Vacation teaser

Here's a teaser for a future vacation post. Above is this year's version of Vacation in a Bowl. This summer we skipped the angel food cake and went straight to Extreme Chocolate Moose Tracks with strawberries. Delish!

Below is one of the sunrises some of us made it to. Why is it easier to get up for a beach sunrise, especially when they involve sand? 

 

Gettin' dirty

Yesterday I smelled like I was at camp. That's a good thing. That means I was outside in the sunshine, enjoying the huge bees and the many birds and the sunshine!

Our strawberry patch, sans baby bunnies, who have moved on:

Irises which came with the house- my favorite kind of plants- the ones I don't have to do anything to, haha! They come up and surprise me with their gloriousness every year all by themselves. Yippie!

Our "pond", as usual, is a disaster zone. We didn't even cover it last fall so I've been attempting to remove the gazillions of drowned leaves, spreading them out to dry, letting them air out all that stink, and then wheelbarrowing them to the compost pile where they'll probably sit until the second coming. But we have a big froggie! He's on the stone in the foreground, to the left of the small sapling. 

Dada and I worked in the garden yesterday. Since he burns pretty easily, we waited until after 5 as it was 90 degrees during the day. I know it doesn't look like much, but we are optimistic for a good showing this year. Unless these four days of storms which start today do everybody in...

This is my Borage Triangle. At least, I think that's what those guys are. I didn't plant them there this year, but that's where some were last year, so I'm hoping they're repeat guests. I can't say offenders as I'm more than happy to have them for the bees and butterflies. My mother insists they look like alien bioscouts, haha. 

Dada, the purist, and I are once again disagreeing about gardening. I planted the cucumbers right along the fence so they could grab hold and go up. He says I'll be fighting a losing battle with the weeds along the fence line. I suppose we're both about to be proved right.

These tomatoes are called Allegheny Sunset. I didn't prop them last year and so they got very sprawly. I think a vole was helping himself as I didn't get a single bite; by the time I found them they were all chewed up from below, so I guess they're tasty but I wouldn't know from personal experience.

The yellow broomsticks mark basil, to the left in the back are pepper plants, and then everybody else is a tomato of some kind. I love the teeny cherry ones so we planted Sungolds, black cherry ones, yellow pear ones, and red currants. Scott likes real sized ones, hence the Allegheny Sunsets, Cherokee Purples, and Brandywines. 

We didn't get around to adding in the carrots yet, though there are some in the back garden with the onions and the peas. I forgot to take pictures of them, hmmm. And we saw on facebook that you can wire old bananas to a post and the butterflies will come enjoy them, so I want to do that, too!

"How does your garden grow?"

Uh, well, ours is a complete disaster. Thanks for asking. 

I guess we had other things going on this summer. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Here is our garden jungle: 

I can hear Ray Stevens in my head, "embarrassing." So let's have a closer look at things.

Here are the tomatoes:

We planted Cherokee Purples and either Big Boys or Beefsteaks, but I haven't seen anything other than teeny cherry ones come up...

The strawberries are still doing their thing:

And we have a humungous basil:

The borage I planted for the bees is hanging in there:

Heh. That would be the purply blue flowers in that mess. As ever, you can click on any photo to have it open in a more eyeball-friendly page to better investigate.

I have no idea what these adorable yellow flowers are, but they have carroty-looking tops/stems so I purposely didn't weed them as I wanted to see what would happen. Anyone have a name for them?

Cilantro has gone all to coriander:

Butterflies are visiting the apple trees:

Spiders are everywhere:

This particular one is either brave or crazy, having built a web just outside our back door. I can't tell you how many times I've opened the door just a few inches to holler out to the boys and/or the dog, remembered the spider too late, and have had to apologize. It's a good thing I have no hair, or this poor thing would have to redo the web several times a day. And it's right at face height, so it's usually, *door opens, I take a big breath to begin to holler, pull head back a little bit as spider takes cover, apologize to spider, commence hollering while keeping door as closed as possible lest any bugs make it past the web and into the house, slam door shut* The spider is doing a good job as I've only seen one stink bug make it in so far...

The zinnias and marigolds did well! I even saw a hummingbird enjoying the zinnias.

And this, my friends, was lettuce in its former life:

The back "garden" was overtaken by the ghosts of last year's veggies. Apparently we'd tossed zucchini out to die and they reincarnated, took over, and had to be chopped back by PaPa during his last visit:

We did get a few zucchini out of the deal except they were so huge by the time we found them that they were really seedy and not much fun. I guess that's why Aldi sells little skinny ones, haha.

And it's almost apple season already! Eeeep!

Dada bought some fun shades for the deck this summer, which give a whole new resort-ish feel to the place:

Yes, that would be Virginia Creeper, creeper-ing along. There's also poison ivy in there, which all the menfolk currently have as they just can't stay away from machetes and chopping vine-covered branches and oy vey...

And my lovely, tough, good thing they take care of themselves hostas. Hosta? Hmm.

Those poor guys were completely dug up and tossed aside when the geothermal install happened. The guys doing the digging asked what they were and then shrugged, "well, they'll probably figure out how to come back." And they did! Yay!

I sure hope nobody was depending on us for tomatoes (unless they're cherry ones) or cucumbers or anything this year. None of my cucumbers tasted like anything much, and I can't tell if it was just because of chemo affecting taste buds or if it was the ridiculous wet spell followed by months of hot and dry without being watered or what, and nobody else in my family eats them to compare notes with. If nothing else, we helped birds and bees and butterflies, which is half the fun anyway. Uh, I mean, sorry I didn't get out there to weed very much, honey...

Vacation in a Bowl (AKA Throw Muggin Under the Bus)

Blame Muggin for the tastiness you see before you. She coined the mixture of angel food cake, strawberries and Extreme Moose Tracks "Vacation in a Bowl."

I blame her (and let's be fair; Booty Treats, Mike's Hard Black Cherry Lemonade, Fudge Rounds, and peach moscato all were contributing factors themselves...) for the realization when I got home that when I told Lainie I usually weighed one thing and discovered I was five pounds beyond that on the scale that, "oops, I lied!" 

Eh, it was vacation. And it was worth every bite. Every time we had it. Which was more than once. And more than twice. 

The word of the day

Some words and phrases endure the test of time. Just this morning, I learned that in Biblical times they used the phrase "from Abel to Zechariah" to sum up the deaths of the martyrs. One would think it was from A-Z, but it was actually because 2 Chronicles came at the end of the Hebrew writings and that's where Zechariah is murdered in the temple while Abel is the first innocent human death. My Bible notes that it was equivelant to our "from Genesis to Revelation"... interesting!

My brother is a victim of an enduring name. Long, long ago the little brother of his friend across the street couldn't say "Andrew" and coined "Hinrew." It stuck, and we've shortened it to "Hin". Even my kids call their uncle "Hinrew". In fact, my brother doesn't even answer me when I call him "Andy" because he doesn't think I could be talking about him. We've called him Hin for years!

A few springs ago, Liam coined "flowerful" to describe trees in bloom. We've used it ever since. Carrie once commented on "little beeps of hurt" when describing an owie. That's also endured.

I think Damon just coined a keeper this week. He got out of the tub and declared "my piddies are pickley." I asked if he meant "prickly" and he said, "no, PICKLEY." I think I like pickley way better than pruney.

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Carrie is with my parents this week while she attends day camp. She's doing a stop-motion photography class again. I can't wait to see what her Legos are doing in her movie.

The boys and I joined friends first thing yesterday morning and picked strawberries for an hour. We tried a new-to-us farm called Hoen's and came home with a flat of beautiful, flavorful berries for less than $16. I've got a tray of frozen berries and more to still process, if Damon will stop sneaking them and let me get through them before he eats them all.

We started Splash week at the Y yesterday, also, which means that for half an hour every day this week we'll all be in the pool. Liam is in a class while I'm in the water with Damon in a separate class. Perfect for a super hot, humid week!

Last night after my Y class, I had the boys hop on their bikes and they rode around the parking lot adjacent to our neighborhood. Liam moaned and groaned the whole way there, then did awesome in the actual parking lot. We only had one spill (Damon, accelerating too quickly down the slight downgrade into the lot) but there wasn't any blood and he got back on, rode, and then made it the whole way home without mishap. Once we got home, they had popsicles, I dropped a plastic container of lemonade all over the kitchen floor, and everyone went to bed.

Today brings a karate lesson for Liam, a walk with Zita (Rita) for Damon and I, more Splash lessons, and a trim for Liam's fuzzy haircut that's no longer fuzzy. Oh, and the rest of this:

Swiffer kitchen floor
Run dishwasher
Bathe boys
Mail camp paperwork
Email Girl Scouts about registration
Mow the cilantro back down
Register for summer Y classes
Scrub downstairs toilet (already soaking, yay!)
Find Damon's reading log and record books
Chess with Liam, finish game we started 2 days ago


And Liam has laundry to put away and a sink to scrub. I should probably brush the dog so she doesn't melt. She can't wait to get back inside where it's air conditioned.

Please remember to pray for all the families affected by the downpours and tornadoes across the country. Those twin twisters in Nebraska looked terrifying. I can't even imagine. I'm sure we'll be hearing in the next few days how to help- Red Cross, perhaps. Check in with your churches.

Have a wonderful week and be careful in the heat!

Giggly and Glam

There was a photo booth of sorts at the retreat, so naturally we had to check it out. The girls especially had fun trying on everything they could reach. See Carrie with three props?
 

 

 

 

 

 

However, she was less than thrilled about the fancy dress up dinner. It had the typical, adorable girly sandwiches cut into wedges, chocolate covered strawberries, eclairs, etc. Lots of glittery decorations, too!

The rest of us had much more fun dressing up. ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner also featured a chalk artist who was also a ventriloquist. It was very entertaining, and the art part was amazing. Jesus in the clouds didn't show up until he lit his special light; it just looked like he was creating a lovely landscape. Carrie was very impressed.
 

 

Definitely a sucessful girls' weekend away.