My full and kooky life as a homeschooling mommy to 2 great kids, raising a child with HLHS (Hypolastic Left Heart Syndrome), coping with depression, following Jesus, and being much too camera happy.
Fotd: 4-14-’23. Meeting a new friend and some nature finds
Went for a walk with Ellis during Elliot’s lesson and saw these bright Geraniums and a leaf blower stopped blowing as we approached the house on the sidewalk. I expressed my admiration of her red flowers on the windowsill, and the older homeowner was eager to tell us about the history of her plants and gave us an empty paper bag to fill with lemons and oranges from her fruit trees. As a parting gift, she gifted us a large pot of Jade plant. Thanks Pamela! We’ll visit her again and tell her the how our gardening progress is going. She’s our new friend who may teach me how to become a better gardener and plant mom.
Poppies in her backyard
Her beautiful lemon tree: abundant growth of lemons. She said that this tree has iron deficiency as you can see from the yellow leaves, so she was going to give it an iron boost soon.
one of her flowerbeds
phone camera slip while picking oranges
My new Jade plant: strapped in and seat belted for the ride home. I was advised to deadhead the dried flowers and give it a good drink of water. She had already fertilized it that morning. We named it PamelaJade! 🙂
Welcome to our porch, Pamela Jade! Kiddos cut off the old flowers and pruned some yellow leaves. Surprised that Elliot is more hands-on with our gardening projects, than just observing and overhearing what we’re doing. This is progress!
Cee, have a great start to the weekend! Thank you readers for stopping by and stay well. Happy mid April. 😀
Welcome to my blog! My name is Esther and I'm so happy you are here. I'm an avid nature photographer and a daydreaming thinker. My posts revolve around photos of nature's beauty, homeschooling adventures with my 2 kids, sporadic reflections on my child's heart condition, Bible reading reflections, gardening feats, and other mish mash things. Hopefully you'll leave encouraged, pensive, or smiling at the simple things of life. Thank you for stopping by and hope you'll find some interesting posts to read!
It was unexpected and delightful! She was surprised that we homeschool and thought it was not a wise schooling choice. Lol. I get that response time to time, but I’ve learned to let go and it makes for good future conversations.
Well, we’re all entitled to our own opinions. 🤷🏻♀️
I recently experienced the opposite reaction. A couple of retired gentlemen came to our home from the sheriff dept
(VIPS) to register the vehicles. I had my legal homeschool documents at the ready. I was sure they would question why the children weren’t in school and running wild outside. Instead, they were super excited about it and complimented my husband about how nice it was to see children being children out of doors! Ha ha! You just never know what people will think!
I have an old friend in law enforcement and he thinks homeschooling is the best option too! So, I’ll just hang on to those comments and pass them along to you. 🥰
Thank you for sharing your positive encounters! It’s encouraging and affirming when homeschooling is validated. Although she looked skeptical about our school choice, I didn’t take her response to heart. We like being unconventional. 🙂 And yay for kids roaming free and being kids!
You’re right…you never know what people think. A lot of homeschooling biases is based on stereotypes. I’m going to hang onto your comments…I hope you continue to have positive experiences in your new place!!
Her neighbors have giant succulents and they threw out a bunch of them. She said she couldn’t bear to see them go into the trash. So she replanted them and now she has an abundance of them. It was very generous of her!
Yes, they bloom flowers! When mine bloom flowers, I will take pictures and post. I just deadheaded the old ones, so I wonder when they’ll bloom again.
That was kind of her to do this. I had a Jade plant at work, but it never flowered. I don’t have a green thumb for indoor plants and it’s been a while if I still have a green thumb for outdoor plants. 🙂
I’m just amazed at how large the plant is. I hope it stays alive and well as it’s supposed to be a hardy plant.
I think flowering may be easier if they live outdoor plants? I just transplanted my succulents outside today in new soil, added perlite, and pot. Fingers 🤞.
I’m sure you still have your outdoor green thumb! But it was too much work for you. Silk plants… they look good and no maintenance required. This week free up more time for you to adventure around on the weekends.
More and more I think the silk flowers are the route I will take Esther. I follow a meteorologist who is somewhat of a climate change nerd and he was mentioning just how hot last year was and the heat wave in parts of India right now. I just think investing in flowers means a big investment in watering them too, not to mention the food/fertilizer. My water bill for January – March was around $275.00 – that is water/sewers/recycling & trash, but way too much for one quarter. So imagine watering flowers on top of it! (Not to mention grass!). I thought of mulched pathways … still dwelling on that idea.
Silk flowers are the way to go! Having a healthy garden takes a lot of time, work, and money to maintain. If you like to do it, that’s one thing. But if you’re on the fence about it, do something else that makes you happy. And if you do garden, your neighbor’s barking dog could give you a headache. I remember you recently mentioned in Yvette’s interview that you were getting a GoPro camera. Wonder what amazing things you’ll do with that. Fun equipment to have for your nature outings.
I agree with you Esther and if the weather was like it was when my garden was in its heydey back in 2008-2010, then it would not be as worrisome, but the erratic weather and spending a ton of money to have things ruined, does not sit well with me either. We had about 10 days of temps in the 80s. All the flowering trees bloomed too early – then we had a cold spell. Messed up the trees. People decided to plant … in our zone, you should not plant annuals or vegetables until Memorial Day … people planted and now we have temps near freezing and a hard freeze will kill everything. We had moderate drought last year and then we’ll have a week where it rains every day – not normal and not good for flowers – they are either waterlogged or gasping for water. My water bill I paid the other day was $281.00 for three months, in the Winter/Spring, not watering at all. Alot of it is sewerage and recyling and garbage pickup, but still, then adding water usage … silk is the way to go. I’m embarrassed to say I have not tried the GoPro yet and wanted it ready to use for the goslings’ debut which should be this week or next. Perhaps this weekend with the crummy weather, I can fit learning it in. Hopefully because yes, I am looking forward to using it. I bought some walnuts and was going to practice with the squirrels – they love walnuts.
I was just wondering about the GoPro, because it seems so cool to use. I have no idea how to use one but I’ve seen lots of nature Youtubers use them for their content. When you do get a chance to learn and use it, let me know if it’s worth getting. Maybe if it’s useful and good for nature stuff, I could consider getting one too. 🙂
Parker and his buddies will appreciate the walnuts! They know you bring the good stuff.
The weather is erratic!! I say you would get more joy from your walking adventures than gardening. Maybe gardening for another season?
I think I’ll eke out a walk Saturday morning between bouts of rain and the rest of the weekend I’ll try to finish three posts as it will rain all day Sunday (Friday too, but that’s a workday). If I could have a block of time to review how to use it, that would be great. I forgot what I read, plus have to learn how to transfer the video, find a service to do that – you can take still shots with it like a regular camera or video and the video has sound which is great too. I will let you know – you also can put it up in a drone and control it with your phone. I’m not going to do a drone with it though … I need to master the basics … heck, I’ve never used the video function on my DSLR and I have a video function on the digital compact as well. I’m a procrastinator! I think you are right about the gardening. The neighbor behind has put up a garage and a stockade fence so it looks like it did before the fire, only my tree and bushes did not come back … one has some leaves at the bottom of it – the rest was scorched. Not happy, but could have been the house.
sing like wildflowers 
This was a delightful post to start my day!
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Liz, thank you so much!
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You’re most welcome, Esther!
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How fun!
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It was unexpected and delightful! She was surprised that we homeschool and thought it was not a wise schooling choice. Lol. I get that response time to time, but I’ve learned to let go and it makes for good future conversations.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, we’re all entitled to our own opinions. 🤷🏻♀️
I recently experienced the opposite reaction. A couple of retired gentlemen came to our home from the sheriff dept
(VIPS) to register the vehicles. I had my legal homeschool documents at the ready. I was sure they would question why the children weren’t in school and running wild outside. Instead, they were super excited about it and complimented my husband about how nice it was to see children being children out of doors! Ha ha! You just never know what people will think!
I have an old friend in law enforcement and he thinks homeschooling is the best option too! So, I’ll just hang on to those comments and pass them along to you. 🥰
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for sharing your positive encounters! It’s encouraging and affirming when homeschooling is validated. Although she looked skeptical about our school choice, I didn’t take her response to heart. We like being unconventional. 🙂 And yay for kids roaming free and being kids!
You’re right…you never know what people think. A lot of homeschooling biases is based on stereotypes. I’m going to hang onto your comments…I hope you continue to have positive experiences in your new place!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
That was nice of Pamela to gift you a Jade and lemons … I did not know a Jade plant had flowers.
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Her neighbors have giant succulents and they threw out a bunch of them. She said she couldn’t bear to see them go into the trash. So she replanted them and now she has an abundance of them. It was very generous of her!
Yes, they bloom flowers! When mine bloom flowers, I will take pictures and post. I just deadheaded the old ones, so I wonder when they’ll bloom again.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That was kind of her to do this. I had a Jade plant at work, but it never flowered. I don’t have a green thumb for indoor plants and it’s been a while if I still have a green thumb for outdoor plants. 🙂
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I’m just amazed at how large the plant is. I hope it stays alive and well as it’s supposed to be a hardy plant.
I think flowering may be easier if they live outdoor plants? I just transplanted my succulents outside today in new soil, added perlite, and pot. Fingers 🤞.
I’m sure you still have your outdoor green thumb! But it was too much work for you. Silk plants… they look good and no maintenance required. This week free up more time for you to adventure around on the weekends.
LikeLiked by 1 person
More and more I think the silk flowers are the route I will take Esther. I follow a meteorologist who is somewhat of a climate change nerd and he was mentioning just how hot last year was and the heat wave in parts of India right now. I just think investing in flowers means a big investment in watering them too, not to mention the food/fertilizer. My water bill for January – March was around $275.00 – that is water/sewers/recycling & trash, but way too much for one quarter. So imagine watering flowers on top of it! (Not to mention grass!). I thought of mulched pathways … still dwelling on that idea.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Silk flowers are the way to go! Having a healthy garden takes a lot of time, work, and money to maintain. If you like to do it, that’s one thing. But if you’re on the fence about it, do something else that makes you happy. And if you do garden, your neighbor’s barking dog could give you a headache. I remember you recently mentioned in Yvette’s interview that you were getting a GoPro camera. Wonder what amazing things you’ll do with that. Fun equipment to have for your nature outings.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I agree with you Esther and if the weather was like it was when my garden was in its heydey back in 2008-2010, then it would not be as worrisome, but the erratic weather and spending a ton of money to have things ruined, does not sit well with me either. We had about 10 days of temps in the 80s. All the flowering trees bloomed too early – then we had a cold spell. Messed up the trees. People decided to plant … in our zone, you should not plant annuals or vegetables until Memorial Day … people planted and now we have temps near freezing and a hard freeze will kill everything. We had moderate drought last year and then we’ll have a week where it rains every day – not normal and not good for flowers – they are either waterlogged or gasping for water. My water bill I paid the other day was $281.00 for three months, in the Winter/Spring, not watering at all. Alot of it is sewerage and recyling and garbage pickup, but still, then adding water usage … silk is the way to go. I’m embarrassed to say I have not tried the GoPro yet and wanted it ready to use for the goslings’ debut which should be this week or next. Perhaps this weekend with the crummy weather, I can fit learning it in. Hopefully because yes, I am looking forward to using it. I bought some walnuts and was going to practice with the squirrels – they love walnuts.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I was just wondering about the GoPro, because it seems so cool to use. I have no idea how to use one but I’ve seen lots of nature Youtubers use them for their content. When you do get a chance to learn and use it, let me know if it’s worth getting. Maybe if it’s useful and good for nature stuff, I could consider getting one too. 🙂
Parker and his buddies will appreciate the walnuts! They know you bring the good stuff.
The weather is erratic!! I say you would get more joy from your walking adventures than gardening. Maybe gardening for another season?
LikeLike
I think I’ll eke out a walk Saturday morning between bouts of rain and the rest of the weekend I’ll try to finish three posts as it will rain all day Sunday (Friday too, but that’s a workday). If I could have a block of time to review how to use it, that would be great. I forgot what I read, plus have to learn how to transfer the video, find a service to do that – you can take still shots with it like a regular camera or video and the video has sound which is great too. I will let you know – you also can put it up in a drone and control it with your phone. I’m not going to do a drone with it though … I need to master the basics … heck, I’ve never used the video function on my DSLR and I have a video function on the digital compact as well. I’m a procrastinator! I think you are right about the gardening. The neighbor behind has put up a garage and a stockade fence so it looks like it did before the fire, only my tree and bushes did not come back … one has some leaves at the bottom of it – the rest was scorched. Not happy, but could have been the house.
LikeLike