We got Graduated!

This has been a long time coming - literally and figuratively - 18 years to be exact which is how old Reedo is now!

This was his Kindergarten picture - just a tiny guy with a great big smile!

Here he is in the middle of the Chivers twins - great kids who played hockey and graduated with Reed.  This is their "badass boys" pose for team pictures.  It is one of my all time favorite pictures!

Here they are at the Graduation!  They are Graduated!!!  An 18 year long journey culminating in this moment in time.  They couldn't really duplicate the "badassness" of the hockey picture but they tried hard - even had the "game faces" on!  Some of it may have been a little "take the darn picture mom"!

It took a while to get a good picture of any of them - they would all look a different direction at the same time and bless Isaac Smoldons heart - he tried to run quickly and block the glaring light above their heads but really only succeeded in a bizarre set of photo bombs!

Bomb 1

Bomb 2

And we got the girl graduated too!  Such a joy to see all the kids finish strong and with smiles on their faces and diplomas in their hands!

Now on to the next chapters in their beautiful lives!  Can't wait to see what it holds and what adventures we all will have!

Pieces of Life - a quilted comfort

It is never easy - this life we strive to live.  We strive to be happy and healthy and wealthy and most of us strive to be wise.  It is never easy.  No easy button.  

Some days are easier than others.  Some days just plain suck.  

It is that way for all of us it seems - even those who are the brightest stars in our universe have bad days and wish for the easy button once in a while.  Sometimes the best we can hope for is comfort.

I quilt often now, not just because it soothes me (and I have a great new sewing machine), but because sometimes my creations soothe others, and they also make great gifts!

Recently, I had a friend who went through a year or two of absolute hell.  Not the same hell as mine, but ... 6 of one....  She needed some comfort and some love, and some rest.

So a comfort quilt was begun.

I got the 9 patch blocks at the great estate sale that my cousin took me to - yes there were over a hundred  9 patch blocks in a little shoe box sized box!  The hundred were 6" blocks in all different colors.  I think that she may have belonged to an exchange group to get all of these - traded with other people.  

I paired them with "Snowball" blocks of all different floral patterns.  Scrappy and random are hard for me - I usually prefer an organized pattern with color continuity!  But this quilt and all of its random perfection reminded me of a saying - when life hands you scraps (or falls to pieces) - pick up the pieces, sew them back together and wrap up in them!  Pieces of life!

So the pieces of life quilt went to my friend who needed it to wrap up in, to gather up the pieces of her life and take some comfort and rest.  

And I was comforted by the sewing and quilting.

March on.  Be blessed.

Houston High Garden Update

It has been a long strange summer here in Big Lake and the garden at Houston High shows it as well as the gardens at Wicked Raven too. This spring was worse than last year for being cold.  The High School Culinary Arts class planted a whole bunch of plants in April (Late April so not early enough but...), school gets out on May 19th of this year so the kids had to plant their items on that day or they would not have got to plant them for the most part.  But Alaska is not to be toyed with on the Mother Nature side of life!  It froze hard, a killing frost on May 22nd and killed off most of the kids plants!  We were left with some savory, oregano and a tiny sage plant in one raised bed.  We had two cabbage and a lovely squash survive in another, and the potatoes are doing beautifully.   We lost both of the apple trees (we will probably replace those next year) and the rhubarb is struggling but will live.

We have had a lot of cool and overcast days but not a lot of watering rain.  Everything has to be watered and watered even though the sun hasn't necessarily been shining.  We did have some days of 80-90 degree weather though and the wind has been drying as well.

We have a lot of hose at the High School garden. 400 feet to be exact!  You can read about it here.That is how long it has to be for it to reach from the nearest hose bib on the school wall to the garden.  The hose is kept locked in a shed (I call them the tiny sheds), and if I forget my keys I have to haul water by hand in containers!

Above are three of the containers I haul water in when I can't get to or can't yard out the 400' of hose!

I use the yard cart to haul the containers the 400' from the hose bib, it works great and you can fill it with water as well, double dipping so to speak!

The strawberry patch is doing well, but they run all over the place and have to be herded back into the row at least once a summer.  The little rock with the butterfly is a special gift from a school staff member.  When the garden was vandalized a couple years ago, she made that and put it there "secret surprise" style.  It always makes me smile when I see it - and maybe it tricks the birds into thinking all the berries are rocks and not for them to eat!  We can hope!

We have berries getting ripe!

Here is some of the purple kale, tomatoes, and some other plants donated by Snowfire Gardens after our freeze out!  Thank you to Snowfire Gardens!

Here is that lovely squash plant that survived the freeze!  I think its a Black Beauty or a Dostal.  Either way isn't it beautiful!

Can you see the tiny tomato on the plant?  It's right next to the upright stick!

Our beds along the fence now have tomatoes, cabbage, cauliflower and some broccoli!  You can see how dry it looks.  This was prior to a good watering on one of the really sunny days.

We have raspberries galore!  Hoping for a good crop so the kids can make some Jam or something wonderful with Mrs. Fortune this fall!

The raspberries also try to run out of the rows!  

If you are in the garden there are always things you can do even if no one else is there.  There are always weeds to pull (anything purple that isn't a chive has to go!), as well as chickweed, dandelion, mustard, and fireweed.  You can also dig the strawberries and the raspberries from in between the rows and plant them in the Huglekultures, or dig them off of the dirt hill (raspberries) and put in the rows.  If it seems dry, please water - there are watering cans and some water barrels in the far corner of the fence.  Just dip and water - easy!

I can't wait for the kids to see the plants that lived and be able to harvest and use the goodies from the garden! If you are there - enjoy the space!

Mamas new yard cart!

Yard carts here at Wicked Raven are a hot commodity!  You can do all kinds of things with them - haul garbage, kids, grass clippings, bricks and pavers, and firewood among other things.  Yard carts can be specialized for the purpose they are needed - like the one below. 

It is my moms yard cart (one of them), it is designed to cart flats of plants around their yard, or pots of plants.  They built it low so no one has to lift anything too high, and they can leave the flats on the cart and just take them out when they plant them.  My dad built it for her.

Until recently, this was my yard cart!  Yes - it is missing some tires, and some other parts also.  We wired the handle back on so I could use it, but it is very difficult to use and things fall off it, and you have to find a something to prop it on so that is doesn't fall over or things don't fall off of it. 

The reason it is missing parts is that it was incorporated into  a Go-Kart a few years ago - a Go-Kart that needed tires, pins, an axle and some other parts.  The GO-Kart ran pretty well until it started blowing tires because the horse power to tire ratio was off somehow and the yard cart tires arent designed for that type of torque!  

Above is a shot of one of the tires - its blown.  Its partner got chewed up by Brix the dog - you remember the naughty tree chewer from earlier.  Brix thinks these tires (off the rim) are the perfect frisbee type items for him to retrieve and to chew a little.  There was no putting them back on the yard cart.   I do have a wheel barrow and a little rolling cart that is round - I think it is a wheeled garbage can really.   I also have a little wheeled cart that works great for holding stuff and not falling over, but it has such low ground clearance that it can't be taken every where.  None of them are great for some of the stuff I am trying to get done.  The wheel barrow falls over if I overload it - which is often, and the little rolling garbage can is just that - little.  Not complaining - I use each of them on the regular but.... things would be easier with a decent yard cart!

Ta Da!  Mamas new yard cart!  Reedo saw me struggling with the old cart and for Mothers day and our 26 year Anniversary he got us a new one (mostly for me but.... you know)!

It is the top of the line Gorilla Cart.  Turns on a dime and holds a ton of stuff!  Never has to be propped up and has a dump handle - just like a dump truck!  Yes - I could do an advertisement for them.  I have been able to do some sweet projects (mostly yarding out the rhubarb patch and weeding - and carting off the debris) with this bad boy already and have some more lined up for the coming days.  Can't wait!