Gardening Update

Here at the Goose Nest, not much gardening has happened. Our lawn hasn't even been mowed yet (although it needs it desperately!). The Goose Nest has been plagued by a yucky cold/flu combination that was made better by an outbreak of pink eye (which really does spread through a house like wildfire, in case you were wondering). For the better part of the month of April someone in our house has been feeling not well, most of the time multiple members of our family. Combine that with the heavens above opening and dropping rain upon rain (thankfully no severe weather). Our lawn resembles a fully saturated sponge and the local farm ground is littered with unwanted ponds and lakes. Thankfully I had scheduled the week before Easter to be our homeschool spring break week so we used that time to rest and recouperate and watch the rain drops hitting the windows.

So while there hasn't been a lot of gardening done in our house, there has been some. The Bug went to an Earth Day homeschool program at the children's museum earlier in the month. She came home with a pot she had painted and planted cosmos in as well as a little "grass head." I am pleased to say we have succeeded to sprout cosmos and our grass head has needed a couple of trims already so apparently we've got bits of green thumbs! The Bee went to a different Earth Day program at the museum, coming home with a tin can she had painted and planted seeds in. I am afraid her seeds won't sprout as she was a bit too dutious with the watering for a while. I'm currently trying to dry out the soil and maybe I'll stick some new seeds in there so she can have something sprout. Here's our cosmos sprouts, grass heads, and soggy soil tin can! :-)



Before Easter we did a fun little Easter and spring unit using In the Hands of a Child's Peter Cottontail project pack as well as some other printables I found here and there or made up on my own. On one of the days we planted seeds in little pots I found in the dollar spot at Target. The Bug and Bud planted forget me nots which are sprouting nicely. The Bee and Bird planted coneflowers. The Bird's have sprouted in the last day or two finally, but we're still waiting to see if the Bee's will sprout or if we need to replant those.



Otherwise the seeds are patiently waiting for our full recovery and a nice dry out in the garden. With a forcast for more rain this week, I believe we'll be waiting a while longer. The kids made out well in the seed department for Easter. Their aunt gave them each a pack of seeds and one grandma loaded their baskets with seed packs as well. To top that off, the Bee came home with a pack of lettuce seed from her preschool teacher and the mail box had a package or two of seeds that Papa Goose ordered. After the Easter baskets were sorted through, Papa Goose's brow furrowed as he realized just how many seeds there were and that he has to replan what's going where so he can try to make the most of what we have! I think he's thankful for the wet weather to buy him time to replan the garden!

The Easter seed bounty:


This week in our homeschool we're studying gardening and things in the garden. We're using In the Hands of a Child's In the Garden project pack along with Homeschool Creations' Garden Preschool Pack and some various other resources. The kids are having a great time learning about flowers and bugs and seeds and will be planting yet more seeds yet this week. We have planter boxes

they all made at the last Home Depot's kids workshop to fill (and I believe we'll have more to do in a little over a week as it appears May's kids workshop project is another type of planter!)

And if you didn't notice in the first picture, we also have 2 picket fence planters the Bug and Bee made at a kids workshop a few months ago. Looks like Home Depot will be keeping us with lot of pots of things growing at least until Mother Nature cooperates and lets us plant outside!

Happy gardening all!

Where has time gone?

I started out with such great intentions, and then, well, life got in the way. We've been busy learning around here. Working on letters that correspond to the letters Bee is learning in preschool, doing a unit on St. Patrick's day, going to the zoo, going to the local gymnastics academy, etc.

The Bug is doing fantastic and flying through work. She's actually working on 1st grade work right now. She's worked so hard this year and progressed so much and learned a ton. Starting next week, we're going to be doing a lot of special studies until the end of our school year in mid to late May. Starting next week, we'll be doing a lot of Easter and spring activities and lessons. We'll take the week before Easter off to correspond with the Bee's schedule and the local schools'. There are several activities going on around here that week since few will be in school so we're going to try to take advantage of that. After Easter I have one special unit after another.

While we do all this, Papa Goose and I are contemplating whether or not to send the Bug to a small private school we just discovered and really enjoyed our visit the other day. We know she would love to go, but we also love our homeschooling adventure thus far. We're trying to weigh everything and pray about it. If you would pray for us in this decision-making process, we'd appreciate all the help in figuring out His way for our family that we could. Thank you!

Getting Ready to Garden

Here in our neck of the Midwest, spring came briefly. Basically for about a week. It's now retreated from winter again for a bit. Papa Goose is the gardener in our house and he's been working with the Goslings to plan out this year's garden. With several early spring colds cycling through the Goose Nest right now, planning is not going quite as, well, planned!

After Easter, I am doing a gardening unit with the children where we will plant some seeds, but really we don't have a lot of gardening in the works quite yet.

The seed catalogs have been arriving for weeks and are getting beaten and abused in our house. We've had to file several in the bottom of the recycle box as they've just been loved to pieces. The children have lots of ideas of what they want to plant in our garden this year. The nominations include everything from corn to peppers to watermelon to lemons. Papa Goose is trying to weed through the long list to figure out what we'll be most likely to use once it grows as well as what we have room for.

When he has been able to get out and work in the yard, Papa Goose has been trying to tame the fruit trees in our back yard. The Goslings find the abundance of sticks to run around with fascinating!



This is the garden plot we have:

And this is our back patio. We do have little tiny bulbs starting to poke through and we have another small plot there in the back where we can plant some of the more "rambling" plants: watermelons, cucumbers, etc.


Wish us luck as we get closer to actually getting our garden going and pray for the weather to turn nice so we can get our gardening started!