I try to take things one day at a time, but lately several days have been ganging up on me at once.

Was it a dramatic 3.5 year silence...or just us not getting around to updating?  You guessed it, we've been more involved in real life than virtual life for a while now.  However, we really want to share about our latest journey, so here's hoping I am able to keep up.  See you out there....

My oldest son could not be torn away from watching me vacuum the house one morning this week.  Apparently it's such a rare occurrence it qualifies as a spectator sport?

The Composter.. Dun dun dah!

I found some great ideas online and combined them as well as took some excellent advice from a knowledgeable coworker, Viet, on composting with worms. I built a 3'x3' container from ceder wood and 3/4" hole size galvanized wire mesh. This large composter is for yard debris and the front slots are removable so when the compost is ready it is easy to shovel out. On top I built an interlocking tray system that composts kitchen scraps (no fats, meats, dairy) only raw vegetables, rinsed egg shells, and coffee grounds. Underneath the bottom tray is a screen to keep the worms from escaping yet allows the "worm tea" juices drip onto the main composting materials. The lid keeps the moisture in, pests out as well as worm hunting birds out. I did end up with an unexpected resident, BSF or black soldier fly larve (maggots) which I was initially concerned about, but they compost even better the the worms and are not a pest since they prefer rotting vegetables as apposed to manure and rancid meat their cleaner and not attracted to coming into your house as a nuisance. Since they spend 90% of their life as a larve and 10% as a fly (mimicking a wasp) with no mouth and only seaking a mate and to lay eggs they are very useful and easy to get a long with.

Building a Garden!

So we decided to build a garden... with a lot of prompting from Grandma and some planning on Daddy's part we got started on the hard work. There was plenty of digging through lime stone, so much so that we had to get out the big guns, the mini-sledge hammer and a 2 foot 3/4 inch steel spike to hammer through the stuff. Phew! It sure came out nice in the end. Now we've got grapes, tomato's, squash, cantaloupe, herbs and more. Oh yeah, and we even have an great composter and vermi-composter.

Don't feed the animals!

Sam-urai

Big little helpers

Sweet moment

When in Texas...

We do as the Texans do! This includes "gearing up" for the Rodeo.

The city shut down

The day it snowed in San Antonio!