The Garden!

We have the coolest garden this summer thanks to Bill's hard work and the help of our neighbor Norman John. Norman is English, loves gardening, and has a lot of time on his hands. He also plays soccer twice a week. He's amazing! I hope to be so spry when I'm pushing 80.

 The area behind our fence used to be overflowing with blackberry bushes and garbage (literally, the former owner dumped siding back there). It's an easement that is also a driveway. We asked the owner if we could put in a garden, and he said as long as we didn't build a permanent structure, it'd be fine. Bill told Norman about the idea and he got right on digging and sifting the soil, separating the rocks and "rubbish" from the good dirt. This was back in February when it was freezing!

They also did a second garden, which originally we didn't intend on planting in this summer, but Norman is like a sifting maniac so we had time to do a second crop! Here it is pre-dug/sifted.

They put a border around the good dirt and then Norman brought in some manure and roto-tilled it. Bill made a Jack and the Beanstalk bean trellis, we bought some seeds and started planting. Look at some of the progress!

 We made signs!

 The second garden! Bill planted kale and spinach, Norman did some radishes, turnips, carrots and about 6 rows of potatoes.

 Our first crop! (above) They got a lot bigger after a few weeks! (below)

 We also put in some berry bushes!

Bill is also getting some "Victory Garden" posters to laminate and put on the fence! Check out some of the images here. 

It's kind of like a bit middle finger to the economy having this garden to rely on! Thanks Bill (and Norman) for all your hard work.

10ish weeks to go!

I am now 29 weeks pregnant with this Little Miss which means there are roughly 10 weeks until I deliver! I expect to be a little early, since each of my babies was born before their due dates. Amelia was the earliest at 38 weeks, Caley and Wesley were both about 4-5 days early. Of course I practically begged my OB to break my water with Wesley so active labor would actually begin, I was so uncomfortable, so I often wonder if he'd held on a few more days if not "forced" out.

We don't have a name yet, but that doesn't really bother me since we were last-minute namers with each of the kids.

I'm feeling pretty good, aside from the aches and pains that are typical of pregnancy. And thank the Lord it hasn't been hot this summer. Today it's about 78-80, which is about all I can stand!

Here is what she may look like right now in utero:

It's funny what people have to comment when I'm out with the kids. If I had a nickel for every "You've got your hands full" or "Are they all yours" or "I could never do that" and the like, we could pay for their college tuition! Just smile and nod, and walk away. I had one old man tell me "You better watch out for those accidents in the bed!" Nice, classy, old man. Even better, another guy tried to convince me to stock food for the impending polar shift. Um, yeah, I'll get right on that. But there are also a lot of nice comments. Today a lady at church said she's glad I'm having kids. That made me feel good.

It's always an exercise in knowing I'm not here to please man, but to please God. And it doesn't matter how many kids we have, we aim to have kids who love Jesus and to reflect Jesus in my mothering.

Blog changes

Hello faithful few blog readers!

This blog is, once again, public.

My original reason for making this blog private was because I was adding Cost Cutter entries and it was attracting more traffic than I liked. Specifically, blog traffic from countries I had no idea who would be reading and what they would read about my family. That thought made me uncomfortable.

But shortly after the Cost Cutter blog started, the store had to close (sad day for Addie). It made me reconsider the privacy of our family blog and ease up a bit.

So here is the new, slightly improved Gerlach family blog! I hope to post more often, but I'm not promising anything.

Hello again!