Slip 'N' Slide is OUT!

 It's hot.
Hot, Hot, Hot.
The ol' slip 'n' slide has been unfurled.
Best $1 spent three summers ago.
Both boys are big enough to actually slip down the slide this year :-)

 Tamlin decided he needed to fling the Frisbee down the slide and then fling himself down after it.
"GOAL!" he exclaimed when he reached the Frisbee.

Jude wants to be just like big brother, so he had to crawl after his own Frisbee :-)

 

Two wet, slightly chilled, but happy boys.

Our garden is growing and growing!

I am so amazed how well the gardens are doing! With our current cycles of heat and rain, the plants have all thrived.  The weeds have tried to get ahead, but Brian and the boys have kept them at bay.

The onion leaves are huge...The bush beans all have flowers on them. The carrots are growing and have already been thinned.  The various squash plants all have flowers and huge leaves...and even some baby fruit like this little cucumber. However, the leaves have started to shade the pepper plants, so transplanting might be needed soon.

Most of the tomato plants have flowers on them, and a few have the beginning of fruits.  Even the tomato plants that were eaten early-on by rabbits/squirrels have tried a second go at things and are surviving enough to produce flowers.

Our little blueberry bushes have blueberries ripening on them.  I hope to get them before the squirrels discover that they are edible.

 

Our four pea plants are vining up the fence. Tamlin is showing off how tall they have become!

On the swingset, the upside down tomatos also have flowers and fruit starting.
The potato plants are growing and flowering. Tam and Jude are showing how many potatoes they'll eat (5).
 I can't wait to taste the salsa!

Humor

HA!
HA HA HA!
I think I hear "Mommy, watch this trick" at least once a day... and sometimes the stunts are just as "awesome" as those done by friends back in college!
HA!

10 Years!

By Golly... it has been 10 years since Brian and I got married!
10 years!
A decade!
And, depending on which one of us you ask,  it has been about 17 since we started dating.
Gosh!
I've known Brian for nearly half of my life!
 Good thing I still love him... All the way to the moon, and back.

Here are some old photos of us, mostly from our time in Minnesota...2001-2005ish.

Click here to view these pictures larger

Fish Festival and fireworks

Our town seems to be having parties all the time. We love this :-)  The boys love going into town to see what's going on, what games to play, what parades to watch, and what food to try.   Here are a couple of more shots from the Fish Festival... complete with a fireworks show at dusk.  This was both boys first fireworks and they were impressed.  Can't wait to get them out for forth of July.

First harvestings

 Our Garden is doing wonderfully!  There is so much green in there, and not all of it is weeds!
Even our little carrots, which went in last, our sprouting well.

 

 The tomatoes and the cucumbers have flowers on them.  We are hopeful that they will get busy and yield some fruit too.

We do have a few produce that are ready for harvest.
I discovered that we have a small patch of strawberries in the back corner (amongst some poison ivy).  Even after Brian hacking at the area with lawn mower all last year hasn't deterred all the plants.  We are yielding the bumper crop of 6 berries this year :-)


In the boxes, most of the fingerling radishes are ready.  I should have remembered how fast these little guys grow!  I had let Tamlin and Jude plant most of these seeds = tons of seeds in short little lines.  Next year, we need to remember to space our planting of radishes out, so that they all don't come to harvest at the same time!

All of us tried eating some of the raw radishes straight from the garden.  Tamlin pronounced them good!  So, now I'm looking for good radish receipes :-)

 

I'm eager to try this : Pesto, Radish, and Sea Salt Crostini or

Grilled Steak With Cilantro Sauce and Creamed Corn with warm tortillas or maybe even 

Radish Butter : http://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/radish-butter

While searching for radish recipes, I found this quote by a fellow gardener / cook.  It totally sums up how I feel too!

Deborah Madison: I think once you get into the garden and that becomes part of your source of food, you realize the difference between eating food that’s really alive and that’s kind of sort of alive -- that’s been sitting around the store. I think of it as languishing compared to just picking things and bringing them in.  But there's also a quality of, “I grew it, it’s my baby, I love it no matter what.” And you just eat the ugliest stuff and you’re so happy. I am not a perfectionist gardener by any means; I’m a beginning gardener, and not everything comes out as it should. I always feel like, “Oh my gosh, it grew under my watch,” so there's sort of a feeling more of gratitude.

 http://www.splendidtable.org/story/what-to-do-with-the-radish

You go garden!
And you rock, Brian, for making this happen!