Wednesday Outdoor Hour: Poudre Learning Center Nature Trail

 This week for our outdoor hour we ventured out of our neighborhood to check out the trail at the Poudre Learning Center. It was a cloudy, gray day, but the temperature was perfect for walking around outside and enjoying nature.

The trail is awesome as it leads you along through grassy areas, past a prairie dog town, next to a couple different ponds, as well as the Poudre River. 

We saw all kinds of wonderful flora and fauna. We will definitely have to come back for more exploring another time. It will be fun to see the changes too as the seasons progress through the year.

We saw lots of these bird tracks in the mud along the trail...and lots of birds too! Geese, seagulls, blue herons, hawks and meadowlarks.

The girls were comparing hand size to bird track size.

Hannah found an old milkweed plant along the trail. Ever since we discovered milkweed last year, she is so excited about it.

Ellie found a super tall dried plant.

We saw new, green life popping up all over the place. Can't wait till everything is green again!

Poudre River

Don't mess with these guys!

Of course, who can turn down a good stump for sitting and climbing on?

Seagulls circling over the pond. Seems weird to see seagulls in Colorado...

Yard Picture: Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Blessings!

Daybook- March 16, 2015

Wow! It's Monday again already! We had so much fun last week that time seemed to go by even faster than usual. 

For Today... March 16, 2015

Outside my window... It is gorgeous and sunny! The birds are singing, the air is warm and there is hardly a cloud in the sky. What a perfect day!

View of the garden from upstairs in my bedroom. Can't wait till it's all green!

I am thinking... I would like to spend ALL day outside when it's like this!

I am thankful... for the other moms from church that come every other Monday to pray together for our kids and schools.

I am wearing...  Lots of purple and green for St. Urho's Day! Rolled up jeans, purple chevron socks, purple tank top under a green shirt, and a purple scarf.

Girls wearing their purple and green today too.

I am creating... my meal plan for the week. I find it so helpful to have a plan in place so I'm not scrambling at the last minute to fix something for dinner while the kids are "starving".

Love getting our produce delivered for the week!

I am going... Crazy! LOL! Okay, not really...well, maybe a little. Monday's are a busy day...errands to run, laundry to do, things to clean, school work to accomplish, and this Monday the girls have swim lessons. Whew!

I am wondering... about all the different homeschool curriculum I saw at the curriculum fair on Saturday. So many great things! Will I decide to go with a more set curriculum for next year or keep on with what we've been doing...

I am reading... Small-Space Vegetable Gardens by Andrea Bellamy...haven't gotten too far into it, but so far it's pretty good. Hoping to expand our gardening space this year by using more containers. Since we are just renting I can't dig up any more yard for garden space.

I am hoping... that we don't get anymore snow till next winter. I'm ready for Spring to fully be here!

I am learning... about fermented foods, and healing the gut. There is a class on Wednesday about the GAPS diet that I hope I get to.

In my garden... the spinach and lettuce are getting bigger! So exciting! Gotta order my seeds today so I can plant peas soon. If the weather keeps up like this, we may start seeing signs of life in our Winter sowing containers.

In my kitchen... we are making Mojakka today (a Finnish beef stew) in celebration of St. Urho's Day. Even though it's going to be 80 some degrees. I told you I was crazy.

In the homeschool room... we read more from Matthew for our devotions this morning, and did our circle time with poetry and singing. The girls are doing so well learning our hymn for the month, Amazing Grace. Our circle time is one of our favorite parts of our day. We get to sing, read poetry, memorize Scripture, and do our weather report.

We will do math and reading later in between running errands and other stuff.

The girls spend the morning reading together while I had my prayer group.

A favorite quote for today... 0% perfect, 100% perfectly forgiven and loved. -Ann Voskamp

One of my favorite things... Sunshine! I LOOOOOOOVE it!!! 

Post Script

 Oh, if you're wondering what in the world St. Urho's Day is...it is basically a celebration of a made up character that originated in Northern Minnesota somewhere. They say St. Urho is the patron saint of Finland vineyard workers because he chased hoards of grasshoppers out of the vineyards and thus saved the grapes. In the town where my grandma lives they have a statue of St. Urho and have a big festival every year. Which my family always took part in as often as we could when I was growing up. Passing on the fun to my kids now, to "celebrate" our Finnish heritage even though St. Urho is made up and they don't even celebrate him in Finland. But it's a good excuse to make some Finnish food and have a little party. 

 

The girls with St. Urho in Menahga last Summer.

 

Hope you have a blessed week! And don't forget, if you'd like to join in the fun of sharing some of your day, head on over to The Simple Woman's blog.

Blessings!

Weekly Update

"Sunshine on the water looks so lovely..." -John Denver

Hey, there! Just a quick blurb to catch you up on a little of what we did this week. 

What a beautiful day we had today! It was 80 degrees and gorgeously sunny! As John Denver would say, "Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy." And a little bit sunburned. Guess it's time to start thinking about sunscreen. 

Anyway, today was a fabulous end to our week. We had church this morning, and afterward got to enjoy a delicious lunch with friends outside. Then came home and had a little nap. Since it was so lovely we had to spend more time outside, so the girls and I got Nana (my mom) to go with us for a walk. You can't beat lake views with the mountains rising up behind. I never tire of seeing those gorgeous Rockies!

Yesterday was equally fabulous weather. Pretty much this whole week has been amazing! I think I shall be disappointed if it does happen to actually snow again at this point. Which can happen in Colorado. March is typically one of the snowiest months.

We got to enjoy the St. Patrick's Day Parade in Fort Collins with our good friends. The girls got all dressed up in green and had a great time watching the parade which was almost 2 hours long!

My lucky leprechauns!

After the parade the girls went off to hang out at Nana's house while I got to have some "mommy time" perusing the local homeschool curriculum fair with my friend. Got some good info and ideas to start planning for next year. Kinda overwhelming too!

Yesterday was also Pi day, so we had some delicious Razzleberry pie at Nana's house before heading home. I'll take any excuse I can to eat some pie.

The rest of the week was pretty much just the usual...cleaning, laundry, school, playing, etc. Hannah did get a hair cut on Thursday. Her hair was all the way down to her backside and it was just getting too hard to brush. We cut off about 4-5 inches and it's still plenty long. I didn't think to take a before picture, but did take a pic of after. She's quite happy with it, and so am I. It doesn't take half the morning to brush it all out now. 

Haircut! Oh, and you can totally see that I STILL haven't changed my chalkboard. Maybe this week...

Everyone's in bed now getting their beauty sleep to be ready for the new week. We have swim lessons coming up this week, and St. Urho's Day tomorrow, St. Patrick's Day Tuesday, so the week is looking to be lots of fun!

I hope your week was full of amazing, and the week ahead holds more of the same!

Blessings!

Wendesday Outdoor Hour: Signs of Spring

It's nature time again! Thankfully we are finally all feeling better so we could go out for some adventure. For our outdoor hour today we spent time in the backyard looking for signs of Spring. It was fun to look around and explore our own yard for "treasures".

We had so much fun and everyone came up with a good list of things that we saw as signs of Spring. New strawberry plants starting to grow, tulips and daffodils coming up, bugs and spiders everywhere, melting snow, warmer days and more!

It was also a lovely day for making some mud pies. 

Yesterday we also got some nature time exploring some trails along the Poudre River in Fort Collins. The day was made even better by getting to spend it with friends. 

We're gonna keep soaking up all this amazing sunshine that we can this week. Love Colorado!

March 12, 2015

One more thing...We decided it would be fun to take a picture of our yard from the deck every week to watch the changes as we go through the different seasons. So here goes!

Blessings!

Daybook

Calendula in last year's garden.

A long time ago I used to participate in a weekly blogging thing called Simple Woman's Daybook. It was a fun way to share some things going on in life and I thought it would be enjoyable to join in again. If you would like to join in on this, head over to The Simple Woman's Blog for info on how it works, and see what others are up to.

FOR TODAY

Outside my window...I didn't get to this earlier, so it is dark outside now. But the stars are starting to appear in the crisp, clear night sky.

I am thinking...about how I can get more done in a day. There just never seems like enough time to do everything that needs to be done and have time to do other things.

I am thankful...for my sweet, loving girls.

In the kitchen...new batches of kombucha and water kefir are getting started for the week.

I am wearing...a comfy black maxi skirt, teal tank top and gray cardigan.

I am creating...plans for the garden this year.

I am going...to spend time with a good friend and her kids tomorrow. It's great to have homeschooling friends!

I am wondering...why I am such a grouch sometimes. I need to lighten up. Or balance my hormones. Or something.

I am reading...The Slight Edge

I am hoping...to get to bed at a better time tonight. That might help with my getting more things done in a day problem if I have more sleep. Maybe my grouchies too. :)

I am looking forward to...seeing my hubby when he comes home tonight. He has been working all day since 6:30 this morning.

I am learning...how to crochet. Though I haven't made it past just making little hearts yet.

Around the house...starting to do some deep cleaning for Spring. Love cleaning and freshening things up!

I am pondering...contentment and what that truly means.

A favorite quote for today..."For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11

One of my favorite things...reading at bedtime with my girls. Right now we are reading through Little Women. One of my favorites and they are enjoying it so much too.

A few plans for the rest of the week: cleaning, organizing, school with the girls, spending as much time outside as possible in the sunshine...

A peek into my day...

I think it's time to update the chalk board. What do you think?

Blessings!

Winter Sowing

It's that time of year again! Time to start getting your seeds going for the garden this summer. Last year was our second time with starting seeds, and it was quite successful considering we didn't have a grow light system, didn't have much space, and lots of our seeds were quite old. It was super rewarding to plant seedlings in the garden that we grew ourselves instead of just going out and buying them.

This year, the space thing is still an issue and to be quite honest I'm just feeling plain lazy when I think about trying to make a space to start seeds indoors. Sooooo...we are attempting something called Winter Sowing. I tried this one year when we lived in Oregon, but started too late so it wasn't as successful as it could have been. Since we are in a much colder climate out here in Colorado, March is still a fine time to attempt this experiment.

So what is Winter Sowing you ask? Well, in a nutshell it is basically starting your seeds outside, in the Winter. Using recycled containers (think milk jugs, yogurt containers, etc.), seeds are sown and left to outside to germinate naturally. With the freezing and thawing that happen to the soil in the containers in the Winter, this helps prep the seeds for germination. Then when the time is right the seeds will (hopefully!) grow. Good ol' Mother Nature doing what she does best. And something else really great about this method is that your baby plants will be super sturdy and won't need your typical hardening off to get them used to outside because, well, they're already out there. Win!

Recycling at it's finest! We used milk jugs, yogurt containers, and even the container from the roast chicken we had for dinner the other night! A super benefit of this method is the money you will save by using what you have on hand.

We had beautiful weather today and I had two very sweet assistants, so it made for a lovely time planting seeds. We planted several different herbs, tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage and even onions. Now we get to sit by and watch and wait.

Relaxing in the sun, soaking up some vitamin D.

Making plans in the garden notebook.

Watering those seeds!

If you'd like to know more about Winter Sowing be sure to jump over to WinterSown.org. This is where I first came across this method and they have lots of great info to get you started. It really is sooo easy!

I do have a bit of proof that this method works. In November I planted some lettuce and spinach seeds out in the garden. This was supposed to happen in September, but somehow time got away from me. I made a nice little greenhouse tent for them, hoping to have a little "winter garden". Well, the wind took that dream away and I figured all was lost. Then a few weeks ago when we were having some superb weather for this time of year, I was poking around in the garden and there were little green sprouts popping up!! There was my lettuce and spinach! I quickly made a new greenhouse over them and they are slowly growing and we should maybe have some yummies for snacking on in a few more weeks! I am quite amazed that throwing seeds in the ground so crazily in November is actually paying off!

My "greenhouse".

Lettuce!

Spinach!

I have great hopes and expectations for our Winter sown seeds. We will be sure to keep you updated with our successes and failures. Though I hope there won't be so much of the latter.

What are your gardening activities this time of year where you live?

Blessings!