A GC camporee

Another Pathfinder weekend - this time I forgot to bring my camera!  Am hoping to "bum" a few off other websites as soon as they get them on there (hint, hint).

Ok, this was the Georgia-Cumberland Pathfinder Camporee at Cohutta Springs.  We had a threat of rain the whole time there but nothing materialized -  Yay. The kids looked SO smart on Sabbath in their uniforms!    Lots of activities on Friday and nature learning, community service and other Sabbath activities on Sabbath.  The only "bad" thing about the whole weekend was the late nights - 11pm might be OK for teenagers, but for the Juniors it was devastating!

Overall we had a GREAT time!

So check back in a week or two for some photos, OK?  They won't be mine, but I'll give credit where it's due (IF'n I know who 'dunnit').

The Garden continued

Sorry I missed you-know-who's phone call this morning.  Spent the whole day in the garden, when I wasn't getting plants and other errands.  As is often the case, didn't have the phone on me!

Here are some before and after photos:

Notice the patches of wood chips here and read the result of this experiment a few photos down.

The original wood-shavings/sawdust pile (not for garden beds, just for paths)

Hubby in process of mowing the clover down with the weed-eater. (In the foreground is what I had mowed with a regular mower a few days before this).

Going.....going.....

Gone (as you saw last time)

The sawdust in its new location plus the pile of green clover clippings - I didn't put a thermometer in there but it was too hot to hold one's hand in the middle of the clover clippings.

Now we have a pile of Red Oak fine wood chips in place, ready to go.

BR tilling the soil (Carnage of the earthworms - hence my desire never to till again after this!)

After some back-breaking work, here are half the beds done.

A few more beds.  Sunny, is that YOU again?  (Dastardly cat climbed up on my greenhouse and tore holes in it!)  Sunny, your days are NUMBERED with the transgressors.......let this be a warning to you!!  Yes, YOU! - don't look away so innocently!!

Sawdust in the pathways and wood chips on the beds with some plants planted.  In the patches of garden over which I had put mulch earlier, I just want to tell you the difference in soil quality was totally evident after only about a month.  After scraping away some of the wood chips, the soil underneath was moist, soft, crumbly and had a BUNCH of earthworms under it.  I grabbed a handful with ONE hand - caught up about 5 huge, fat, red earthworms in that small area.

The pile is almost gone!  Too bad.  Another day of back-breaking work is o'er.  I don't plan to till this garden ever again.....we'll see how that works out!

Gee Creek PF campout

Here are some pics from our recent (Mar 16-18) campout to Gee Creek.

Yes, we had some rain...it wouldn't be a PF campout without it, right?  Thank goodness for this great taup!

Pretty wet, yeah!  We even had to cover the fire!

The Hiwassee running fast.

Eating lunch around the fire.

Pretty blossoms

Companions cooking over a fire

Frying potatoes, baking them and boiling eggs.

On Sabbath afternoon the rain cleared up (yay) and we went for a walk.  On the walk we saw this Squaw root.

I think some kids got more wet than they anticipated!

Kinda liked this tree eating/hugging some rocks....

Pink and Green!  A threesome of Companions show their colors.

After the rain cleared up around 10am Sabbath morning, we had a wonderful time - the weather turned out perfect - not too hot, not too cold - JUST RIGHT!  The weekend ended too soon, as usual!

Garden news

Since we've had a very mild winter, everyone's been very gung-ho to get going on their gardens.  Hold on, though, next week is supposed to get into the 30's overnight on several nights...  I'll have to cover the basil, put the little tomatoes back in the greenhouse, bring in the houseplants and cover some other things.....we should KNOW around here not to get gung-ho about planting before April 15!!

Scary, huh?

The warm days are encouraging

Today, being a "day off", I've been working outside most of the day and now am "pooped"!  So am definitely going to let the photos do the talking!

The red clover seemed to take forever to bloom....Here it is about two weeks ago taking its merry time.   Sunnyboy the cat has been banned to the house until he can learn to LEAVE THE WRENS AND THEIR NEST ALONE!!!  Do you hear that, you monster?!

Finally about 10 days ago it came to life!

Red clover is so beautiful!

The bees, bumblebees, butterflies and many other flying insects liked it too.

Spot the bee contest....

Then sadly, today we had to mow it all down in preparation for some tilling....I'm sad for the bees and such, although we did leave them some at the sides.  Boetie is coming on Sunday to till with a large tiller - our little Mantis would die doing this patch. (as well as I...)

Well, there you have an update on our gardening escapades the past week.  Oh, and I'll show you a pic of the greenhouse:

The little greenhouse with shade cloth

 I had to throw in the two compost piles as well.  Wow, quite different from how it looks today - will have to take another one to show you the difference!