Zucchini, anyone?

We've already established that I'm not the most OCD of gardeners, so this post will surprise exactly nobody. Some of what WILL drive anyone with OCD a little crazy, though, is the warning understatement my phone displays about "this platform is not supported and could possibly therefore result in unpredictable behavior"... y'think? Like, adding all the pictures I uploaded is too much to ask? Or posting them in the order that I click them? Hmph.

My apologies. Technology strikes again.

And they're, big surprise, out of order! *sigh* Here we go.

This is white mullein, even though it's yellow. I didn't plant it. I didn't even know about it. I found it and then used an app called Picture This to identify it, because one was growing in the garden and I thought it was pretty so I left it alone to see what it would grow into. I know, you're all dying of not surprise. 

I may have already mentioned that I planted corn this year. My incredulous husband reminded me, "you know that it takes like four rows of it to be able to even pollinate, right?" Nooooo problem. Four rows of five seeds each, voila. 

Something tells me that's not quite what he meant.

But lookie! I have corn! Granted, the bunnies ate most of them, but I have 5 or 6 that are struggling along and some even have tassels. Woohoo!

Somewhere along our 20 years of marriage we got a morning glory plant. I left them with Grandma Barb while we did one of our moves, and they took over most of her front yard along her porch, much to her delight. Purple was her favorite color, so she encouraged it, trellised it, potted it, and it just went wild. I have some wild ones growing both out front and out back, and they always make me smile. 

This guy below is Borage. He's supposed to be excellent for your pollinators, so I planted some both last year and this year. Apparently it is not safe from baby bunnies, as I had at least five good-sized seedlings ready to transplant one day and the very next when I went to put them in, they were gone. Completely disappeared. The plants in the same tray with them were untouched. Hmm.

So I started over again with seeds and was excited to see that I'm growing a clump of them in the back corner of the garden and a smaller group in the front. They get pretty tall, so I popped one group into a tomato cage and that seemed to help them stand up a little better. The ones in the back of the garden are mid-thigh or taller on me. 

Yes, I'm growing broom handles. Haha. That's how brooms are cultivated, didn't you know? Home Depot has huge plots out back and...

Anyway, on the left are my handful of zinnias, and the broom handles my Dad gave me all mark where I planted tomatoes. There is a tomato plant in a cage, too, and the cucumbers were behind those. The cucumbers been really wimpy this year and don't taste very good, perhaps because the water situation has been so weird? We have an incredibly wet spring and then it's been dry and cracked all summer. I confess to not watering perhaps nearly as much as I should have.

I LOVE these little blue flowers. They grow along the sides of the roads wild and I asked my dear, sweet husband what they were. He said, "weeds." I've argued that they're not weeds. I looked them up, too, and the name?

Blue Weed.

Ugh.

Also Chickory!

HaHA!!

Above, tomatoes and basil. I've been finding those bright green "very hungry caterpillars" munching happily along, much to my consternation, as they grab onto ME when I pull them off the plants. I've been flinging them onto the roof of the shed where some sharp-eyed birds have been swooping down to carry some of them off. 

Along what's left of the creek out back is regular mullein and some truly white white mullein. I was hoping to catch the bee who was nuzzling the yellow ones, too, but I guess she was camera shy. 

I only planted two acorn squash seeds this year, so to stumble across zucchini and spaghetti squash vines this year is making me laugh while my husband facepalms. Hey, free zucchini? I'm okay with that. Anyone want some?

No sign of the acorn squash, by the way. Maybe they'll show up next year. Teehee.

A close up of the mulleins. I can not get enough of wildflowers.

There's the spaghetti squash on the top and middle, and a baby zucchini coming along on the bottom.

And the white mullein that I found in the garden that started the investigation. Beside the broom handle. No, on the right. The one on the left is basil.

So how does YOUR garden grow?

Erie Orchard 2015

One of our favorite fall traditions is to head north to Erie Orchard. I checked their website and saw that they were open for Labor Day weekend and would be serving ribs, etc, and that the end-of-season peaches were ready along with some earlier apple varieties. Dada has started a low-carb diet (fool, just kidding honey!) and wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of getting fruits high in natural sugars, but he gamely drove our crew up there anyway. When he tested one of the plump, juicy peaches, he brightened up considerably and figured he could always freeze them until he's allowed to weave them back into his diet. Three-fourths of a bushel of peaches later, we also had some apples and three pumpkins and a dozen donuts (half apple, half blueberry, all with sugar and cinnamon dustings) and a gallon of cider to take home!

 

Erie Orchard also has blueberries to pick, but we haven't made it up there to do that the last few summers. They also host hay rides, a corn maze, and a million crafters especially on their busier weekends. I prefer going at the very beginning of the season when there's a million apples to pick and way fewer people. I'm just not into crowds. 

 

It was pretty empty on Saturday, just a handful of families doing their own apple picking, and the lady who checked us out was astounded that we'd found that many peaches. She told us we were the only family she'd even seen pick any! We had had a tip from the guy who checked us in and told us which apple varieties were ready. He told us the peaches that were still on the trees were just perfect right now. I think Dada was pretty skeptical, but as I mentioned, he quickly became a believer. Damon was harder to convince:

 

 

For whatever reason, he just wasn't digging the fresh-off-the-tree peaches. I guess he takes after his mother.

 

The kids love picking and love that they can ride around in the back of Pepe the Pilot with the door up and no seat belts. We have a lot of favorites at Erie Orchard. Carrie loves the goats, again, for whatever reason. Liam loves all things apple. Damon just loves to run around like a nut, but I expect donuts and cider rank right up there with his favorites.

 

 

Haha, that one was a little tart! (The apple, not Carrie.)

 

Have I mentioned our dehydrator has been working overtime? We have already given a big baggie of apple chips to our favorite Richards crew, and we have a bag and a half here. I'M TALKING APPLES FROM OUR OWN TREES! We haven't dried any of the ones from Erie Orchard, knowing ours are on the tart side and that we wanted eating apples. I've even made a batch of applesauce that has the Pap seal of approval:

 

 

We are going to have apple-flavored everythings coming out of ears. I'd bake more, but my oven runs hot:

 

 

Weeping. That's the sound you hear. Burnt pretzel crust. Weeping. Weeping, raging, fury.

 

So what does one do when one is desperate for strawberry jello pretzel salad and the stupid oven crisps it?

 

One simply chisels out the middle and proceeds:

 

 

Where was I? Oh, apples.

 

 

"Is this a kissing book?" ~The Princess Bride

 

No, sorry. Just got carried away. Speaking of Carrie:

 

 

We have been hunting for Hinrew corn, but because of the flooding in early summer, the corn is all sizes this year and nobody is standing out like a Hinrew. This whole field was about TwoCarriesHigh, or probably Hinrew sized!

 

Then there's the processing once you get home:

 

 

We haven't done anything peach-related since living in The Last Resort, which was pre-Liam, so we had to Google how to blanch peaches and peel and process and all that jazz. Now we have 5 ziplock bags of frozen peach slices and chunks, peach pits to scrub clean, dry, freeze, and attempt to plant just for the heck of it, and a brand new compost bin full of apple and peach discards and dried, crunchy leaves, eggshells, coffee grounds, banana peels, etc. We're giving it the old college try...

 

Grandma Barb got to listen to Liam do some of his 400 oral reading minutes for the month:

 

 

Yes, you read that right. All our kids devour books, but Liam's teacher is of the belief that if they read out loud then they're really reading. Soooooo, we listen to a lot of books with a lot of inflection around here. Four hundred minutes a month. She has three children of her own- what was she thinking?!

 

Anyway.

 

Now that it's fall-ish, we're seeing tons of pretty bugs and sneaky bugs, and lots of bugs in general:

 

 

And we're having plenty of silly conversations and living life. I'll close with this original comic strip by Carrie (remember to click on it to see it larger):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Random

Dada had an oopsie in the microwave:

This one is mostly for aunt Becky's mom, Sue. She bought Care Bear this book forever ago, knowing Care Bear was a huge Cheerio fan. Guess who else devours O's?!

And Liam's favorite birds, the neighborhood goldfinches, have made their return trip to our feeder. We've seen them each morning for at least 3 days now!