Malina is Five

Malina turned 5yrs. old on June 7th. Just for the record the above picture is of Malina when she was 2 1/2 yrs. old but that's still her: big smile, big doe eyes, and food on her face. No really, you should see the kid eat! She gets food all over the place! Happy Birthday Malina!

Garbage + Rocks= Pigs

***Alternate Title for this Post: How To Overuse "Quotations"***

When we first seen our house back in February, I was already starting to plan the vegetables, herbs, fruits, flowers, etc. that I would be growing in our garden. Never mind that my "green thumb" is less "green" and more "black"; like the "bubonic-plague-I-kill-everything-I-touch, black". But I was undaunted and bought seeds of a whopping 43 different varieties of plants. Two reasons: 1) I'm indefatigably optimistic and 2) that way I could see what would do well in our soil and what would not.

After we moved in, the first thing we did was begin to pick up some of the bits of junk that was left in the yard by the previous owner. Our yard is extremely overgrown, we're talking at least 5 years, and in some places longer, with little to no yard maintenance. The problem with that is, we would clean out all the visible garbage, turn over some dirt, and then find more garbage. And it seems to be that way through most of the yard: a layer of garbage, a layer of earth, a layer of garbage, a layer of earth, etc.


You may not know this about me but two things give me the heebie--jeebies: garbage and poop. I refuse to clean up or pick up those two things. Dogs got into the trash and spread it all over? Too bad I'm not cleaning it up. Dog crap all over the yard? Not cleaning that up either. That could be why we don't have a dog.....hmmm........ But I digress. I'm also ridiculously stubborn and I want a garden so I WILL BE cleaning up the garbage out of the front yard (as I find it at least. Just when you think you got the last of it.....) We decided we needed some heavy machinery to dig up our yard, so we can get a better idea of what we're working with.

Then Dave got laid off. Exactly 3 days after we moved into our house. And while he is working now, it is only temporary. That means we don't have the cash to rent some heavy duty man toy with which to dig around our yard.


So we went to plan "B", what we commonly refer to in our house as the "contingency plan". The contingency plan consisted of us finding at least some part of our yard that wasn't riddled with garbage and debris, taking a shovel and turning the dirt, a.k.a: tilling the dirt, for our garden ourselves. Sounds complicated, I know, but that's just the kind of people we are.
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The first shovel-full into the remarkably garbage-free area, came back with a TING!- "must have hit a rock", I say to Dave.


We try again. TING! And again. TING! And again. TING!

Finally I dig a few of the big rocks out with my hands (and I mean BIG, 9-10 in. in diameter) and we're thinking this is a fluke. Surely, all of our soil CAN'T be THIS ROCKY. But it turns out it can be and it is! And not just rocky, the dirt that surrounds the rocks, is almost entirely clay.

Now I'm no Ciscoe Morris but I'm pretty sure that rocky clay does not make the ideal soil in which to plant a garden. The next step would be to plant a garden using raised beds and purchased soil to go into said raised beds. Again for two reasons, this is not an option: 1) like I said before, finances are tight 2) we just purchased 7.93 forested acres, we shouldn't need to buy dirt.

So we're scratching the garden this year, although I do have some potted herbs that are doing quite well. (I'm as surprised as you). Instead we are just going to try and "fix" the soil we have, so that it can be plant-worthy by next spring.

Contingency Plan #2: we bought two baby pigs last month. Using a movable fence (they're called "pig panels") we set up a temporary pen for them to live in. They "process" the area by eating the existing grasses, digging up the roots and rocks, turning the dirt over and all the while leaving manure to further help the soil. I periodically go in with a wheel barrow and gather the rocks they have rooted up. We're using them as "gravel" for our semi-muddy driveway.


When all the greenery is exhausted in one area we move them to another to start the whole process again. Plus, in the newly turned dirt I'm planting a summer ground cover of common vetch and rye cereal. They're used to keep weeds from growing in your fresh dirt and as "green manure". Meaning that, instead of harvesting the plants, you just till them into your garden dirt and they improve your soil.

Buying A House: A Timeline

Dec 09'--we made the decision to buy a house in 2010
Jan 10'--start saving money for down payment
Feb 13 2010--took 1st time home buyer's class
Feb 14 2010--found the house we wanted to buy (pending inside inspection)
Feb 17 2010--got our real estate agent
Feb 20 2010--viewed the inside of our house
Feb 22 2010--made an offer
Feb 26 2010--agreed upon a closing date of Mar 31st
Mar 1- Mar 15--house inspected, house appraised, signed paperwork, got: bank statements, pay stubs, old tax returns, a hand written note saying I currently had no income what so ever, from any source
Mar 15- Mar 31--more paper work, older bank statements, older pay stubs, older tax returns, a compilation and explanation of Dave's work history for the past 4 years
Mar 31--move out of our apartment and into my parents' house until loan is approved (9 or so days we were told : ))
April 1--submit our loan application
April 20--our loan is approved
April 21--the loan documents go to "recording" and come back same day, we get the keys to our house!

Dave's Great Grandparents, The Hughes

Say "Hello" to Harold's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Hughes. No, I don't know their first names, and as it turns out Dave is not a valuable resource for this kind of information. (ease up on him, I mean, it's only HIS family). ; D This is a nice picture of them, and the best one we could find. It's also nice to know what Dave will look like when he's 60 yrs. old or so!




This is a picture of Harold's wife Mary (Dave's Grandma) standing next to her mother-in-law Mrs. Hughes. This picture was probably taken when Harold and Mary first got married. What a bunch of pretty ladies--and I'm not just saying that because my daughter's look like them. Ok, maybe a little.

**Update: I asked Dave to call his mom and find out the names of his great-grandparents. They are Mr. Grady Hughes and Mrs. Evan Hughes. Yes, Grandma Hughes' first name was Evan. (pretty awesome).



Here is a picture of Grady and Evan Hughes, with their 3 youngest kids, ya know the ones still livnig at home. At this point their youngest child is only a few years younger than their oldest grand-child. (Dave's Uncle Danny).

Dave's Great-Great-Great-Great grandparents, we think

So this is what Dave and I have managed to piece together from the pictures and the notes other family members have left.We don't know their first names but the couple above are Mama and Papa Adcock. Remember the picture of Dave's grandpa? Harold Hughes? Well, Mama and Papa Adcock are Harold's grandparents on his mother's side. (we think, possibly great-grandparents).



This picture is of Papa and Mama Adcock and their five children. So one of the children are Harold's mom (possibly grandpa or grandma). But again we are not sure. These pictures look pretty old. We figure Harold was born c. 1935 and all the girls look grown up (which back then meant they would be having children) and it doesn't look like anywhere close to 1935. More than likely, Mama & Papa Adcock are Harold's great-grandparents, and one of their children is Harold's grandma or grandpa.

Confused yet? Well just disregard everything I just said and know that these are Dave's relatives from the 1800's- turn of the century.

And no we don't know who wrote the names at the top of the picture (that would certainly help figure things out though).

The boy on the very far right, holding the gun, looks a whole lot like Dave! Especially the nose. As we go threw more pictures (yes, there's more) you're gonna see that nose a lot! This family's got some strong noses......err I mean genes!

Family Resemblence

See this man? This is Harold Hughes. Does he look familiar? He should, he is Dave's grandpa on his mother's side and Dave looks almost exactly like him! And so do my children and my nieces and my nephews, to some degree.

So if you want to see a picture of Jackson, here ya go! It's just been time lapsed about 18yrs.!

Ps. The Hughes side of Dave's family is having a reunion this summer so everyone is sharing pictures. We have NO pictures of Dave when he was little, or I should say, his mother has no pictures of Dave when he was little. So as the other family member share them, I will post them so you can see how adorable Dave was (ahem....IS). ; )

The Teeth are coming!

Jackson has had a breakthrough--literally. One of his bottom teeth has FINALLY broken through! Which means he's that much closer to eating table foods/ solid foods. You see, he doesn't like baby food. I don't know if it's because of the taste or because of the texture- it's practically a liquid. He does like those melt-in-your-mouth baby foods Gerber (I think) makes. I get the impression he would just like to skip the whole soupy-baby-food stage and go right to table food eating. But you can't do that with gums! : D

So what's with the picture above? It's certainly NOT Jackson. (That's a girl) You would think a post about Jackson would include a picture of him, right? Wrong. My current camera, that I just recently bought, does not upload to my computer so, I cannot post pictures. I just thought that baby with the fake buck teeth was the most hilarious thing I've ever seen!