Friday, August 3, 2012

Weekly Wrap-up - CUCUMBERS!: July 28 - August 3


In Our Life This Week
Do you get excited about...CUCUMBERS? We do! But let me explain. LOL For 4-5 years now we have been trying to grow cucumbers in our raised garden bed. We've tried different varieties and different composts and fertilizers, but with the same result: baseball-sized cucumbers! ROUND! Until this year! Behold, our very first OBLONG cucumber! And it was yummy! We're hoping that the GAZILLIONS of cucumber flowers will yield bowls more of veggies!

Our VERY First Cucumber
The Girls Rototilling, Weeding AND Fertilizing
Isn't This Cool? An ONION Flower!
A Pumpkin Flower

In Our Homeschool
Writing! Reading! White Pine and Sugar Maple started up our writing review again this week. And Balsam Fir started a reading program on-line. Last week was just too crazy-busy for them to do anything school-ish!

Sugar Maple asked for me to print out some blank sheet music for her, and she wrote her OWN clarinet music! (I'm SO glad she doesn't have MY music abilities! Ha! Ha!)


The kids had a wonderful opportunity to go KAYAKING on a small pond. Our friends "down the road" (1 mile?) graciously offered us the use of their kayaks and we took them up on it. The Saplings LOVE it!


And I continued to prepare for our upcoming year. The printer has been spitting out Ancient History Timelines and cards, Work Box cards, and world maps galore! (There go the new ink cartridges! What can you do? LOL) I'm super excited about adding Tending to Our Lord's Garden's Story of the World timeline to our studies! (Favorite resource this week!) I've got the PERFECT spot to pin it!

Oh, and have you seen our Not-Back-to-School edition? It's all about our curriculum for this year and our methods and even our schoolroom! Click over here!

We're Reading...
...a psychological thriller entitled The Doctor's Wife by Elizabeth Brundage (me), too many books to include for White Pine, a teenage mystery entitled Trixie Belden: The Gatehouse Mystery by Julie Campbell (Sugar Maple), Nate the Great by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat (Balsam Fir), and The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden (read aloud).


People and Places
♥ We saw fireworks and had food and fun at C___ Days ♥ Balsam Fir and Blue Spruce went to Cub Scout Fun Pack Weekend ♥ Indoor tent camping and KAYAKING at a friend's house ♥ We had lunch at the Rec Center, played gym games, and swam in the lake with friends ♥ Sugar Maple had her last 3 days of Band Camp and her final summer concert ♥ Balsam Fir and Blue Spruce attended a Portland Sea Dogs baseball ♥

Ponderings
32 more days of summer vacation left! The crisp days of Maine fall will get here before we know it! And you know, I'm starting to get excited about fall arriving!

Quote to Share

Lotsa Links-ups
Favorite Resource This WeekHip Homeschool Hop ButtonPhotobucket

19 comments:

  1. Our printer is on overload her also! Glad you got the chance to kayak it is one of our favorite things to do!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We're pondering getting our own kayaks, but I don't think it's in the budget for THIS summer. It's fun though!

      Delete
  2. This is SUPER cool! I THINK growing your own cucumbers are AWESOME! I love them! hahahahaha i may have to try growing some of my own veggies!!!!! :P
    since i eat so many of them LOL
    LOVE the quote!

    ReplyDelete
  3. My ink cartridges are empty too!! For the same reason! We are up to our elbows in zucchini and tomatoes! Fun times!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Love those cucumbers! Keilee just told me the other day she wanted to make pickles! Love the pic of the girls "tending the garden". Love the onion and the pumpkin flower! and Trixie Belden.. I LOVED those books. I have a few for Keilee but to date she is not interested. I've read The Doctor's Wife and liked it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. You'll have to tell me your cucumber secrets...we seem to grow baseball-shaped ones in our raised beds over here in Eastern Maine, too!
    If your daughter likes writing music try this site: MuseScore, it's free and my daughter uses it to write her own piano music.
    Good luck in the rest of your planning! We should all buy stock in printer ink companies, don't you think?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ha! Ha! I wish I knew what our cucumber success secret is! LOL We rototilled part of the yard up in the spring and added a truckload of compost (from our Transfer Station) and voila! Oh, we did add some Miracle Grow! Thanks for the MuseScore suggestion!

      Delete
  6. I really enjoy how you set up this post. Pics are great!

    ReplyDelete
  7. What a fun week! And send some cucumbers our way! The bugs have decimated the remainder of my goodies. Urgh! Darn heat~

    ReplyDelete
  8. When we've tried a garden, cucumbers seem to be the only thing we can successfully grow! Congratulations on your oblong cuke. My printer ink is almost gone also. You just can't help it when preparing for school. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  9. What a fun picture of the "girls" in the garden. That is so great. We just recently bought a used kayak, and the kids like taking it out. I love it too. I've always loved kayaking, even more so than canoeing. Yay for the cucumber!

    ReplyDelete
  10. We really love cucumbers at our house too! Thanks for sharing the SOTW timeline with Favorite Resources :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. Your cucumbers look great! The squirrels, heat, and drought have taken their toll on our garden again this year, and we've given up.

    Your kids are doing so many fun (and educational things) as you wrap up your summer. I love it when my kids choose to learn as part of their "play." :)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Congratulations on that cucumber! I hope you get many more!

    I love the picture of your 'girls' working. The hens we have this year are hyper and keep running all over. We can't have them out in the open even with supervision. We've never had chickens like this before!

    Our cucumbers seem to have a disease. They just stop growing and wilt away into nothingness in a few days. Very strange.

    Have a great weekend!

    ReplyDelete
  13. I LOVED Kayaking..

    our cucumbers aren't doing so hot. we got a few, but then nothing. and they aren't very green.

    ReplyDelete
  14. We have the round cucumber problem at times too!!! I love how alike our lifestyles seem to be! Here is to chickens, gardens, children and the great big out of doors!

    ReplyDelete
  15. How did people homeschool before printers!?! ;-)
    Love your quote.
    Hip Hopping in!

    ReplyDelete
  16. The onion and pumpkin flower pictures are stunning! I went through 2 brand new ink cartridges when I was prepping our school year and I have no clue what I would do without my printer :-)

    Thank you for the SOTW resource link I will hop on over and take a peak. I was actually writing a Fall/Autumn themed blog post tonight and thinking how nice it will be for the season to come (perhaps because it was over 105 degrees where we live today). Thanks for linking up to my Enchanted Thursdays Blog Hop!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for reading! Please share your thoughts in the comment box. We love hearing from our visitors!