Merry Christmas 2009
December 23, 2009 12:13 pm|
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Here’s a blog post for the 1.43% of the people that go to our website after receiving our photo card with “go to our website” on it. Hopefully this letter will contain all of the unintended comedy, bad grammar, and bad punctuation that we all have come to expect from Christmas letters.
2009 was a great year in many ways. We increased our family size by 40%, tried our hand at gardening, had some visits from family, and went on several local adventures. Between Carrie being pregnant and Elliott’s hatred of car riding we really didn’t get outside of the tri-cities much.
For a recap of prior years to get others caught up, we moved to North-East Tennessee in 2007 after living in Chattanooga for four years. After Jamie was born Tim was looking for a more stable job with less traveling. Leading up to 2009 we were a family of five, Tim, Carrie, Jamie, Scooba (dog), Gnu (cat), Snot-n-fuzz (cat), and Elliott on the way.
We began 2009 with Elliott brewing in the oven. For some inexplicable reason the topic of getting a second dog came up.We thought a dog to play with Scooba would cheer her up. There really isn’t the same type of dog park nearby like we had in Chattanooga and figured she was missing all of the dog play. We talked about all sorts of dogs, but decided we like and trust the Great Dane demeanor best and got a second one, a girl we named Zoinks! (yes her name includes punctuation), born on New Years Day 2009. We brought her home eight weeks later and the regrets began about five minutes after that. Throughout the year there have numerous toddler knock downs, garden digging, landscape destroying, and even a lacerated ear. On the plus side she is a huge snuggler and her and Scooba constantly play inside and out. At least when not sleeping which is a huge percentage of the day (for all Danes apparently).
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Bringing home Zoinks! was only a primer for the big addition. On June 23rd, Elliott reluctantly joined us. He took a lot of convincing to leave the nice womb Carrie had made for him. But all went well, he was a healthy happy, 10 fingered, 10 toed, crying pooping machine, born weighing 8lbs 15oz. Everything went well with bringing him home. He is already starting to scoot around the house, loves laughing at people and dogs, playing on piano keyboards, and kicking his legs. Things he hates are back rubs, sitting, loud noises, and the aforementioned car rides.
We started gardening this year. Tim built two 4′x8′ beds loosely following the Square Foot Gardening method. It’s basically a compact gardening method to maximize space use and mimize weeding by planting without rows since you can reach in at least 2′. Jamie was a constant help. She loved helping to plant, water, and pick plants. We got a lot of swiss chard and lettuce, radishes, about 40 ears of corn, a lot of tomatoes, 5 cantaloupes, lots of peppers, several beets, and lots of beans. There was some learning to do, the brussel sprouts were attacked by cabbage worms, the onions didn’t really grow to size, the potatoes never really grew either, and the okra was munched by deer. We have plans to expand to 6 beds next year, maybe a seventh for some pole beans and potatoes. In the meantime I’ve planted garlic and onions to start over the winter, hopefully they turn out well, we planted around40-50 heads of garlic and around 80 onions.
The family didn’t get much chance for adventuring, again Elliott and cars, but Jamie and Tim went on several hikes, Tim went backpacking in the rain and a couple of day trips to Chattanooga. We had several visits from family. Parents came to see the new baby and Carrie’s aunt Cathy and cousin BJ came for a few days as well. We had fun and loved having the company, especially since we’re finding it so hard to travel (two Great Danes isn’t going to help).
We don’t have too many plans for 2010. Tim is leading the local hiking club (which maintains over 130 miles of the Appalachian Trail) and will likely be leading several activities throughout the year. Really just the garden expansion is the only known right now. So come on down (or up for you few) and visit, we’ll have lots of fresh veggies to eat and huge dogs to snuggle.
Oh, and if you’re wondering about noodling from our Christmas Card, it’s when you catch catfish by putting your hand in an underwater hole and letting a catfish bite you so you can pull it out. Never done it, but it’s actually done by some people around here and it’s a hilarious thing to put on a Christmas Card.
We hope this letter finds you all well and that you are having a wonderful Christmas!
Love,
The Tennessee Schaefers
Hike to snowy Roan Mountain
December 11, 2009 10:10 pm|
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The tri-cities had its first snow for the season. We played around a bit at the neighbors but Jamie, the dogs, and I went to Roan Mountain on Sunday to check it out and do some light hiking. Also Saturday continued Jamie’s and my weekend tradition of going to Lowe’s to do the ‘Build and Grow’ workshop. Last weekend was a little wood house that you can fill with things. This was her sixth project, we have the patches to prove it, which is the coolest part. Tomorrow we have another one too, some Christmas ornament. I also picked up some wood to start making some scroll saw toys for the kids. Did the first one, a crude penguin.
Photo Update
December 10, 2009 9:34 amWe’ve been slacking on updating the photos on our website. I had to go back all the way to March to fill in the monthly holes. Here’s a link to all of the 2009 albums and some highlights!
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Winter Backpacking
November 30, 2009 12:49 amSecond Batch of Hard Cider of the Season
November 10, 2009 11:23 pmPlanted more garlic and onions
November 9, 2009 1:31 pmAgain for more personal logging (I should somehow set up a ‘logging’ category so these don’t show up on the main page), I planted the rest of the garlic and onion bulbs yesterday. I filled the East 4′x4′ block of the North bed with garlic and onions and the front bed has the front row filled. If everything grows to maturity we’ll have over 250 garlic bulbs and onions. That should be enough 
. You can get about 200 onion bulbs for $2-$3 bucks, since we had the space over the winter I figured we’d plant them all along with the garlic bulbs I also bought. I think they will come to maturity early next summer, but if some get in the way of plans we can always pull them early and still use them. Things I’ve read said homemade garlic is really good and gets better after a few seasons as they adapt to your soil from selective replantings.
I still have yet to build the additional 4 new beds for next year. I also need to start planning on what to plant because home seedling starting starts in a couple of months. Leason learned from this year is to keep the planting variety in a section down, at a minimum no smaller than a 2′x2′ block. Lot’s of things were overshadowing others and really slowing them down if not out right killing them. Having more beds should help. I also need to stay on top of fertilizing, a lot of things grew up very well but petered out on making fruits (peppers and tomatoes). Things to definitely plant again next year: beans, corn, tomatoes, bell peppers, swiss chard (it grows so easily and well and keeps yielding all spring, summer, fall), early spring plantings of greens, broccoli, and maybe try brussell sprouts again (damn cabbage moths!) as well as bring the herbs over to the garden to get better sun. I may also try a spot of pole beans somewhere, it’s already starting to sound crowded for 6 4′x8′ beds…
