Graduation!

August 12th and 13th, 2010 were amazing days of pure excitement and enjoyment. Christina and Dell graduated from BYU with their Bachelor's Degrees--Christina majoring in French Studies and minoring in African Studies; Dell getting a Bachelor of General Studies with an emphasis in English and American Literature.

What exhilaration! What joy! Commencement on Thursday the 12th, preceded by Christina's Honors Luncheon and Dell's BGS Open House. Friday's Humanities Convocation was wonderful with Dell and Christina walking across the stage together.

A sweet serendipity for Christina to graduate a year early and thus share with Mom's hard and long road to finishing her degree, a road that could never have been traversed without Christina's loving service in taking care of hearth and home during the summers so Mom could attend BYU summer terms.

Friday night we celebrated Christina's achievement with a special family dinner at Yamato, an authentic Japanese restaurant. Saturday afternoon Celesta and Paul had an awesome Open House for Mom, with Charlie and Jesse helping out in the kitchen (great food!), and wonderful friends and family.

All of the family who were in Utah for graduation--Paul, Celesta, Charlie, Grandpa Hilton, Jesse, Claire, Dell, Christina, Val, Jeffrey, Gregory, Maxwell, and Victoria

Christina and Mom with our biggest fan and supporter--Dad!

Walking at last, receiving my diploma cover from the Dean of Humanities.

Christina and Mom together--handing our namecards to the reader.

First Harvest

A delectable salad made with fresh arugula and
green leaf lettuce from the garden.
The first green beans and summer squash,
which I steamed for dinner last night--is there
anything so tasty as fresh vegetables from your
own garden?

First Fruits

Peas
















Green Beans

Serrano Chili Peppers

The first Nasturtium blossom

Crooked-neck Summer Squash

Grape Tomatoes

One Tater, Two Tater, Three Tater, Four

Many years ago, when I bought my first house (it was in Bellevue, Nebraska), I decided to follow the prophet's counsel to plant a garden and use the harvest to feed my family and preserve for the future. With the headstrong boldness of youth, I rototilled a garden space about 20 ft by 20ft in the middle of the backyard, incorporated a truckload of cow manure, and started planting. With this garden I had enough space to plant potatoes, and since potatoes are almost my favorite thing to eat, I planted a bunch. It required a lot of digging and maintenance, but it was sure worth it! I harvested TONS of potatoes! And with my cool, dark basement, they lasted through the winter, too. Here in Virginia, space is limited, but I still want to have potatoes of my own. I learned about a method of growing potatoes in a garbage can from our county extension agency for when space is a problem. I also looked it up on the internet and found a number of youtube videos of interest. Just google "growing potatoes in a garbage can" and you'll come up with lots of hits. In addition, my "garden Bible" described how to do this also.

So, I bought a 32 gallon black plastic garbage can (the black color keeps things hotter for better growing conditions) for $15.00, two bags of garden soil, and seed potatoes (Idaho baking type). Next I drilled holes in the bottom and around the bottom sides of the can for drainage. I put about 6 inches of soil in the can, added the potatoes--six of them--with the eyes facing upwards, and then added another 4 inches of soil. Watered well. When the potatoes had sprouted and the leaves were about 6 inches tall, I added more soil until only about 1 inch of leaves were showing. When the stems are covered with soil, potatoes will sprout off the stems, making the harvest that much greater than if you just let the plants grow untended. As the plants grow, I add more soil until the garbage can is full. Below I have pictures showing the progress of my garbage can potatoes after having added soil for the first time and almost ready for another addition. Later in the summer, after the plants flower and start to fade, then you harvest the crop by simply pulling up the plants and dumping everything out of the garbage can to retrieve the potatoes. The soil can then be added to the main garden and rototilled in for the next year. I'll keep you posted on the progress of my little experiment. If it works well, I might try two garbage cans next season!

Jeffrey's Seminary Graduation

After four years of attending early morning seminary with Sister Vicki Lewis as his teacher, Jeffrey graduated with his seminary diploma last night, June 13, 2010. We are very proud of him! He had 100% attendance (sometimes more than 100%, due to extra credit from watching General Conference sessions). Waking up at 5am every school day for the last four years has been taxing, not only for Jeffrey, but especially for Dad, who had wake-up duty. But it has been worth the effort for the benefits of studying the standard works and receiving the blessings of learning and applying gospel principles in his life. Once a seminary graduate, always a seminary graduate, and this will be something he can be proud of and grateful for his whole life. These pictures show Jeffrey with Bishop Wahlquist; with his friend, Tyler Stephens; with Sister Lewis; with Mom and Dad; and with a whole group of best buds.

My Kitchen Garden, Part 2

I've been spending a lot of time outside in the garden. It's been about 7 weeks since I sowed the first seeds and set out the first plants. Below are pictures of the garden about 3 weeks after initial planting.

My "gardening Bible" recommends dividing the garden into sections according to the category of plant to be grown there. For example, the above picture represents Group 4--Legumes, annual herbs and flowers. Here we have growing string beans, peas, and sugar snap peas. Also still incubating below ground are nasturtiums.

Now we have Group 3--Potatoes and the Cucumber Family. The three hills show seedlings of pumpkin, zucchini, and crook-neck yellow squash. Also in the back are three pepper plants, oregano, and chives.

Group 2--Root vegetables, is really a sorry sight at this stage. You can't hardly see anything growing, although there are some picked over (by the birds) onions. Carrots, dill, parsely, sweet william, and cosmos are all planted but not yet sprouted.

Finally, Group 1 (my favorite)--Brassicas and tomatoes. In the foreground are three different varieties of tomatoes, Big Boy, Roma, and Grape. Broccoli, radishes, spinach, arugula, lettuce, asters, and cosmos are all in varying stages of germination and sprouting.

The idea of planting in these groups is so that you grow vegetables together that are good for each other. They deter harmful insects, discourage disease, and require the same things from the soil. Next year I will rotate the position of the groups in the garden. Group 1 will move to the section where Group 2 is this year. Group 2 will move to Group 3 position, Group 3 to Group 4 position, and Group 4 to Group 1 position. In this way the soil throughout the whole garden will not be depleted and diseases to a particular group will not infect next year's crop.

The following pictures were taken today and show the progress over the last 4 weeks. During this time I also planted basil plants in Groups 1 and 4 and two sage plants in Group 3. I've planted succession rows of lettuce, carrots, and string beans, as well as additional flowers along the borders of the garden. It's been a challenge keeping the weeds down because of the neglect of the garden space over the last five years, but with pulling and hoeing and mulching, I'm making some good progress there.

Pretty big difference, no? We'll see what growth and change the next few weeks bring, changes that will hopefully include some harvesting!

Update: The Great Chipmunk Challenge

I'm sorry to say that I haven't come up with a real solution to the problem of Chip's affinity for flowers. He continues to forage in the planters on the deck from time to time, and I continue to salvage as many uprooted seedlings as I can. One thing's for sure, any survivors are sure to be strong bloomers that will last the season--if they can endure the constant seesaw between being uprooted and replanted, they should be able to endure about anything!

But back to the story . . . Memorial Day morning, as we were preparing for our trip to Monticello, I checked on the flowers only to discover that Chip had been at it again. In a flurry of bad temper, I moved the two planters to the front porch to get them away from the the Mad Marauder. Upon returning from Monticello at the end of the day, to my complete and absolute incredulity, the plants had been dug up much worse than Chip had ever done. I figured it must have been a squirrel this time. So, in another flurry of temper and with few alternatives left (except for Gregory's sharpshootin' air gun), I toted them back to the deck to effect damage control-- at least there they would get more sunlight. Here's an idea: Maybe I should try the rabbit repellant spray I got for the garden. Hmmmm. . . worth a try anyway.

Memorial Day at Monticello

Uncharacteristically, the Hilton Family decided to take a day-trip to Monticello for Memorial Day. Too many times we let these one-day holidays slip by, but this day was different. About fourteen years ago, when Gregory was a baby (see how big he is now--that's him above right), we travelled to Charlottesville, VA to see Thomas Jefferson's famous home only to find out when we arrived that all the tours had been sold out for the day. Instead, we drove a few miles up the road to see James Monroe's home. Interesting, but NOT Monticello. Now, after all these years, we tried again, this time having bought our tour tickets online (not an option in 1996) so we knew the trip wouldn't be in vain. One of the enjoyable parts of the trip was the actual drive through the beautiful Virginia Piedmont region. Monticello is amazing, magnificent, and beautiful, and we learned a lot about our nation's third President. For instance, did you know that of all the myriad of things he accomplished in his life, the only three that he thought worthy enough to go on his tombstone were: author of the Declaration of Independence, author of Virginia's declaration on religious freedom, and father of the University of Virginia. No mention of being President of the United States for two terms.

Gregory chilling at the foot of a very old tree.

A view of Monticello from the West Lawn.

Some of the beautiful flowers on the walkway surrounding

the West Lawn.

A partial view of the vegetable garden on Mulberry Row.

Mr. Jefferson's view from the top of his little mountain.

Gregory and Jeffrey with Mr. Jefferson himself!

The Great Chipmunk Challenge

This is my friend Chip. He lives in the woodpile by the side of the pin oak tree in the backyard. His cuteness knows no bounds, and I love to watch him scamper across the deck and negotiate the picket fence spikes next to the patio. He reminds me of a circus tightrope walker, except he is much more adept than even the best human with his balancing act.

Besides enjoying Chip's antics, I also like to feed the birds so I can watch the cardinals, mourning doves, finches, and occasional bluebirds that come to the bird feeder. Long ago I was told that squirrels and chipmunks don't like safflower seeds, so if you use exclusively safflower seeds in your feeder you will still attract the songbirds, but the little rodents won't eat up all the food. That advice served well for a few years, but eventually Chip must have gotten over his natural aversion to safflower because now he is stealing all the bird seed from the feeder. The other day I saw Chip sitting on the deck with his little cheeks bulging with seeds. While I watched, he spit a safflower seed out of his cheek pouch into his paws and began munching away like nobody's business. What a bandit! If that were the extent of his shenanigans, I wouldn't really mind; but now he's taken to digging into my flower planters on the deck to hide his seeds! Digging up my flowers is a definite no-no in my book (why do I have so much trouble with wildlife?) What to do, what to do? Should I move the planters to the front, even though they don't get enough sunlight there? Should I stop feeding the birds? Should I move the bird feeder out to the swingset area, hoping Chip won't find it? Should I let Gregory stalk Chip with his air-soft gun? Oh no, I can't do that! Stay tuned for the next installment of "The Great Chipmunk Challenge"!

My Kitchen Garden, Part 1

One of the first things I wanted to do once my schoolwork was finished was to relearn how to grow a garden. In my fairly recent past, before going out to BYU for summer terms, I nearly always had a garden in the backyard here in Lake Ridge. I can't remember that I was too awfully successful, but there were occasional bounteous crops. One of my first gardens at this house saw a huge harvest of green beans, and I decided to freeze them rather than spend hours over the water bath canner in the kitchen. So I had our second freezer in the fridge in the garage stocked to last us through the entire winter. Then, midway through the summer the fridge broke down (needed a new compressor) and I lost ALL of my harvest! It was heartbreaking, because, believe it or not, I really did spend a lot of time out in the hot, humid, muggy, sticky, debilitating weather working in my garden; which somehow forges an intimate connection with my plants and the fruits of my labors. It really hurt to see it all go to waste.

Another year we developed a bumper crop of rabbits in the yard and, although we have a picket fence around the garden plot, it was definitely not rabbit-proof. I planted several rows of green beans, and as always, was excited and delighted when the little sprouts emerged from the soil. I kept watch on them, weeded them, watered them, and then one morning came out to no sprouts. Each and every plant had been eaten down to the nub by those darn (albeit cute) rabbits! Frustrated, but undaunted, I planted again. Two weeks later, my seedlings were eaten once more. Determined and stupid, I planted again, and after the rabbits had feasted a third time, I gave up.

Beans are not the only thing I planted in my garden. I usually try to grow a variety of things, including pumpkins for Halloween. One year I devoted fully half of the garden space to pumpkins, and the crop was growing beautifully. I must have had between 15 and 20 pumpkins growing in various stages of development, and I was so excited to come out every day, rotate the pumpkins so they wouldn't be misshapen, water, etc. Then one day, disaster struck: almost all of the vines had withered because of some nefarious cutworm and I lost all of the pumpkins!

The year before I went to my first summer term I got smart and staple-gunned chicken wire to the picket fence and kept the rabbits out of the garden, and that was a fairly successful gardening year. Last year I was going to have a garden, and to get ready for it Gregory donated his time and labor to cleaning up and weeding the garden space. After four years of lying fallow, it really needed it! In his zeal, however, he completely uprooted the marjoram, lavender, and oregano that were well-established in the perennial garden space, and he decided his job would be much easier if he just ripped out the chicken wire fencing. I ended up never getting to planting the garden because of schoolwork. I think I just didn't want to face the labor-intensive job of putting back up the chicken wire!

This year, with the enthusiasm of someone who has forgotten all the disasters and disappointments of past years, I weeded the garden myself (and found to my astonishment that the oregano had come back), rented a roto-tiller from the local Ace Hardware and dug up the soil myself, gathered a composite soil sample to send in for analysis myself (surprisingly, the garden soil is too alkaline, which requires adding sulphur to correct the ph), re-stapled all of the chicken wire myself, and then I planted the garden myself. I have a feeling that before the end of the season this is going to be a "Little Red Hen" story! In preparation for the planting I bought a book from Barnes and Noble with a giftcard Celesta gave me for my birthday in January. It's called The Family Kitchen Garden, and it's written by a couple of English ladies who turned a neglected manor house formal garden in the middle of London into a kitchen garden with the help of about 1000 London school children each year. This book is a wealth of information on everything from soil preparation, composting, mulching, and when, how, and what to plant. So, it's kind of my "garden Bible" now, and is helping me make a come-back into the world of gardening.

I'm finding that the authors of this book have some very practical advice that I would do well to follow. For example, when planting onion sets, they advise that you "net" them (I don't know how to do that or what exactly to buy to do that, but I'd better find out, as you will see) because "the tips are very tempting for birds, who do not even eat them but just yank them out." So, my onion sets were doing just great for the first three weeks; then one evening this week I checked on the progress of the garden and found that something, I assume birds, had uprooted fully half of my onions and left them lying on the ground! Stubbornly, I replanted them only to find more uprooted the next day. You'd think I would learn my lesson from the rabbits, wouldn't you? Next item on the "to do" list--check out netting at Lowes. Oh, and buy more onion sets.

Carolyn's Wedding in Duck, NC

The merry month of May brought all of our family together for Carolyn's marriage to John Ardovini in Duck, North Carolina. For those of you who are unfamiliar with east coast geography, Duck is in the Outer Banks, prime beach vacation area and where Carolyn and John worked summers while they were in college. Obviously they have a lot of fond memories of their time in the Outer Banks and thus chose this spot for their wedding.

The day we arrived in town, Thursday May 13th, it was cloudy, windy, and cold. The wedding rehearsal on the beach was ridiculously cold and uncomfortable, and I thought things had better get a lot more spring-like or this beach wedding will have to be moved indoors to the reception venue at the Saltaire House. Fortunately, the weather is very changeable at the beach, and the next two days were delightfully warm, sunny, and perfect for the barbecue on Friday evening and for the wedding and reception on Saturday.

It was so lovely having the whole family together again, and a wedding is the perfect occasion for a family reunion. Here we are, me and all my daughters and my granddaughter: Top row left to right, Dell, Carolyn, and Celesta; bottom row, Claire, Victoria, and Christina. We took this picture at the Blue Point restaurant where we had the ladies luncheon the day of the wedding.

The evening before, at the Saltaire House, Carolyn's John hosted a barbecue for all of the family and the wedding party--yummy, yummy food and great fun. Another fabulous shot of me and my daughters on the grounds of the Saltaire.

Carolyn, radiant and beautiful in her wedding gown as she prepares for the wedding. Carolyn tells me that there were a few glitches in the plans for the day, but they were minor, and I certainly thought everything went off splendidly. It was a beautiful day seeing my precious daughter so happy and welcoming her sweetheart into our family!

It's A Miracle!

Well, it's been awhile. . . Since September 2009 I have been seriously involved in finishing the final five courses for my bachelor's degree from BYU. In fact, January through March 2010 was the final push, April 2nd being the absolute final deadline for all coursework to be submitted for April graduation. And since my eight years for completing the program was up, this was my final, final deadline. At the beginning of January I mapped out an outline for completion which included monthly, weekly, and daily goals; and with the help of my husband and children (those living at home and those who encouraged me from afar), I miraculously finished on time. Never having completed more than one independent study course per year before, in this three month period I completed FOUR courses for a total of 11 credit hours! I read many books, did hours and hours of research and writing, wrote beaucoup d'essays, and four major research papers (including a senior thesis). During this time I would often dream about how wonderful it would feel when I had completed everything and was eligible for graduation. Sometimes, however, I would imagine how horrible I would feel if I failed to complete everything on time, and the disappointment I would bring to Val and Christina in particular. BUT, hurray! I DID finish, and without Val's help and prayers and the direct intervention of the Lord on numerous occasions, it never would have happened.

I watched the commencement exercise on BYU-TV on April 22nd (I even videotaped it for posterity!) It was wonderful! Eight years of hard work and sacrifice, balancing family, church and school, all culminating in this hour and a half, and it was so worth it! Of course, it will be even more exciting in August when I participate in the graduation ceremonies with Christina with cap and gown and all the hoop-la. But in the meantime, I received the actual college diploma in the mail last Saturday, and it is indeed beautiful to behold. See for yourself:

Notice the tiny letters under "Bachelor of General Studies": Cum Laude---icing on the cake to finish in the top 10% of all the April graduates.