J+M+J
Today I take up my garden tools and join the fight for my plants! I have waged war on the cabbage worms who have tresspassed into my vegetable garden! Beware, garden pests, this offence will not be tolerated!
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J+M+J
Saturday Mom found some strawflowers (Oh! I l0ve those!) that were just her colors (red and yellow-orange) from the farmers market. She was currently looking for new flowers to make our front yard pretty. So she bought them. She let me pick out a white daisy-like thing, and a orange daisy-like thing, as well as a couple of dill plants (I am hoping for catterpillars.) We saw a Black Swallowtail, the same type of butterfly whose caterpillars eat dill.
Sunday after Mass, Mom, Maria, Joseph and I went to the nusery. We bought some orange coneflower and someIndian blanket
After an unsuccsesful attempt to grow carnivorous plants, I spent my birthday money from Mom and Dad on a venus fly trap and two pitcher plants. I will keep you updated on how they do.
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One day, John Paul decided he wanted to know more about his ancestors. Here is the rather interesting conversation he had with Mom.
JP: Mom, who borned Dad?
M: Grandma.
JP: Who borned Grandma?
>M: Great-Grandma
JP: Who borned Great-Grandma?
M: Great-Great-Grandma.
JP: Who borned Great-Great-Grandma?
M: Great-Great-Great-Grandma.
This type of thing went on until John Paul couldn’t remember how many greats Mom had used. (To tell the truth, I think she was loosing track as well.)
JP: Mom, who borned you?
M: Groan
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Yesterday I went to my friend Isabel’s farm for her birthday party. She has chickens and roosters and lots of stinging, burning nettles. She also has several cats, one of which (Cocoa) has had kittens a month ago. Cocoa has also adopted a littler of four very tiny kittens whose mother abandoned them. I got to hold the older kittens.
Later on, there was a cat (Sunny) that had caught a baby rabbit. It was tossing it up in the air and catching it when it came down again. Then another cat (Patches) came and she and sunny began to fight over the bunny. And through it all the baby rabbit was schreecing loud and pitiful. One could hear it over the whole yard! Soon they became more intent on fightingthan on their prey, and the bunny, seizing it’s chance, bounded away into some tall grass. Isabel and I were cheering for the rabbit; but Isabels two older brothers and their friends kept saying “Let Nature take it’s course.” “It’s natural.” “That is the cat’s job.” Meanwhile the cats had found the rabbit and where again playing with it. Again the rabbit got loose, again we cheered for it, and again the boys lectured. Finally I said ” Everyone knows what will happen in the end. Because we know what will happen, it is a little bit fun to cheer for the rabbit when he seemingly gets away.” The boys went to go play soccer.
Then the bonfir was lit. It was HUGE! we ate s’mores and and little bettys (cheese wrapped in dough) roasted over the fire.
When we left the Rabbit was still alive and screaming
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‘Noke’ is how Alexander says milk. In our house we have a capuchino machine. Mom and I like to have capuchino and whenever Alexander sees us having one, he demands ‘hot noke’. He likes it just as strong and with almost as little sugar as Mom and I.
Often when I set down my capuchino, the next time I try to take a drink there is nothing in my glass! Looking around the scene of the theft I usually see Alexander, who looks at me with no guilt at all and says: “Hot noke nummy (yummy) Ya! (Sarah)“
When Alex wants a drink of milk he says “You (get) me cold noke. No hot noke. Cold noke.”
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On the way home from ballet, my close friend Rebecca and I were discussing the sleepover she was going to have. She was telling me the the names of the guests, and among them I reconised the name of my old next door neighbor, Theresa, who I had not seen for four years.
Two days later I recieved an invitation to the party. Dad gave me permission to go, and so on Thursday the 3rd I was packing my bag for the sleepover the next day. This sleepover was the first one I had ever had with a friend for a reason that was not an emergency.
I arrived just after my close homeschooled friend Isabel. Next arrived another close homeschooled friend, Grace. Rebecca’s friend Lizzie from ballet came next. After a little while Theresa came. Her mom, seeing me, showed that Rebecca had not told them I was coming by saying “Gosh! It’s Sarah!”
On with the party! First we made pizzas, and after we had eaten Rebecca opened her gifts. I gave her a travel journal set. (Her family is going to Beliz this summer, often goes to visit her grandma in Arizona, and in two years they are going to Japan and Australia.)
Next we decorated aprons.
Here are some finished aprons:
More aprons:
My apron close-up.
Then we had cake. we all pitched in doing the dishes and the cleaning, and I have never seen a kitchen get clean so fast!
Then we got our pajamas on and watched a movie. At exactly four minutes to midnight, we were all in our sleeping bags and the light was out. After some adjusting to the creaking of Mrs. Siemans pacing upstairs almost directly above us with her new baby, Marin, I fell asleep quite fast.
I awoke the next morning at six fifteen because of a thunderstorm and hail. At seven thirty I sat up in bed, pondering whether I should take the other girls at their word to wake them up at seven thirty. I thought that if I sat up long enough, one of the girls would see me and get up.My predictions were right, for not five minutes passed and from the other end of the row of sleeping bags I saw Grace sit up and she said “Hi.” I asked her whether we should wake the other girls up, or let them sleep. For answer, she ran across the row of bean bags directly above the heads of the sleepers. One by one they all woke up, Lizzie being the last asleep.
Craziness revived, Grace, Rebecca, and Isabel began jumping on the bean bags, and on each other, while Theresa, Lizzie, and I looked on.
Then it was time for breakfast. We had pancakes with whipped cream, strawberries, blueberries, and apple pie filling that Mr. Siemans made for us. Then one by one the party guests had to leave, and at last Grace’s dad came to take Grace and I home. (We live a few blockes from each other.)
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Purple prince and little red riding hood have made way for the Queen. Her Majesty is a tulip, and her court of Elegant Lady tulips are near at hand.
These tulips are actually almost as near black as any flower can be. Though not as black as in the picture in the magazine, I am impressed with them.
Last year we recieved a magazine with a coupon for 25$ off, an if your order was under 25$ you would have your order free. I ordered Queen of the Night and her Elegant Ladies, and purposely my order was under 25$.
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Today was my first ballet picture day this week. I ordered a 4×6 picture of myself.
when I arrived at the ballet studio, the first thing I did was dress in my costume. Then, after our class underwent a major pinning of costumes, we went in to one of the studios that had been turned into a photography studio and had a class picture taken. Then anyone who had ordered a picture of themselves alone stepped forward and had their picture taken in a pose. I shall receive the pictures on the day of the dress rehearsal for the dance concert.
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I have finished planting the last of the vegetables I am going to plant.Here is a list of all I have planted:
(plants)
Tomatoes
Red, Orange, Yellow, and Purple Sweet Bell Peppers (Mmm)
Banana Peppers (a slightly spicy DELICIOUS peppers, wonderful on sandwiches.)
Onions
Cabbage (Mmm. Cole Slaw)
(seeds)
Romaine Lettuce (a friend had very good results with lettuce from seeds)
Carrots
When I was digging the garden, I found an early June Bug (Maria, who was helping me plant cabbage, freaked out. I saved it from her shoe.) I also found a cut worm. (a gardeners enemy.) I drowned it.
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1. It is the day to do science.
2. I have a good book to read and time to read it in.
3. The flowers are in bloom.
4. My bed is made and my room is clean.
5. I have spare time to listen to the Von Trapp Children.
6. The house is clean.
7. There is green tea in the house.
8. No one is bugging me.
9. There is something good to write in my blog.
10. I have time to do anything I want to do
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Mom and I have always wanted one…
And now we have one! A garden devoted to produce! Hurray! Information on what I will plant coming out soon.
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I have read the praises of coffee grounds for plants. I read that it is good for hydrangeas to make the flowers blue an effect of vinegar, an acid. This lead me to wonder if coffee grounds were acidic.
In this WONDERFUL, INTRUIGING book, The Mystery of the Periodic Table, (a must read,) I had read how to tell acids from bases (the opposite of acids.) So I proceeded to do the test.
First, I boiled four purple cabbage leaves in four cups of water for fifteen minutes.
This is what the leaves looked like when the where done
This is the water’s original color
Before I started my experiment, I first added things I knew whether or not they were acidic or basic. I put in acidic vinegar with a low Ph of 2 and the blackish-purple water turned red. I put in the slightly basic backing soda (with a Ph of 8) and the water turned slightly green.
These are the results of my experiment: When I put the cabbage water in the coffee grounds, expecting it to turn red, nothing happened! I tried it again with the same results! THE COFFEE GROUNDS WERE NEUTRAL! To confirm my results, I went on to the internet to find the Ph of coffee grounds. They have a Ph of 6.7, 7 being purely nuetral.
I read that coffee grounds making hydrangeas blue-er was a myth.
Left to right: Vinegar, Coffe Grounds, Baking Soda.
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When Sarah and her Mom picked up a box of green tea, Sarah thought she would like it as much as she liked herbal tea. But when she brewed a cup later on in the evening, she found it tasted better than any tea she had ever drank before. After experimenting with different time lengths of time brewing, she found it tasted best when brewing it two minutes out of the reccomended one to three. She also thinks the addition of any sugar makes the tea taste horrible. Sarah’s mother thinks it tastes OK, but nothing special.
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