Archive for the ‘Family’ Category

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Natural Science NOT Rocket Science

Saturday, October 31st, 2009

Don’t force yourself out of the most profitable hobby in the universe because you think it’s too hard to learn …It isn’t! Gardening is fast becoming the world’s number one hobby, and with all the latest ‘alternative’ information we have to hand, gardening as a natural science is fun to learn about and rewarding in the extreme…

  • Produce your own fruit and veg – cut the shopping trips.
  • Keep it organic – be nice to the planet, and your body.
  • Stay fit and healthy with exercise and fresh air.
  • Spend quality family time in the outdoors.
  • Turbo boost your creative spirit

And if that isn’t enough to be going on with, learn about plant-kind in all it’s glory. From trees through to fungi, there are millions of plants to research, grow and eat- no chance of getting bored!

First you have to take your first step.

Start gardening, be a gardener, enjoy your garden.

Starting from scratch? Let your imagination run wild. Stand in the centre (-ish) of your garden and imagine..close your eyes if you like.

Don’t hold back. Let your creative thoughts flow. How much can you do with your space? Don’t imagine for one minute that a simple lawn will let you off the hook here. A lawn needs maintaining, and mowing regularly – for EVER..and it can get kind of boring to look at as well! How about creating

  • a butterfly patch
  • a wildflowers corner
  • a vegetable plot
  • a herb garden
  • a water feature

Then you will need a shed to store your tools. Where would that be best placed in your garden? Don’t waste a sunny position with a garden structure. Sheds don’t need to be in full sun to survive!

Is there enough space to place garden furniture? Rather than going for the table-and-four-chairs-on-patio style, can you place benches and small tables in semi-shady spots near the honeysuckle or round the herbs?

When you think you have a reasonable idea of all you want from your garden, take some notes and think about it for a while. Don’t leap in too soon-more often than not you’ll land up doing the same job twice. Browse through garden catalogs, take a little time and do a little planning.

But not for too long! Don’t let the ideas wither into another was-gonna-do-one-day file.

If you have enough of a budget to buy your garden structures and furniture, do this first, and position them in your garden. Then create your flower beds, vegetable plots and wildlife patches around these structures.

If you don’t have cash up front, don’t worry. The things you need will come to you. For now, prepare the space as if you DID have the shed, or bench or whatever, and work around these areas.

Start all the patches and work on them as and when you can, or start one patch and get it finished before moving on to the next. How you work in your garden depends on a number of things…

size of land and budget

helping hands available

seasons and the weather

time slots and energy levels!

Treat gardening as an ongoing hobby rather than a project to be started and finished. Plants are growing life forms and will always be changing the shape and feel of your garden. Go with it where you can, and prune heavily where you have to!

Get the kids involved with quick-germinating seeds, and fast-growing plants. Many retailers offer special seed mixtures for kids. Pumpkins are great for getting the kids interested in gardening.

Learn about edible flowers and teach the children what can and can’t be eaten – and why.

Don’t let the grass grow under your feet. Get in on the action now. Turn off the TV, put your wellies on and leap into nature!
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Linda Gray is a freelance writer and, with her partner. has spent ten years renovating a neglected acre of woodland. Find heaps of straight gardening advice and pots of inspiration at http://www.flower-and-garden-tips.com

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Get Your Kids Gardening

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

Starting a garden is a rewarding task. There is a lot involved when you first invest time into gardening but in the end it brings many benefits including fresh and healthier food and it can even bring in the benefit of a little extra cash. Getting your kids involved in the gardening process is even more rewarding. The kids learn responsibility, patience and the way nature works.

But how can you start the kids on their adventure into gardening? Here are a few ideas.

Give Kids the Choice
Giving kids a voice in design and choice in the garden matters. It will make them feel like the garden is a more personal experience to them.
Even the younger kids can have a choice with parental encouragement. Allow the younger kids to choose which vegetable to plant in their garden this year. Or allow them to help with the seed buying at the plant nursery or home and garden store.

The smallest decision can help a kid grow to love the gardening experience.

Give Kids a Garden of their Own
Give the kids a small garden area of their own even if it is just one small pot. Help them decide what would go best in that small plot.
Don’t make the area too big or the kids may soon get too overwhelmed. The size of the garden depends on the kid. Bigger kids can handle more and thus should have a bigger area but no more than three or four feet wide.

Give Kids Garden Jobs
Assign garden jobs and chores just as you would any chore. Watering, putting away tools, and weeding are just a few chores that most kids could do on their own. Other jobs such as tilling and transplanting could be done by older kids.

Garden Science
Kids seem to have a fascination for science and how things work. Get the kids involved in the garden by showing them the science of plants.
It doesn’t have to be elaborate science either. There are experiments you can do right in the garden or on the back porch. Plant different varieties of plants and see which grow better. Try different soils and see which plant grows faster and healthier. What about saving seeds for next year? There are so many different science activities that could be done in the garden.

Continue the Cycle
Start the kids early in life and they might just grow up to continue the tradition with their own kids. The cycle will continue and perhaps you can garden with your grandkids someday.

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Katina Mooneyham is the contributing editor for Little Gardeners (Now Life 123: http://www.life123.com/)at Garden and Hearth.com. She has written various articles on gardening mostly about gardening with kids. She maintains a blog on gardening at http://littlegardeners.blogspot.com.

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Things to Do With Your Kids Over the Summer

Sunday, August 23rd, 2009

Summer is the best time for togetherness while the children are out of school. It can get costly taking them to amusement parks, even more so if you’re short on cash. If you happen to be in a similar situation as most Americans are, don’t worry, since there are lots of free activities you can do at home. These fun things to do are ideal for children under 10 years old. Many of these suggestions are centered around learning activities combined.

Using Household Items in Your Games

Everyday things from your home can be the props in the mock scenes you create. A fun thing to do at home is to imagine that you run an emergency room or doctor’s office. Have the children gather a stuffed toy or other toy and then use things from around your house that can be used as fake medical tools. Most houses are jam-packed with odd trinkets that can be fashioned into surgical kits. You can also do another variation of this game by pretending to run a television studio where the news is being reported. A stuffed toy or other toys can be used as part of the make-believe scenes that you and your child are reporting to the pretend viewers.

Create Quality Time and Get Active

Another low-cost, yet really active thing to do is to get out side for a ride on mountain bikes. If you have little ones, you can tote them along in a trailer attachment where they can be safe in a secure area. For shorter distances, some children might want to use their Razor scooter to get through the ride. To make it even more entertaining, take your time and suggest animals and things for them to find, like a treasure hunt. Things like lizards, airplanes, or dragonflies can all be great things for everyone to call out as they discover them. This game also works beautifully on a hike and can help kids learn about nature and their environment.

Go on a Make-Believe Safari

A game that is particularly entertaining is to create the illusion of being out in the wild, such as on a safari journey. Gather some large bed linens and tie the ends into chairs, the sofa, or to anything in the room that will hold steadily. Cover the bed linens so that the children feel like they are hidden by large forest trees or in the thick brush where the wild animals can’t see them. If you have a pair of binoculars, give them to the kids to make it feel more real. Have your kids get together all of the stuffed animals and creature figures they can find and set them up throughout the space, partly hidden so you can only see their heads, and then use the binoculars to discover them. Have the kids shout the names of the animals they find and then you can make the animal noise back at them. They always have the most laughs with this game!

Nighttime Family Fun

As evening comes, the fun doesn’t have to be finished! Set up a tent in the backyard for the kids and bring out the binoculars so they can look up at the stars. If you have a place where you can safely make a fire or a small charcoal barbeque, you can make a wood-burning fire for them. Have the kids find some tree branches for browning s’mores. If you have a few days open this summer, go camping at a local lake or beach and extend your time enjoying nature! These suggestions will surely give you and your kids a fun summer break full of imagination, activity, and learning.

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Maintaining an Emergency Water Supply

Friday, July 10th, 2009

Most people aren’t aware of what it takes to keep a clean water supply in times of crisis. This article will help you understand what you need to do so you can keep your family healthy during an emergency. It will inform you about the reason you should maintain a emergency water supply just in case.

When any kind of emergency strikes, having an adequate supply of clean water for drinking, cooking, and hygiene has to be a major priority. Even though it may not seem probable you will ever have a requirement for an emergency water supply, you are unable to know when an earthquake, tornado, flood, blizzard, or other disaster will knock out your power supply and leave you without any way to access food or water for days or even weeks. Keeping an emergency water supply in reserve would then be an important aspect of your survival.

When planning for an emergency, you will need to have a gallon of water per user per day. Keep enough on hand to last at least three days. In fact, the preferred amount of emergency water supply to keep in reserve, per FEMA guidelines, would be plenty to last for two weeks. That would mean that a family of 4 should maintain 52 gallons of water in storage, plus more for pets. It is also recommended that this water be replaced every 6 months. The cost and the storage of this much water may seemingly be prohibitive to the majority of people. Therefore, try to keep at least 3 days worth of water in a cool, dark environment.

During an emergency, if water supplies should run low, don’t ever ration water. We all must have 8 cups of water every day for optimum health. Keep on drinking plenty of water. It could easily happen that by the time your supply runs out the utilities and water will have been restored. If they’re not, you can always worry about finding more water when your supply runs out. You can decrease the amount you have to have, however, by limiting activity and staying cool.

It is recommended that the emergency water supply that you store be commercially-bottled water. Make sure that it is still in its original, sealed bottle. Water that is open or empty milk jugs containing tap water aren’t the best choices when it comes to an emergency water supply. Keeping water in a bottle that was originally used for milk or fruit juice isn’t recommended. Milk protein and fruit sugars can’t ever be entirely washed from these containers, and if they are later used to store water, these containers will provide the optimum environment for bacteria growth.

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My Beautiful Wife And Her Muck Boots Gift

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

A few months ago I had a moment of bliss in my life even though the day itself was cold, blowing snow, and just miserable. My wife, of 12 years is perhaps the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me, and it’s because she’s right with just about everything. I’m a builder in the northern part of Michigan and as anybody who lives here can tell you, the winters are very cold. Now general contracting work does slow in the winter season, keeping food on the table requires inside work which thankfully is in abundance.

A friend of mine called with a bad water leak that was not only running down the walls but dripping onto the floor as well. This required some investigation in which I discovered the problem was a leak in the roof. Needless to say there was already a foot of snow on the ground and on the roof. I normally don’t go on a roof at all in the winter because of the slipping hazards involved, but this lady was desperate.

Now, here’s the part where my wife is always right, this was just after the holiday season and one of the gifts she gave me was a pair of rubber boots, Muck Boots Hosers Classics to be specific. My first impression was that these were no cheap, or ordinary rubber, waterproof boots, they looked pretty rugged, and I’m on my feet all day long in some pretty tough environments, I need footwear to last. And these are not something that you would buy at a discount all in one store that just fit over your own boots, these were rubber, waterproof, and have a great inside liner in them already.

So before I went on this roof, I grabbed this new pair of rubber boots from the van and put them on, I figured since they are new, they should have some good traction. All I know is, I think my leather work boots are history. I am pretty much set in my ways, I didn’t think anything made of rubber was going to give me the support or protect my feet the way my trusty old boots always have, but now I know better.

What I didn’t know was that my wife knows what I need to do my job better than I do. A genuine pair of Muck Boots, apparently they are high quality rubber waterproof boots, not the kind you’d find at Walmart or Target, but something that appears to me like it’s going to last me for years. Well, that’s her, always looking out for me, I do have to come home to her every night, and I still look forward to this every night.

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