We spent the day taking furniture apart to conserve space and money. We are being charged for the length of truck we use not the weight so we are working hard to pack efficiently and disassemble everything we can.It’s amazing how little space furniture takes up when it is broken down, ha!

N is filling the water tanks on the RV, dumping the sewage, topping off fluids and checking tire inflation. He is also installing a Y-bar towing thingy on our Izusu Amigo so we can tow it behind our RV for the trip.

We started moving stuff in to the RV for the trip, I guess you can call it RV nesting. It is feeling more and more cozy and perfect for the trip. We are glad we bought it, it is going to make the trip fun.

The moving truck should arrive tomorrow and we’ll begin loading it ourselves *sigh*. Once we get stuff out of the house and in to the moving truck we’ll be able to see and begin working on cleaning this place in preparation for the inspection on Monday. Cleaning is my least favorite part of moving, wanna clean for us?

Our carpet cleaning is scheduled for friday. We booked SOS Carpet Cleaning because we know and like Kevin the owner.

The post Only a few days left! appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

Lots of plants require polination before they can set fruit, without pollination fruit will not set.

One of every three bites you take comes from a plant pollinated by wild pollinators.

Our tomatoes have been especially slow to set fruit this summer. Many are concerned about the dramatic decrease in the bee population because bees are our natural pollinators. Slow setting fruit has been linked to the decrease in bee population.

Tomatoes and Zucchini are our favorite, easiest vegetables to grow here in Flagstaff, AZ and we were looking forward to enjoying some fresh grown vegetables before we move. We weren’t sure if our plants would set fruit before we leave and this has been a bummer for us.

So, noticing the small developing fruit on my indoor and outdoor tomatoes today was super exciting for me. We also have some zucchini fruit setting right now. Woho our plants were pollinated! I would like to think that fingering and shaking the flowers has helped in the fruit development and I can’t wait for some fresh vegetables!

Oh and thanks to the bloggy giveaway I won a $10.00 starbuks gift card from The Adventures of Me. We are telling all our family and friends to buy us starbucks and walmart gift cards as going away presents.

We plan to use them to buy food and liquid crack (starbucks) while we are on the way to Indiana. Plus we have T-Mobile internet access at starbucks locations so we will be buying coffee while we blog and check our emails anyway. This $10.00 gift card is going to help us buy 2 free coffee drinks, yay!

If you feel inclined to contribute a few dollars to help us during the move:

• you can add some money to our starbucks giftcard (I’ll send you my starbucks card number and you can reload it) or
• you can get us a walmart gift card so we can buy food along the way. We are going to try to stay the night in a walmart parking lot at least once during the trip, just so we can say we did it.

Here are some more of my garden photos, have a great weekend!

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Ugh, it is a whole slew of drama that I don’t want to bore you with. Basically sitting by and watching him make his choices and watching him struggle is killing me. As outsiders to the situation we can see what his next step should be and we have given him advice but he sees things differently than we do, he is doing what he feels is best. He is scared and overwhelmed, all we can do is support him and hope it all works out.

This quote reminded me of him:

We want facts to fit the preconceptions. When they don’t it is easier to ignore the facts than to change the preconceptions. – Jessamyn West

He believes that he has no chance of gaining parental rights to his daughter despite the fact that he IS the stable parent. He believes that mothers have more rights than fathers regardless of the situation, we cannot seem to convince him otherwise.

Okay, enough of the family drama and stress talk. Lets spend some time in my garden!

Here is a wildflower growing in my yard that I like and managed to transplant into some pots. maiden53, this is the flower you were asking me about that I’ll have at the yard sale.

I have no idea what this flower is called but it is pretty and I like it! got any ideas what it is?

My lilies are in bloom! I believe these are tiger lilies, they don’t have a fragrance like my white stargazer lilies but they are so pretty!

Got any fun garden photos of plants growing in your neck of the woods?

The post Thoughts on struggle and peaceful garden photos appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

This one is Muscari that usually comes up with the crocus in early spring. They come in so many colors but I just love the purple ones because they contrast with all the tulips so nicely!

As you know, for my birthday I got a number of plants and bulbs to enjoy! One of the plants I got was already in bloom, it is this Hydrangea shown at the right. It was actually forced into bloom earlier than it normally would so it is in a dormant state now but I enjoyed the beautiful color during my birthday!

This next one is a unique one that I got for my birthday. It is a Peruvian Daffodil, isn’t it elegant? It actually does not do well in frosty conditions like common daffodils. It is planted in pot indoors with my gladiolas where it is warm.

Here is another shot of my crocus. I got to enjoy white once, purple ones and a few that were white and purple. The flowers are gone now but I captured some photos to enjoy throughout the year.

This next one is a shot of some of the red tulips that came up under the trees in the front yard of the place we are renting. We didn’t plant these and they kind of seem like they are planted in clumps that are too dense, what do you think?

These are dutch hyacinth I planted in the fall. They smell wonderful and look great, I am thinking they were planted too deep since they haven’t grown too tall.

Just today some daffodils opened up and I haven’t had a chance to snap photos of them but I will soon. What kind of stuff do you have surfacing in your garden these days? Anything fun?

The post My bulbs are in bloom, April 2008. appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

First, I compiled a list of the plants I got, plugged them in to my Dave’s Garden Journal with photos so I could remember what got planted where in a few months. It’s so easy to forget what you have and where you put it when you have a garden addiction like I do!

• Peruvian Daffodil (view my dave’s garden journal entry by clicking here) – Is a uniquw white flower with wispy petals and a sweet scent. Related to paperwhites in the narcissus family, can’t survive frosty conditions so it makes a great house plant!
• Summer Sunset Calla Lilies (view my dave’s garden journal entry) – Have green leaves with tiny white spots and orangish/ yellow blooms.
• Anemone/ Grecian Windflower (view my dave’s garden journal entry for these variations: The Admiral, The Governor, St. Brigid and Mr. Fokker ) – These come in a variety of color variations, they look poppy like and are deer resistant.
• Karl Rosenfeld Peony (view my dave’s garden journal entry) –
• Bowl of Beauty Peony (view my dave’s garden journal entry) – Has pink flower petals with cheery yellow and pink centers, plant in feb-march in Arizona.
• Tiger Orange Lily (view my dave’s garden journal entry) –
• Blue Girl Tea Rose (view my dave’s garden journal entry) –
• Intrigue Floribunda Rose (view my dave’s garden journal entry) –

Here is my niece who came with my mom to stay with us for my birthday. She is the most well behaved baby I have ever been around and she loves the camera!

Here we are at Wupatki National Monument inside one of the ruins. I wasn’t quite ready for the photo to be taken (as you can see) but it’s still priceless.

Here is a photo of us eating fondue on my birthday. It was yummy and so much fun!

We took my mother and niece out to Grand Falls for fun, we of course got a group photo of us in front of the waterfall.

And here are the photos I took of my newly sprouted crocus. They have surfaced in a variety of colors and locations. We are really enjoying their progress and beauty and thought you might also.

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