Green Pastures and Rainy Days

I can't believe how green everything is getting around here. It just seems like the fields grew knee high overnight! We've moved our personal lawn mower up closer to the house to *grin*. Before we take Bee down to the bottom field he's making the rounds around my house. I love waking up to him mooing in the morning and having him close so we can scratch his ears and of course try and avoid those licks he loves to slather us with :)

Our baby chicks are growing at lightening speed to. Believe it or not I haven't taken any photos of them lately. I must be slipping! They've pretty much got all of their feathers now and are quite the lively bunch :) I'm still getting the kids to pick them up and hold them as much as possible to keep them from becoming to skittish around us. My plan is that as they grow bigger we'll be able to take a few of them each day out to the garden with us this summer to let them scratch around and eat bugs :)

While the chicks are thriving, my garden could use some work. I feel like I'm terribly behind all of a sudden. I know that planting time for us has just begun but for some reason I just can't get it together *grin*. The soil is tilled and ready to go but we spent our week of sunny weather camping and now it's raining again :( I can just see my dad shaking his head and saying you never waste a sunny day! Travel and visiting is best saved for those rainy days *grin*. Wise words but I guess I could use hearing them again since I just did the complete opposite LOL.

I guess I'm just going to have to put on my boots and get ready to be soaked!

Hugs,
Rosina

Egg-cellent Easter Grass

With Easter coming up on us at lightning speed I thought that it would be fun to share an Easter project that the kids and I do every year. We make Egg-cellent Easter grass with egg shells that we save for our composter :)
Plus it's a super easy way to bring a little bit of the outdoors in!

There are two ways to get a good egg shell for planting in. You can use either hard boiled eggs or raw eggs but you must make sure that your egg shell is going to be deep enough to hold a substantial amount of soil. So the trick is to crack them really close to the top of the shell leaving a nice deep cavity for planting in. Give the shells a quick rinse and you are ready to move on to the next step of filling them with your potting soil. Using an all purpose potting soil fill a bowl with it and mix in a really generous amount of water so that it is good and wet, not just damp.

With your shells all set up in your egg carton to keep them upright start to spoon in little bits of potting soil at a time until they are about a centimeter from the top of the shell.

Once you have your egg shells filled with soil you can take your grass or wheat seeds and place a solid layer of them inside the egg shell so that they completely cover up the potting soil. The last step is to cover them again with just enough wet potting soil to cover the seeds. You don't want to put to much on or it will take longer for the grass shoots to come through. Place your eggs right in the egg carton in a spot where it is guaranteed to be warm all of the time and in a couple of days the grass will start to sprout up. Your children are going to love watching them grow! If you want to prolong the life of your grass you can give it a little trim every couple of days as well :)

Aren't they just the cutest things ever?!
Have fun creating some unique plant stands for them to! The above ones we created by twisting copper wiring around to make a little cup holder and then fashioned some chick look alike feet *grin*. You could make paper cup holders, use your favorite ceramic ones from breakfast or just leave them in the egg carton to :)

Have fun growing some of your own egg-cellent Easter grass and we'd love to see your egg cup creations :)

~ Rosina