yard today.  Where they are large now.  AND where I just found three absolutely beautiful little black crawly things tonight!  :)  Above is a picture of the flowers on the Rue.  They are not super showy things.  You wouldn't really plant it in your yard because of the flowers.  But you would if you wanted caterpillars!

 This photo shows what the foliage looks like.  My two plants had been rather stressed looking, after making it through the winter and then being hailed on a couple of times.  But I cut them back around two weeks ago, and they have really come back nicely.  Great!  More caterpillar food!  Really, I have absolutely no idea what "good" rue is as a herb.  Don't know if people eat it.  Only know that caterpillars do!

This is a two quart size mason jar, where the little beauties are currently living.  Later when they grow bigger I will transfer them to one of my plastic containers.  But for now, they are so small that they would crawl out through the vent holes in the lids.  Don't ask me how I know this.

Here is a close up of one of my little treasures.  Isn't he (she?) lovely????  Black Swallowtails always have the one white spot on their back--when they are tiny, anyway.  Always looks a bit like bird poop to me, and honestly I think that is what it is supposed to look like, to help keep them safe.  As they grow bigger, they will change in appearance.  Once they have hatched out as butterflies, you can actually tell which are the boys and which are the girls, by looking at the wing markings.  This is a MUCH cheaper way to get caterpillars to raise.  And besides that, it teaches kids where caterpillars really come from--they don't come from plastic cups!

So there you have it.  My lovely beauties.  You can bet tomorrow morning I will be out examining my rue plants very closely--just in case there are any more out there.  That is, if Alison doesn't beat me to it!

This is my favorite part of homeschooling.  I love to share with my children the beautiful things God has made for us.  And butterflies just happen to be one of my favorites!

SomeBUNNY wants in!

"You mean the bunny bar is already closed?" Can't you just imagine what this little cottontail is thinking? I saw him looking longingly through the bunny fence this morning, probably wondering why last year he was able to get into my garden bed and eat up ALL of our baby beet greens and then this year he can't do the same! So I guess our bunny fence is working--so far, anyway! I thought he was just adorable--OUTSIDE of my garden bed. The picture isn't the greatest, as I had no other option but to take it through the window screen from the house, but I still wanted to share it with everyone!

Garden Report

This morning was so beautiful I grabbed my camera and decided it was time to do a little "Garden Report". Our dogwood trees, by the far the most beautiful thing in our yard right now, I cannot claim any credit for. They have been here in this yard a long time before we lived here. They are old and knarled, and when the wind blows I wonder how some of them can still stand--but they seem to hang on!
I thought the view of the blossoms from underneath the tree was paticularly lovely. I would like to spend the whole day here, gazing up at the sky......

Of course, the view from the top of the blossoms is also beautiful.

Our little home from the road. It's hard to tell, but there are two rows of Rosborough blackberries planted here on the right side of the photo. Then next to the driveway there are two almond and three peach trees. Far side of the driveway are three apple trees. These are all pretty small, as we only put them in a year ago, and the deer came last summer and made a meal of our fruit trees. :( The larger trees in the front yard are all dogwoods.

Two beautiful baby peaches trying to grow. We'll see if they drop off or hang on, and whether the deer eat them!

Rosborough blackberry buds about to open.

Closer view of the Rosborough row. They are only around 1 1/2 feet tall. This variety grew much larger for us when we planted them in Texas. Maybe after some more time they will grow larger.....on the other hand, everything IS always larger in Texas..... ;)

Blueberries-to-be---we planted six bushes last summer. Still small, but alive! They are planted just to the right of the carport.

A row of Doyle, thornless blackberries--thanks to my garden friend Sylvia who sent them to us! The paperwork that came with them SAID they would put out these incredible long canes, but I wasn't really sure I believed it. HOW could a blackberry put out 40 feet canes????? "Oh ye of little faith".....well, I haven't measured ours, so I don't know that the canes are 40 feet, but I can say they are well over 20 anyway, on our first plant that has been in for two years now. I'm not sure how we would have built a trellis large enough for them even if we HAD believed the papers! So in the mean time, they are just sort of curving around in loops--but they seem happy in spite of us! And the rest in the row should be catching up with the first plant soon.

Ceicle (sp?) Brunner rose, just about to open. I brought this as a tiny plant in a pot when we moved. I had "thought" it was the bush variety of this rose, but guess what??? I think it's the climbing variety instead, and it is way overgrowing the small garden trellis we just stuck in back of it. Ah well. Good problem to have. I hadn't even noticed when I was taking the picture that I have aphids--looks like I need some hungry ladybugs around here!

Our little swing in the back yard. Property line ends at the wire fence just behind the swing, so you are mostly looking into our neighbor's back yard. But the wire fence behind the iris' on the left is not the property line--our yard goes back into the woods probably half an acre more. I have daffodils planted back in the woods. Was wondering if I could get azaleas growing back in the woods. I think they would like it there, but just don't know if they could survive on rainfall only for water. I am NOT liking the idea of hand carrying buckets of water to them, and a hose would never reach. So whatever I plant back in there has got to make it on it's own.

Our little garden spot in the back yard, to the left of the house when you are facing the front of the house. So far, we just have two garden beds put in--and as busy as I am I should be wise and leave it at two for now. I am planting one bed for butterflies--both flowers, as well as food for the larva to eat. In previous years, I greatly enjoyed collecting Black Swallowtail caterpillars and bringing them into the house to finish growing. They get protected from hungry birds, and we get the fun of watching them and learning from them. Wonderful homeschool project, though I think it's something that I enjoy more than my kids!!! Anyway, so the bed on the left in the photo is for the butterflies, and I will grow Morning Glories up that side of the trellis. The bed on the right side will be for a few veggies that we squeeze in, and we will grow beans and cucumbers up the trellis. The big leafy square area is where we put tomatoes, and a couple squashes.

Rue that I grew last year from seed I collected from my plant in my Texas yard. I was very happy to be able to grow it here by seed, as I had purchased the original plant at Wild Seed Farms in Texas, and I have not seen it for sale anywhere else. This is probably the favorite food of the Black Swallowtail caterpillars that come to my yard, followed next by the parsley. This plant survived our Tennessee winter, for which I was very happy as I was too busy to collect more seed and grow it inside again this spring, like I had last year. So it was nice of it to cooperate and not die back, inspite of several snows.

Baby lavender plant just planted yesterday--again, for attracting visiting butterflies.

Well, that's about it for my little yard tour of this morning--hope you enjoyed it! :D