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Do you want make a homemaking officionado mad? Put a  mouse in her garage. We found the evidence last night.

Eeeeeekkkkkk!!!!

Really it’s seems to be a very attractive tiny creature that shouldn’t cause much harm but the opposite is true. Carrier of diseases and destrcutor of homes this little rodent has invaded my abode.

My husband saw the actual perpetrator. We live right next to a big field so that this has not happened before is a little surprising.

They key is how to get rid of them. And make sure the don’t come back.

My husband actually had a bit of a smile on his face and deemed this a “challenge”. I’m glad someone can see the good in this.

My mother also has major experience in this area so an emergency call to her this morning was mandatory.

Have mice or concerned you could get some? Here are the tips I’m learning from the experts.

1. Clear all potential food sources out of your garage. This means dog food, cat food, open foods. Seeds and such.
2. Find access points outside of your home and block them off.
3. A mouse can get through a space the size of a dime so if you find holes or cracks in your walls this size seal them up.
4. Peanut butter seems to be the bait of choice. (My mother mentioned Snicker’s bars).
5. Be wary of mice droppings as they can carry diseases.
6. Plugging holes with broken glass or steel wool works to keep them bugger out.
7. Those wall plug in things don’t work.

Of course I’ve tried none of this yet. So I will have to keep you posted and if I can manage pictures of our traps etc I will post those.

Related articles

• Get Rid of Mice With Peppermint

Well fall is certainly in the air. We’ve had 40 degree weather in the AM around here. I wore a jacket to day {{{Gasp!!}}} and my mom has been turning on the heat…but that’s another issue.

This past Daddy day (what Peanut call’s daddy’s day off), after an early day in the homeschool room we headed out to pull down the tomato plants, cucumbers and beans and prepare for fall gardening. We piled up rich dirt in the yard and washed out pots for the next planting.

So what do we plant. Well I have my thoughts on Swiss Chard. I haven’t thought much beyond that. I’m supposed to be getting some Egyptian Walking Onions in the mail soon so I have to figure out where I want them to do their walking too.

But I digress because this is all about great link finds on the internet.

This week, in my search for what to do with my bunch of basil harvested when the tomato plants came down I landed upon this site called Life on the Balcony by Fern (I know another lady by the name of Fern too!). It’s a site all about container gardening in an apartment situation. While we’re not in an apartment we do container garden on a small balcony (neater, less buggy). Fern’s blog is award winning, offers practical tips to you can apply today (provided you have a few gardening implements on hand) and she is coming out with a small space container gardening book in 2012!!

So my Friday Link Love pick for the week is Life on the Balcony:

And some personal picks from the site are

• A great simple idea for growing some Kale at Life on the Balcony.
• 3 Ways to preserve your basil.(I picked number one)

My daughter LOVES craft kits. I suppose I fed that love years ago with a craft kit subscription. Well Kid’s Activities Blog is holding a Green Kids Craft Kit Subscription giveaway.

“Well what are these Green Kids Craft Kits anyway!” you ask.

Each Green Craft Kit is…

• kid-friendly, earth-friendly, and safe
• You receive 3 different craft kits once a month – that’s a lot of sustainable crafting!
• Each kit includes everything needed to complete the craft (you just supply glue, markers, and/or scissors)
• Every month will feature unique, multicultural crafts to enrich and entertain your creative child
• Great gifts for eco-conscious parents
• Customize your kits to reflect the holidays and cultures that you wish to celebrate

“What kinds of crafts will my child receive?”…

Some examples are

• canvas puppets
• worry dolls
• lizard puzzle
• airplane
• train whistle
• owl mask

and so on.

I tell you craft kits are FABULOUS gifts for busy kids and ultra busy parents. I’ve gone through my share of craft kits and when you find a good one they are worth every penny! They keep your busy child busy at something they can usually do with minimal input from you (so get that laptop out and start posting) and your child is being creative. Craft kit’s have inspired my peanut to some great things. Her grandmother currently holds the copyright to all photos and details so sorry about that. But back to Green Craft Kit. Go, shoo! Enter the giveaway busy mom!

Ends Monday September 12th (I think).

So just in case you think I’ve been letting the blog go stale on purpose…

Where have I been?

I love having soft scents throughout my home. After over 10 years with cats I just have to have nice scents in the home but I still like to use care because of small children and allergies. Nevertheless I won’t call myself a junkie or anything but I do have a great fondness for scents (and soap).

Sidenote: I do not wear perfume in the summer because of my gardening activities. Thought you should know.

So anyway. I’m putting together a gift basket of smell pretties for a family member’s birthday. I call this the year of luxuries because I feel like giving slightly  indulgent gifts that one may not buy for one’s self.

So this particular gift basket is with luxury soap, sachets and a small room diffuser.  I spent some time picking the right diffuser. Meaning it couldn’t be too expensive but I still wanted it to do a good job.

So searching for the right diffuser landed me upon a site that carried something called a Fragrance Lamp or Diffuser Lamp (I think). I had seen these before under the name Lampe Berger. I never quite understood why these diffusers were so expensive (this is when I thought they were simple ceramic diffusers).

Then I started reading about them and watching a few instructional videos…

Woah! Where have I been?!

You fill these fragrance lamps with a special blend (that apparently you CAN make yourself), place some sort of wick apparatus in there. (wait a little while the wick absorbs the fragrance). Light the thing which makes this uncomfortable sized flame for 2-4 minutes. Blow it out and put a top on it. The little cute bottle scents your home and APPARENTLY cleans up odorific smells.

So hubby and I talked about it and watched a few videos and thought we might like to try one….

I’ll keep you posted but in the meantime some links

Courtney’s Candles: This is where we got the lamp.

About Effusion Lamps: Great information on using one.

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As the end of summer looms near (sorry to be so dramatic) I’m given to thoughts of what to plant for a fall/winter harvest.

I’m in Zone 8 BTW.

So far I’ve been thinking of.

Carrots (carrots don’t like me. I have to work on them)

Lettuce (I didn’t do that great with lettuce this year)

Swiss Chard (we’ve been really enjoying swiss chard this summer)

and my Egyptian Onions should be arriving soon.

The late summer start has me thinking I should wait a few more weeks before starting anything but I’ll be tilling the soil to prepare soon.

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My lone garlic put out this funny curly looking flower/bulb thing this week and I wasn’t sure what to do with it. So in my internet browsing I discovered that this is a garlic scape and I can use it for cooking! So this week’s link up is to more information about garlic scapes, what are they and what to do with them.

Going to Seed: This was the most informative blog post on garlic scapes I found. How to identify what kind of garlic you have and the whole harvesting garlic process. Nice information.(there are two different links here).

Enjoy!

Related articles

• Tis the Season for Scapes (blissmati.com)
• Hello Summer! Garlic Scape Pesto (leeksoup.wordpress.com)

We went berry picking the other day. It was great.

There are so many farms in our area I have to work hard to keep from banging my head as to why we haven’t partaken before this.

It was a great outing for the Sweet Peanut. Something fun for our tiny family to do together and we worked together until the end.

We all picked, washed, and processed together.We picked 27 pounds total.

I made freezer jam, strawberry tarts and a berry pie (mixed berries).

We gave about about 8 pounds and froze the rest. They were very sweet which, you know, strawberries sometimes don’t live up to their name. But these were great!

Here are some pics.

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So to celebrate the upcoming holiday season Sweet Peanut has asked me to make her a fourth of July outfit.

So cute. She thinks mommy sews better than she does.

So I had a pattern and fabric for some cute pants (pic coming) although my brother-in-law did mistake them for pyjamas….

But I was at a loss for the top.

I still am at a loss but I happened upon some cute free tutorials that might help someone else out.

Makin’ it Immakulate: This was SOOO cute! I might try it later. I’m awed by her talent to just whip this up from one of her daughter’s t-shirts. Very cute and she makes it seem easy.

A Little of This, A Little of That: This is from last year but is so quick and easy you can make it in time for this year’s celebration.  A 4th of July t-shirt.

~Enjoy!

Upset with myself for missing this last month but better late than never.

Have you been looking for resources to help your daughter learn the home arts? Summer is a great time to start driving home those ideals. Helping mom cook, take care of the home or learn a new craft.

My daughter actually came to me and said this summer she would like to learn to make her bed and play the piano. Okay now before you gasp that my six year old cannot make her own bed let me tell you this thing is huge. I don’t know why my husband and I fixated on it but we bought her one of those extra long beds from JC Penney a few years ago. The darling girl’s room in white sold us so here we have this big bed with an equally big mattress. I struggle to make it each week on linen day and she struggles to help me. Truthfully all she has to do each morning is pull the sheet up, situate the pillow and settle the duvet but she sees me sweat and toil each week and is worried. So alas it’s on the agenda.

Piano is another story. Do you know any children that are pretty strong willed? You know you try to teach them or show them something and they snatch it away and say “I already know how to do it!”. Okay this is my sweet Peanut and it can be frustrating. Praise God she does not do this with school (another reason we use DVD homeschool) but with some things (she picks and chooses) she is really adamant about doing it herself. So I’m comprimising on the piano I have purchase the Alfred Beginner series (I learned with Alfred) and then I also purchased this great book that she can work on BY HERSELF and get a real feeling for accomplishment. She is playing along nicely and every once in a while she will ask me what something means and I can toss in a simple piano lesson.

Link Love Link

Homemaking for Girls: This series is such a great idea. 30 days  (not necessarily back to back as the auther has stated) of homemaking for girls with lots of contributions from many great bloggers. I like Make Your Bed for the Glory of God! My type of lesson! There are several more good lessons and ideas to work with so check it out.