Yes! I said NEW!  (can you hear the “whoosh” as I unveil it?).

The all new “Gardening Through the Year with the TNfarmgirl – A Perpetual Calendar for the Garden!”

For those of you “not in the know”, this is no ordinary calendar.  There are no blank squares under the name of the month so you can scribble notes and appointments down.

You also don’t throw this one away at the end of the year!  This calendar gathers everything you need to know for gardening for each particular month, into one place! Tired of looking through lots of different gardening books only to be totally confused? This is the calendar for you!

I wrote this calendar 5 years ago for just that reason.  I wanted it all in one place.  I wanted something that I could take to the garden that would tell me what to do – I don’t know Elliot Coleman personally or I would have asked him…or maybe someone at the Rodale Institute. I was tired of dragging multiple books to the garden…so…I wrote this calendar for me.  Then others got wind of it and wanted a copy for themselves and now I write for ya’ll also!

This time, in addition to all of the gardening information in my last calendar, I’ve added more than 4 times the amount of tips!  Little tidbits we’ve learned over the years to make things quicker and easier with better results. I’ve made other changes throughout my calendar since we’ve added 5 more years of gardening experience and knowledge!

I’m also very excited about some of my new pages…I’ve added a chart that gives you the life expectancy of most common vegetable seeds.

This will help you determine if those seeds you found in the back of the desk drawer are still good.  If you aren’t sure, I’ve included instructions on how to do a germination test to determine if you should plant those long forgotten seeds, and how thickly you might want to sow them!

There is a new page listing some of my favorite gardening books by category along with a long list of my favorite food preservation books!

And…what ya’ll have requested most…a USDA Hardiness Zone Conversion Chart by Frost Dates!!!!!!

No matter what zone you live in, this chart will show you how to use my calendar! (Except those poor people who live in Zone 1 and have the possibility of a frost 365 days out of 365 days!  I was shocked to read that…do you even garden?  heck, do you even own shorts?!)

Of course, I still include a copy of my planting chart.

And all the wonderful information on how to, what to and when to plant in your garden!  There is an area under each month where you can keep your own garden notes too!

Last time I took my calendar to a printer. I got a wonderful deal because of price matching, So, of course, I went back to do it again.  Good deal?  Not so much. They are still probably looking for my teeth – I dropped them when I heard the price!  Wow have things gone up.  You couldn’t have afforded this calendar – neither could I.  Ridiculous things – $2.00 to punch each calendar (this is to cover the very hard job of sliding the papers into a slot and letting the ELECTRIC machine do the job..about 2 seconds), then it was $2.00 to bind each calendar (again…done by machine and in just a matter of seconds!)…add the cost of the paper (cheaper, thinner paper that would not hold up year after year mind you!) then printing on the paper (don’t even ask – it was ridiculous! I wanted to ask them if they paid someone to count the sheets, or open the box of paper….but I managed to hold my tongue…barely!).

I decided to do it myself.  I used a laser printer and printed onto 80 lb. card-stock so this calendar will last for years! Costs more upfront but cheaper in the end.  The best part?  I don’t have to raise the price! Even though I’ve added more information and more sheets the price remains the same at $20.00!! This is about the average for those calendars you throw away at the end of the year…the ones with all the blank squares….

So, I’m printing and binding my little heart out…come and get’em!

Blessings!

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..because life takes unexpected turns down roads you never wanted to travel. But He is faithful, to those who love and serve Him, to lead them out of the dry places and into a land of green pastures by streams of living water.  He provides what seems to be impossible and our lives have become an amazing adventure as we trust and follow Him!

On our latest adventure we found that….these just weren’t right…

but we fixed it.

About two months ago, this came…

.

it was as beautiful as I remembered it all those years ago!

It took a long time to decide, but we chose this one…

because it should last forever!

Any ideas on what’s about to happen?

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All afternoon, I have been writing and watching.  Watching the snow pour from the heavens covering every blemish here on the farm.  A fresh start!  How amazing it is that His blood covers every blemish of ours and gives us a fresh start…as white as the snow…every day…in every season…all we need do is bend our knee and our will to Him!

And it continues to fall…covering our tracks from today, erasing our footprints and sledding trails.  There are many days that I’d like to go back and erase my tracks, take back my words, undo my actions as quietly and efficiently as the snow did today.  Only through Him can those things be achieved…words washed away, actions cleansed and made new…the ugly made beautiful.

Him bringing beauty where we sowed ugly?  How could we live without His life-giving cleansing? He washes clean and love grows because we bend knee?

It is unfathomable to me.

I can see them now, by the light outside, large lazy flakes pouring down.  It is supposed to do this until midnight. The flakes fall according to His will.  He takes the night and uses it to make tomorrow beautiful.  Just as he takes our dark times and uses them to make our tomorrows beautiful…. if we ask Him!

Won’t you?  Ask Him?

Come….join me in the snow!

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I woke up to this…

:

and this…

and this…

And it is still snowing in spurts!

The only person I know who wouldn’t be jumping for joy over this snowfall is this unfaithful lady!

We are off to our favorite sledding hill here on the farm and then in to warm up with some delicious home made soup!

Blessings!

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I’m working on re-gaining my skills in asl!

For those of you who don’t use sign language, what I said was that Denise was right! I am working on re-gaining my skills in ASL.  Many years ago…many….I was fluent in ASL, all of my friends were deaf and I worked with a large deaf Sunday School class in a huge (5,000 member) church.  I was totally immersed in deaf culture, and I loved it!  Did you know that the deaf community is the largest unreached people group for Christ here in the U.S.?

Many decades later, I find it much more difficult to learn and it requires much more study on my part!  But the deaf people in my area are just as kind and patient with me as I remember them to be so long ago.  I am having the time of my life!

We just picked up the steer we took to the butcher!  Mom inventoried it as the boys and I weighed it and organized it into our freezer.  This knowledge will help me greatly as I plan meals over the next year. What a wonderful feeling to know that there is healthy, delicious meat for my boys!  Next year’s meat is out grazing in the field as I write.  If we work hard, and the girls keep cooperating, we will be able to put a steer in our freezer each year.  We had a harder time getting him to fit because the chickens we butchered last fall were a bit bigger than normal but we managed to squeeze him in.  We figured out that we have about 20 lbs. of beef left from the steer we butchered last year.  That meat has all been moved to the house so that we use the older beef first.

We are holding our breaths today….there is a massive winter storm predicted to hit this afternoon – we are looking forward to a lot of snow and some sledding.  School work is getting completed quickly so that the evening and tomorrow will be free for fun!

I’ll be making a large pot of Taco Soup today so that we can sled together, play together and then come in and warm up together tomorrow….then we will do it all again!

Normally I would be teaching this weekend for our local community college but I received a phone call yesterday canceling because of the winter storm.  I’ve been meeting with them this last week – we’re cooking up something good for our local community! I’m really excited about it and hope it all comes to pass…when I know more I’ll be sure to share it with you!

I’ve got some other exciting news – a couple of things in fact but those will have to keep for another day.  Just know that when I am silent here…I am very busy working to bring you something special!

Blessings,

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