Molly Lynn, I am forever calling you my little song bird. From the time you were little, you've serenaded us with your sweet voice. It has been my heart's delight listening to you progress with your voice. Now, you've added in the ukulele, and we are so excited to watch you grow in skill!
We are so very proud of the sweet, kind hearted, vivacious, strong willed girl you are growing into! I take such pride in knowing you are so kind to everyone who crosses your path. You are truly a friend to all and stick up for those that need a little extra love. You are bubbly, silly, sarcastic (lol), and are becoming more and more self confident as well. You have a strong moral compass and a huge desire to succeed in whatever task is at hand. You are so very special, Molly. So special. I can't wait to see what the future holds for you!
Happy 9th Birthday, Molly Lynn Elizabeth! Our sweet song bird! We love you!
With love,
Mama Hauck
Anthony, it was hard watching you reach the double digits last summer. Then it was hard watching you enter Middle School this past Fall. So many new milestones for you. So many changes for this Mama's heart.
There is no denying that you are growing up. I can not stop the hands of time. When I look at you, more and more I see the man that you are growing into, far more than the little boy that you once were.
We are so proud of you. You are growing in leaps and bounds. You are learning that actions have consequences, good or bad. You are growing more trustworthy and honest. You are understanding the value of work and responsibility. You are exploring new interests and fine tuning past ones. It's all a process, and no one is perfect, but you're getting there.
Happy 11th Birthday, Anthony! We are excited to watch you continue on your journey through life. We love you!
With love,
Mama Hauck
Over the past few years, the garden has become a huge source of joy for me. I might not always know exactly what I'm doing, but each year I learn a little bit more. The time I spend watering and harvesting in the quiet of the morning is quickly becoming one of my favorite moments of each day.
The snap peas grew beautifully over the course of the past month, and I was so excited to see flowers starting to emerge! I picked the first snap pea a few days ago, and the photo above is of this morning's harvest! I'm excited to have enough to snack on while in the garden and some to take up to the house!
The cabbages are getting huge! Molly's, from her teacher, is the biggest, and still has a ton of growing to do. We even have a cabbage that grew two heads! Awesome! We just pulled our first head of cabbage yesterday! It's beautiful, haha.
The pickling cucumbers have been slow growing, but I do have to remind myself that it's only now the end of June....and we've never done cucs before, so I have no idea what the timeline for them should be. In my mind, as long as things are growing and not dying, we're good to go, haha! We finally have pretty little flowers and each plant is starting to vine out. So this is all great news!
My raspberry box isn't as full as it use to be, which breaks my raspberry loving heart. I did have a lot of older plants not make it this season that I had to clip out. BUT there is a ton of new growth that will be awesome for next year, I just have to be patient. In the mean time, the few remaining mature plants have started to slowly produce. I got five this morning, and three the other day, lol. Just enough for a garden snack! I'm hoping I won't have to share with the wasps....I might have to get some more netting for the raspberries like I have on the strawberries to make it a little bit more difficult for them.
I am over the moon excited about how awesome our broccoli is! We had two different broccoli starts, one of which we got from some friends. That all started to come in weeks ago and have now all been harvested and either eaten fresh, or frozen for future use. The other kind we got from Home Depot. Those ones are just now started to come in! It's been great to have two rounds of broccoli. After we harvested all the off shoots on the first round, we pulled those ones all up. Now we've got tons of space in that box next to the remaining broccoli plants. I think we're going to plant some bush beans, per our neighbor's recommendation. That'll be fun!
Not too much to report on the carrots. We're just having an off year. Either the soil isn't prime for carrot growing this go-around, or perhaps I watered too much in the beginning like my neighbor thinks. We had the majority of the carrots come in, but lost a lot. The remaining ones look healthy though. We picked one yesterday to see how things are going, and it was delicious! So I think we'll be ok on the rest. Still a bit of growing time for them, but after we harvest, we'll see about adding in some horse manure or something to help the bed a bit before planting a second round of carrots or perhaps something else.
The strawberries have been amazing this year, producing a huge pot full over the course of a few weeks! The four mother plants in the back of the box are on their 3rd year though, so I think they've given all that they will give. They are starting to wilt and look incredibly sad. We'll dig them out here shortly and allow the runners of last year's starts to make their way over. We've gotten enough strawberries so far this year that we were able to eat fresh strawberries every day, as well as almost fill a gallon size bag for the freezer. When I find the time, I'm thinking strawberry cobbler is in our future!
Eekk! I'm excited about the pumpkin patch! As you know, we planted earlier this year because we didn't allow ourselves for ample growth time last year. We are starting to get vines, those gorgeous flowers, and even have a few pumpkins emerging! I can't wait to see the whole patch taken over with fines, leaves, and flowers.
In other news, Molly's little currant plant is lovely and will give us a little snack of red currants soon. We really should get a whole bunch more and go plant them in the yard. That was the plan last year, but time and money are always an issue, lol.
The pear tree and apricot tree over by the pumpkin patch are doing great. The apricot tree will be loaded this year. I'll have to have friends come pick. The two plum trees in the front year (no picture yet) are doing great as well. I still have the harvest from last year, as well as the year before, in the freezer. Maybe I'll find the time this year to make something with them! I keep thinking some sort of savory sauce for cooking, but we'll see.
Last, but not least, after getting some chicken wire up around the rhubarb, they are now looking lively and lovely. Before the chicken wire, the cats had a hay-day pooping in the mulch, and the deer were enjoying it as a snack. That was not going to fly with me, so I dug out the wire and the clippers and got to work. Now we're good to go!
With love,
Mama Hauck
