Gardening with the Shedd's

I tried quite hard to make a punny topic about Garden Shedd's...but it didn't make sense.  SO I ended up going with a drab title to this post. 

😀

 

 

Well, I hope you all have had an excellent week so far!  I mentioned in my last few posts about our garden and how excited I am about it.  Well, I'll post a few pictures in this post to show you what I mean.  I grew up on a farm and never really got too excited about gardening, weeding, or any of that.  But now that I've been away from it for a few years, I really miss being able to just get outside and plant things, see them grow, and tend to them. 

 

When we were living in Baltimore, I attempted to plant flowers and tomatoes, but a few birds ate my plants so I never tried again the next year.  When we moved to New York and saw the big area in our backyard, we decided this year we would try planting a garden. 

 

Almost everyone up here said that we shouldn't plant directly in the ground, but rather, build raised beds and do it that way.  But I convinced Dan that we needed to try a regular garden first and just see how it goes. 

 

A friend came over and plowed up a plot for us and we spent a few weeks tilling it and raking grass clods from it. 

 

On our anniversary (April 30th), we planted tomatoes, cantaloupe, and watermelon in empty cottage cheese containers and yogurt containers indoors.  They sprouted pretty quickly.  I honestly wasn't counting on them to come up at all since we got a lot of the seeds for 50 cents and 25 cents a packet at the dollar tree.  haha.

 

 

Two weeks ago, I transplanted them into bigger containers.  I figured we may as well go ahead and plant them outside, so we did that last week.  As you can see from the picture, Dan was very excited. 

 

 

 

I felt sort of silly outside, taking pictures of our tiny tiny squash plants and corn plants which have already come up, but hey, I'm a hobby farmer.  What can I say? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So that's the huge news about our amazing garden.  Dan is supposed to build a fence around it soon, to keep the critters out. 

Also, I love walking around the house and seeing all of the beautiful flowers.  The lilacs were blooming two weeks ago, and now it is the rhododendron.    

 

 

Also, our chickens are growing and Dan made a little cage for them so we can move them about in the yard.  Hopefully their pecking around will decrease the tick population. 

 

 

Also, I'm sort of counting my eggs before the chickens have started laying.  I can't wait to gather eggs.  Hopefully they will start laying this month though.

 

In other not-so-interesting news, we discovered this spot about a mile from our house where there are small waterfalls.  We usually do a sunday afternoon walk there each week now.  Of course, we always bring lots of plastic bags for gathering cans.  I was trying to take a panoramic photo here and must have been moving too fast...because Dan looks hilarious. 

 

 

And Gwendolyn is doing well!  She had her first visit with a pediatrician last week.  She hasn't grown much, but she is back to her birth weight.  So that's good. 

 

Dan loves to prop her up against the cushions on the couch and have father-daughter chats with her.  I think they look hilarious.  Especially Gwen though...

 

 

That's about it for now.  Hopefully my next post will be an update on the church and all the remodeling projects we've completed.  Also, I am hosting a ladies brunch this Saturday, so I will try to take some photos of that. 

Until next time!

 

NEW NEWS

Well, I've been neglecting my blog.  The biggest news is that I am now married!  It's so hard to believe. 

 

Since I hadn't posted on here before the wedding, I'll try to catch you all up in a few posts. 

So many things have happened.  First of all, on April 30th, I married Daniel, my amazing husband.  I loved every moment of planning the wedding, making decorations and even paying for things for it.  But nothing could beat actually BEING in my wedding.  It was the magical day I've always dreamed of.  The only part I would re-do was when Dan "accidently" pushed the piece of cake into my nose at our reception.

Our amazing photographer captured some truly wonderful shots and we've loved looking through them.  I'll include some of them in this post. 
My wonderful sister and brother in law paid for a limousine to take us from our wedding to the reception, which was held at Shady Maple Smorgasbord.  It was a wonderful wedding gift and we love some of the pictures that came from it!

Some of these may be out of order and such, but at least my blog viewers can see part of this wonderful day of my life!

 

I remember always thinking that when I got married, I would have the traditional rice thrown as we would leave the reception.  However, the place where I wanted to have our reception does not allow rice-throwing due to the massive amount of cleanup.  Bubbles were my last choice, but they were the one that was accepted at the reception.  I'm glad now, because I love how the pictures turned out.  Plus, I didn't spend the rest of the day picking rice out of my ears and vacuuming rice up off of our truck seats. 

After the ceremony, the limousine driver took us to Poole Forge park, where we had our "after-wedding" photos taken.  It is a small, but beautiful place with historic buildings and a covered bridge. 

 

 

 

 

I was so happy that my whole family was able to come to my wedding, and be a part of it as well.  My dad was able to perform the ceremony, my sisters were all bridesmaids, my brother was a groomsman, and my niece was a flower girl.   

Dan mentioned to me that he's always wanted to sing as a couple at his wedding, so we made it work!  He picked out the song, and we learned it by singing it three times a day each day.  As it was, I kept forgetting the words to my verse!  I'm just glad that I got it right on our wedding day. 

Since we were having a morning wedding, we took group pictures before the wedding at 9AM.  It turned out to be a beautiful, cloudy day (apparently, a perfect day for taking pictures). 

 

 

We also took "first look" photos. 

 

 

Like I've said previously, this post is WAY late (nearly 7 months late), so after this post, I'll do my best to slowly catch up on my life currently. 

Until I post again, enjoy the wedding photos! 

 

 



Rehearsal dinner

As many of you know, I traveled home this past Thursday for my sisters wedding!  It was an exciting time, and I tried my best to document the occasion with pictures, but I know I missed a lot of fun moments.  Ah well...hopefully the photographer got them all! 

This post will be from the Friday before the wedding.  I got home late Thursday night, and Friday morning I went to my sister Katie's house to help her and Martha make bouquets and boutonnières.  

 

Some of these pictures are blurry and small because they came off of my phone. 

 



 

While we were cutting out tulle and ribbon, Reuben was enjoying playing with the tulle as well  :)

 

The day I got home, it snowed!  haha, I think the snow came just because I was visiting :)

 

I know the pictures are small, but I took these pictures of my nephew Reuben while we were in the car on the way the rehearsal dinner.  He's so cute!

 

The rehearsal dinner was at a small café that has newly opened in Mt. Holly.  I must say, all of the food was really delicious, and the café was so cute and inviting! 

 

I forgot to take a picture of the food, but it looked just as good as it tasted.  This was the cute little sign as you walked in. 

 

And, this is where I started failing as a photographer...I got only one photo from the rehearsal dinner and none from the rehearsal because I was playing the violin. 

 

I will post pictures from the wedding tomorrow!  It was a lovely time, and I look forward to posting about it tomorrow.