Our square foot garden

Jillian purchased Mel Bartholomew's book on space efficient, low weed square foot gardening. Below are pictures of our first attempt with this approach at our new house in Providence. We have greens in and have tomato and pepper starts ready to go, plus all the other stuff (beans, peas, onions, etc.).

Weed barrier

The square foot garden boxes, these are twice as deep as Mel recommends. Single deep would be sufficient for most plants. 

A view of the boxes facing west. Chayce is on the trampoline in the background, and behind that are the Wellsville mountains.

The boxes are filled with a mix of compost, vermiculite, and peat moss.

My wonderful mother was here to help. Wouldn't have been able to finish without her help. Here she is breaking up peat moss.

Looking toward the east. Zachary and the Bear River Mountains are in the background.

Partially mixed soil. We dumped the components on a tarp, and used the tarp to mix the soil.

One of our cherry trees. We planted a sweet cherry for Jillian, a tart cherry for me, 3 varieties of blueberries, black walnut, and pecan. There was an almond tree already, but it was dead, so we'll need to get one next year. There are 4 peach trees, 2 plum trees, 2 pear trees, an apricot tree, and 2 apple trees. The peach trees are very young, but the rest are mature.

Tueller Family Song, part 2

In this post there is a video of my grandfather's uncle singing a Swiss folk song that I vaguely recall being sung at family reunions. I have taught it to Zachary, Chayce, and Payge, and we are getting ready to make a recording of us singing it. To the recording linked above we have added two instruments, the saxophone and the fagott (bassoon). While working on the performance, I have been able to transcribe the notation from the video. Here is the bulk of the first verse of the song (more to come later, click to make it bigger):

Two babies

Here is a picture of Quinton and a picture of Payge I found on my phone. The were both about 5 months old when these were taken.

Old pictures

I was digging through my phone and found several pictures not yet posted. 

Roasting a 

marshmallow

Eating/wearing a marshmallow.

A picture from Zachary's birthday party. It's been 5 months since then!

"Whatever"
"I can't hear you"

Usually they are great friends, too bad the picture is so blurry.

Precious cargo - Payge wanted to protect the milkshakes we got for  mommy's birthday.

The big truck

Apparently, last summer's move made a big impression on Payge. When we told here we are moving again, she began preparing for a long haul in a big truck. We've tried to convince her that the 3 mile trip to the new house will not require the same level of preparation - no portable DVD player, color books, or snacks will be needed. Regardless, she is excited to move again since we finally have a closing date and will move next week.

I am happy to know that she valued the time with me last summer. Here are some pictures from that trip.

She gave up somewhere in West Virginia or Ohio.

Worn out in Nebraska. On the notebook is a list of states we had seen license plates for. We made into the high 40's.

Hats and other dates with Daddy

Payge wanted to go to the store with daddy for a date. While there, she proceeded to try on all the hats.

This reminds me of a date I went on with Chayce when she was about the same age. She wanted to go to 'Daddy's school'. So we walked Notre Dame campus and randomly found a party (with cake!) at the bookstore. I bought her an umbrella since it was raining. She has since abused beyond recognition, but she loved it while she had it.

In the same week (maybe the same day), I gave Zachary a turn (he is almost 5 in these pictures). At the bookstore the Shakespeare troupe demoed a sword fight, and then we went to Brother Gorch's pool hall (named after a monk) in the LaFortune student center and played some pool.

And what was Payge doing that week in August 2008? Naked in her high chair, teething on a carrot.

Tueller family song

I have been working on teaching myself the Tueller family song, 'The Dudelsock', which I have one vague memory of from a family reunion plus this old video of my Grandfather's uncles. It is sung in Swiss Deutsch, which was not passed on to my grandfather or anyone further down the family line. Once we get comfortable with it, we'll add video of us singing it to the blog.