The garlic we planted last fall and onions (started from seed) planted early spring are ready to harvest.
Garlic will be ready to harvest when the bottom 4-6 leaves have turned yellow. During the spring, we had to cut off the budding tops to prevent the nutrition in the bulb from going into the flower:
Onions will be ready to harvest when the leaves (tops) have fallen over and are beginning to yellow:
A full wheelbarrow. What in the world are we going to do with all these onions and garlic? Mmmmmm…..salsa.. come on tomatoes - we’re only waiting for you to ripen now:
Both garlic and onions need to be cured for a couple of weeks. If you eat them now, be sure you have the rest of the family eat some too, because no one - not even the mosquitoes - will come within a 3 mile radius of you! To cure them, they need to be placed in a dry, well ventilated place, preferrably on a wire rack or hanging up.
June 27 2009 | On the Farm | No Comments »
OK, I’m no National Geographic photographer, but when there’s a photo contest open for anyone, I thought I’d give it a ‘go’. I don’t stand a chance against the pros and sheer thousands of photographers of actually winning anything, but it’s fun to make an attempt:
Check out My Home Sweet Home’s Photo Contest and National Geographic’s Photo Contest.
June 27 2009 | Photography | 5 Comments »
Is it possible to organize your homeschool, household, finances, address books, calendars, and garden plan? Sure it is. Is it possible to have all those plans in one comprehensive organizer? That would be hard to do. The new 2009 Schoolhouse Planner from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine Store is more than just a homeschool planner - it offers a place to plan and organize all of the above mentioned areas plus more.
The Planner is an e-book, available for purchase through the Schoolhouse Store for $39.00, and is downloaded in Adobe PDF format. Comment and markup access is given, so you may key-in directly onto the Planner and print the completed pages, or save it on your computer. There are four main sections in the Planner:
- Monthly Calendars starting from July 2009 through June 2010. Each month features a calendar with plenty of space to type in entries, followed by an article about an educational or helpful topic. Some of these articles were contributed by well known figures in homeschool circles (e.g., Steve Demme of Math-U-See and Dr. Jay Wile of Apologia). Following each article is a list of links to additional resources from the Schoolhouse Store. Each monthly section ends with a couple of recipes - how does Chicken Penne Pesto Salad or Stromboli sound for dinner?
- Miscellaneous Educational Information. This section includes different fact sheets - U.S. Presidents/Vice Presidents/First Ladies, Kitchen Conversions & Measurements, States & Capitals, Countries & Capitals, to name a few.
- Homeschool Forms. There are a lot of forms pertaining to planning your homeschool: goals, curriculum planning, report cards, transcripts, weekly schedules, grading sheets, media logs, preschool planner, book report forms, journal/notebook pages and many more.
- Household Forms. Like the Homeschool Forms, there are a lot to choose from to help organize your household: personal/health information, chore charts, home repair projects, garden planning, food inventory, finances/budgeting, and Bible reading/prayer journal are just a few examples.
Just to give you a little background about DH (dear husband) and myself before I give our personal thoughts about the Planner: DH is the “big picture” person; I am the detail-oriented person. He’s laid back - I’m Type A. Melancholic - Choleric. INTP - ISTJ. I think you get the idea. DH and I pretty much came to the same conclusions about this product. It is big (375 pages) and covers a large number/variety of aspects of the homeschool and household. It gives a good starting point for organizing general thoughts and plans. There are a lot of useful pages and practical tips which I plan to use (e.g., the weekly menu planning page and kitchen/measurement conversion charts). DH likes the annual assessment and goal setting pages.
However, the format of the Planner is a little difficult to navigate. It is an e-book, so it’s structured like a book, with printable pages. You can pick and choose the pages you want to use, but unless you have Adobe Acrobat, you can’t extract the pages to build a more personalized organizer. Because the Planner covers such a broad spectrum, it does not get specific in a particular area. I find that using intuitive software for tracking our homeschool, using an accounting software for budgeting and tracking finances, and having a smartphone for contacts and calendars is more efficient and detailed for the needs of our family.
Not everyone has the finances, access or ability to use available software and technology resources, so I can definitely see this Planner benefitting those who like to see things in one place and on paper. DH and I agree that this Planner is good for homeschooling families who don’t have a techno-geek, planning-freak, Type A, ISTJ in the home! 
The 2009 Schoolhouse Planner is available for $39.00 at The Old Schoolhouse Magazine Store. You can find more reviews of this product at The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew blog.
Disclosure: This product was provided to our family for free as members of the 2009-2010 Old Schoolhouse Magazine Homeschool Crew. Reviews and opinions expressed in this blog are our own.
June 17 2009 | Homeschool and Product Reviews | 1 Comment »
This week’s challenge at iHeartFaces is “sepia toned”, and I couldn’t help but submit this photo for the challenge:
June 16 2009 | Photography | 3 Comments »
Here are the final stats from our hatching project:
14 out of 39 eggs hatched = 35.9% Hatch Rate, that really stinks. BUT we now know what we can do to improve that for the next time.
- Select good quality eggs by candling them prior to incubation. “Splotchy” looking eggs means that the shell is porous and can allow bacteria to migrate into the egg vs. a non-splotchy egg. Only 1 out of the 7 splotchy/porous eggs hatched.
- Use the digital thermometer/hygrometer. We relied primarily on the bulb-thermometer that came with the incubator, and just used the digital thermometer to read the relative humidity. The temps read anywhere from 2-4 degrees cooler on the digital thermometer vs. the bulb, and since the chicks hatched a day late we realized that the digital thermometer was more accurate.
- Do a better job of cleaning dirty spots on the eggs.
The chicks that made it: #s 8, 13, 17, 18, 20, 23, 24, 26, 29, 31, 33, 34, 35, and 38. #26 was a splotchy/porous egg that hatched. #33 was incubated upside down days 0 through 7, before it was righted. #23, which was the most active, was the second chick to hatch-out (#29 was first to hatch).
It was a great learning experience for the kids. All 14 chicks are lively and well, and they have been moved into the brooding ring in the coop. It will be interesting to see what the male:female ratio is!
June 10 2009 | On the Farm | 1 Comment »
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