Archive for the ‘Seasonal Activities’ Category

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Pismo Beach & Caves Tour

Saturday, September 7th, 2024

Pismo-beach-caves-tour

My husband and I recently had the opportunity to spend two nights at Pismo Beach, California. Alan wanted to take me because he had good memories of going there as a child. I had never been to Pismo Beach, so it was a treat for me!

We arrived around noon on the first day, so this vacation lasted a day and a half. I had wanted to go somewhere else for a week, but we didn’t have the budget for it. We were already in the area, so it was a relatively inexpensive day and a half of refreshment.

I had a delicious lobster sandwich at a local cafe, since it was one of the specials of the day. Alan had a chicken wrap. Then we walked along the beach and explored the caves.

Our Pismo Beach & Caves Tour

It was so much fun to explore the caves! Some of them are shallow, as you see in the 6-minute video tour, but others went much further into the cliffs. The colors of the cave walls were interesting–some dark red, yellow, and green! It was fun to walk barefoot on the sand inside the caves, which I’ve never done.

On the walk back along the beach, my ankle was swelling, so I had to go slower. We saw clams breathing under the sand and squirting water up. (We caught it on video!)

pismo-beach-couple

I swung on a swing on the beach. By then we were hungry and ready for dinner, since we had spent several hours on the beach. I ate steamed clams for dinner. Alan ate a burger. He encouraged me to eat seafood because it was fresh from the ocean. After dinner we walked back to the hotel.

pismo-beach-california

I really enjoyed watching all the birds while we were there. My favorite was a long-necked heron that we caught on film. It was walking along the edge of the seashore. After resting for a few minutes, we decided to go up to the top floor of the hotel to the restaurant, where we split a dessert while watching the sunset.ocean-with-birds

The next morning, we had coffee in our hotel room, and we split a cinnamon roll. We walked around the beach town. We strolled out to the pier and realized that there was a pod of whales spraying water up near the beach. I caught one on video. For years I have wanted to go whale watching, but I could never afford it. God brought the whales straight to us that day, so it was free!

It was Taco Tuesday, so we had inexpensive tacos. My whole plate of tacos was $5. Then we had a coffee at a cute cafe.

pismo-cafe

We walked into a thrift shop and found a couple of pieces of clothing for a few dollars each, and then headed to dinner, which was a salad with fish. After dinner we sat on the beach to watch the sunset. Alan dug a hole in the sand while we were waiting for the sun to set. I caught on film (at the end of the 6-minute video) hundreds of birds flying through the air at sunset.

pismo-sunset

Since there was a clear sky with stars, we took a blanket down to the beach and went stargazing. It was a beautiful end to a one and a half day vacation. I’m thankful for the restful time we had!

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Posted in Fun Summer Activities | No Comments »

My First Greenhouse

Friday, April 5th, 2024

my-first-greenhouse

This is my first greenhouse! My husband got it for me from Costco, but it took him 6 hours to put together, and the pre-drilled holes did not line up with the screws that sometimes bumped into each other and had to be drilled in a different location.

The spring loaded mechanism has a temperature sensor, that whenever it gets too hot, it expands and pops the roof door open, which is cool!

My New Greenhouse

Here is a 5-minute tour of my new greenhouse:

Having a greenhouse expands your growing season by being able to start seeds early without having to buy grow lights, especially if you don’t have the indoor space to do it.

I got trays to go under the small plastic containers, where I placed seed starter soil and wet the soil before planting the seeds to the correct depth. Then I labeled each pot with a black Sharpie marker on a popsicle stick.

greenhouse-seeds

I’m growing more green beans this year, as well as bell peppers that did well last year. Cucumbers did well in a somewhat shaded area that other seeds did not do well in, so I will grow cucumbers again in that first raised bed I showed you last year.

Place your greenhouse in a sunny location if you can, close to your house so you can keep an eye on the moisture of the seedlings, that they don’t dry out before they germinate. Also place an outdoor thermometer in the greenhouse so you can see what the temperature is. One day it was cold, and I placed a large pot of hot water with the lid on, into the greenhouse and set it on the ground. The heat ematated up from it for several hours to keep the seedlings warm.

For more hands-on science ideas, watch Living Science: Bringing the Outdoors into Your Home.

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Posted in Fun Spring Activities, Science | No Comments »

Cardboard Labyrinth with Lights

Friday, October 13th, 2023

cardboard-labyrith-with-lights

This is one of the most elaborate and exciting mazes I’ve ever seen: a cardboard labyrinth with lights, including black lights! You will need quite a large area, because the bigger the maze, the more fun it is. You can start collecting cardboard boxes from appliance stores and Costco several months before the event. You can set up your maze outside if you want, but then you will have more difficulty in lighting it up with desk lamps, black lights, and even white Christmas lights.

This cardboard labyrith was built in a church, where there was plenty of space. There should be an entrance, an exit, and many twists and turns with several dead ends. You can mark the entrance with a black Sharpie marker above the doorway.

entrance-to-maze

Then you need many spools of packing tape and duct tape. Duct tape is stronger and preferred, but packing tape is also fine and costs less. Set up all the boxes first without taping anything, just in case you change your mind on the design. Once everything is in place, you can start taping the boxes together.

labyrinth-hallway

It’s nice to have a light at the end of a tunnel, and a desk lamp works perfect for that. You can place those in the corners. Cut a hole in the top of the corner cardboard box and place a plastic plate on top of it. (You can get those at a dollar store.) This is so that the kids don’t burn themselves on the light bulb. If the dish is a red see-through color, the light will look red.

lights-in-labyrinth

You can also use black lights to make one of the corridors super cool. Cut holes in the tops of the boxes and place the black lights on top.

black-lights-in-maze

This will add ambience, and the kids’ light-colored clothes will glow.

maze-with-black-light

It’s a good idea to use chairs or other furniture at the junctions, to keep the labyrinth from coming undone.

outer-labyrinth

When you exit the maze, you feel like you have truly had an adventure!

end-of-maze

Our family has constructed so many fun things with boxes over the years, so we really enjoyed this lit-up cardboard labyrinth!

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Posted in Fun Autumn Activities | 2 Comments »

New Vegetable Gardens & Companion Planting

Friday, May 19th, 2023

raised-bed

I’m feeling so excited and inspired this year to create a new set of vegetable beds! Vegetables are so much yummier from the garden than from the store, and there are no perticides in my backyard because I will be using natural ways to keep pests away.

Once again, I used the sun lamp from the hydroponic garden to start my vegetable seeds this year. I placed an old cookie sheet under the seeds so that water wouldn’t get all over the counter. I am growing three heirloom tomato plants in the hydroponic garden. Then I’m also growing green beans, peas, cucumbers, melon, watermelon, and lettuce. My lettuce grew successfully from seed last year and produced a harvest throughout the entire summer.

Here is a review of last year’s gardening posts:

seedlings

My husband got me a couple of raised cedar vegetable beds, and I found some tall trellises at Lowe’s that were half the price of Costco. We filled the raised beds with good organic soil made especially for vegetables.

raised-vegetable-beds

I’ve been studying about companion planting. Basil is a good herb to grow beside tomato plants because they keep the tomato pests away. Cucumber grows well with green beans and peas. I grabbed a sheet of paper and began scribbling where I would place each plant for maximum happiness for the garden.

plant-map

Come to find out, cucumber doesn’t like basil, so I scribbled it out and placed it next to the peas instead of the green beans. The back of the raised garden bed is where the trellises are, so the green beans and the peas will be climbing those trellises. I have some poles to put the cucumbers on. I found some potato starts at a local gardening store, and green beans produce nitrogen that potatoes need, so I want to put potatoes next to the green beans.

Watermelon and melon grow along the ground, so they can grow around the potatoes and tomatoes, if they run out of space. We also got jalapeño peppers and red and yellow bell pepper plant starts. My husband and third son love jalapeños, and I use bell peppers in salads and other dishes.

I have an apricot tree that hasn’t started producing yet. I placed lupine flowers next to it on both sides, because they produce nitrogen that fruit trees need. Then I placed ruby red bottle brush in front of the fruit tree to draw more bees to pollinate all my produce.

strawberry-beds

The raised bed I showed you last year on my YouTube channel cracked over the winter, so I had one of my sons remove the legs and place it on the ground. I planted strawberries in it, because strawberries are invasive, and I want them contained. The strawberries in the terra cotta strawberry planter mostly came back, surprisingly, after so many freezes and thaws last winter.

blue-flower-pots

On my back porch I’ve planted wisteria in large pots to grow over the pergola and draw more pollinators to the backyard. I also placed annuals inside the pots. One of the annuals is marigolds because they keep mosquitoes away, and I was just bit the other day before I decided to get an insect-repellent flower. Red geraniums have always been an easy flower to plant, and I got some small blue flowers to round out the splash of color.

I’m looking forward to see how successful my vegetable gardens will be. I will try to come back and drop another picture in here, to show you what it looks like when it’s all producing yummy vegetables!

Here is the transformation, a month later:

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Posted in Fun Spring Activities | 2 Comments »

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