August Odds and Ends

First soccer ID camp.  We didn't stay to watch but I was able to find her in the crowd in this photo.

This is how I wake up every morning.

Rainbows over WeHa.

Elizabeth made it through a three day retreat for her Honors Religion class.

Our garden was insane this year.  These were the tomatoes that remained one night, after we gave a bunch away to two different families.  We had plenty more by the next afternoon.  And the zucchini....Lee and Emily experimented all summer with new ways to cook zucchini, as they had it several nights a week.

Emily out with her besties.

Spring Fairies

The girls have been working on their fairy houses in every spare moment - Elizabeth likes to leave notes for her fairy - she is very curious and her fairy probably doesn't have a lot of time to work on her house when she visits because she is so busy trying to find and respond to Elizabeth's notes....

End of Season

I am way behind on blogging.  There are three weeks worth of photos on the memory card in my camera due to the whirl wind at our house called "back to school + fall sports" (we are posting more frequent, but low-quality cellphone photos here, also available on the side bar as Instagram), but I just came across these photos from the first week of September on the computer.  Our garden has reached the end of its short but very productive life, but we are still lucky enough to have some plants blooming around the yard.

The sunflowers had the longest (and tallest!) life. 

We got a handful of tomatoes off of the last plant standing.

The end of summer black eyed susans.

Second blooming of the hostas.

Baxter loves being in the yard.

The Garden

Our garden has been really great to us this year!  We seem to have a never ending supply of cucumbers, which we are all really enjoying.  We recently started picking corn, carrots and tomatoes as well.  This is definitely one of our best gardening years yet.

Cucumbers daily for close to a month now!

Enjoying a cucumber snack on the front porch.

Just a few of the many carrots we picked over the weekend.

We planted some unusual (for us) tomatoes this year, and while they might look different, they taste delicious!

Emily is really enjoying the corn this year!

Last Friday afternoon, a freak storm blew through the central part of the state, dropping several inches of rain and tearing up large areas.  Although a suspected tornado in the next town over ended up being a microburst, the damage was substantial (85-100 mph winds).  The straight line winds did a number on our corn, although we were able to salvage about 30 ears.  We gave away some to our neighbors and have been feasting on the rest ourselves every night.

The Corn is Coming!!

For the first time, we planted corn in our garden this year.  Lee and I both wondered if it would take, if it would grow and if we would get any corn at all.  When it was "knee high by the 4th of July", my confidence began to grow; by the time we returned from vacation last weekend, most of the corn was heading for the clouds!  We couldn't believe it.  A few days ago, when picking cucumbers with Lee, the girls noticed ears growing on some of the stalks.  Stay tuned!

The back half of the garden. 

Just to give you an idea of how tall most of the corn is. 

The beginning of ears...

Watermelon

When we planted our garden in May, we decided to try our hand at growing watermelon.  Little did we realize that it takes more than three months for a watermelon to become completely ripe, so we had a long wait on our hands.  On Labor Day, the watermelon were finally ripe and we picked one to bring to a party we were attending that afternoon.  We were a bit concerned about how the taste would be given, the enormous size of the watermelon, but it was excellent!!

One of two giant watermelon. 

We tried to get a picture of Elizabeth holding the watermelon while standing, but it was so huge that she couldn't hold on to it and had to sit down.

It was too big to put in Emily's lap, so she just sat on it! 

Slicing it open... 

Yummy!!

Planting the Garden

We always wait until Memorial Day weekend to plant so last weekend, Lee turned over the garden one final time and we got to planting.  While we always plant our staples - tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini and yellow beans - this year we added carrots at Elizabeth's request.  We also planted sunflowers, which the girls really love when they come in.  Both Elizabeth and Emily are enthusiastic planters so we tried really hard to let them plant seeds with us, but some of the seeds are so tiny that they either didn't make it or there are about 15 seeds in one tiny spot!

Elizabeth plants her carrot seeds.

Emily plants some cucumber seeds.

Elizabeth helps Lee with the tomato plants.

It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it!

Early Planting

It's too soon to plant, but the girls have been itching to get their hands dirty anyway.  The other day, we got a little seed starter and a bunch of flower seeds for them to plant.  They each got to pick out their own seeds and then I picked some out at well.  The planting was chaotic - to say the least - but we are hopeful that at least some of the seeds will grow in time for transplanting around Memorial Day.

Watering the little pods of soil and nutrients to get them to expand.

Watering was their favorite part - they didn't need to concentrate too much....

Elizabeth plants her colored daisies.

Emily planted lupines, in honor of Miss Rumphius (thanks Dan and Martha!).

The Veggies are Coming!

We picked our first tomatoes today and boy, were they good!! This season, Elizabeth has been very into picking vegetables, but not so into eating them. Emily, on the other hand, is chowing down. This afternoon, she had four or five pieces of tomato and at least one cucumber. I love it. I wonder what will make my dad more excited - the fact that Elizabeth likes lobsters or that fact that Emily loves tomatoes?

First two tomatoes!!
More cukes
Mmmm, this is a good tomato.
Was this your cucumber, Mommy?