Family time

This is a belated post dedicated to the time we spent with our families-of-origin in August.

Mid-August we packed up and drove to Fort Benton, MT, for a family reunion/belated 80th birthday party for Brian's Mom, Bernadine Dostal.

Grandma Bernadine

Isaiah is trying not to smile

Grandma Bernadine and 10 of her 12 children

This is as nice a picture as we've had of us in years

Samuel playing in the church hall room divider (dang, that is one cute kid if I do say so myself)

Then at the end of August we paid a visit to my parents (and brother) in Oregon:

Look Ma, I'm flying!

Uncle Daniel leading the kids on a wheatfield safari

Samuel putting a brave face on it

A teasel. I've always thought these were fascinating.

Garden of Eden, blackberry-style. If you walked into that little cavern there, the blackberries hung down over your head just begging you to pick them. The smell of warm wheat stubble mixed with the perfume of ripe blackberries is a foretaste of heaven, in my opinion.

I had truly forgotten how good a real wild blackberry tastes

Samuel, having a "most interesting man in the world" moment.

Gardens gone wild

This post is going to be a selection of garden pictures. Don't say I didn't warn you.

It took a while to get going, but I'm pretty happy with the way the front flowerbed turned out.

As for this carrot, Brian put it best: "Hm, little genetic challenge there?"

One of the epic battles: Pumpkins vs Tomatoes!

"The corn is as high as an elephant's eye...."

Close-up of the foliage of my Japanese Maple. Note to Brian: no, it is not diseased. It is supposed to look like that.

Hardy Gladiolus

Delphinium in front of more hardy gladiolus

FREEEDOOOMMMMM! (This picture was taken a few weeks ago -- that pumpkin is the size of a volleyball now.)

Look who's back! Apparently, pansies can take a lickin' and keep on tickin'.

Eve's first day of school

Today was Eve's first real day of kindergarten.






The whole experience is still too new for either of us to have formed an opinion about it yet. "Further bulletins as events warrant." -Calvin & Hobbes

Before and after

In the beginning, there was a pool.

It was nice as pools went, but I wanted it gone. So with the assistance of some local contractors, we turned this...


Into this...
Which has now become this:

Thank you Brian, for getting me my long-sought garden plot!

Thanks a lot, sweetie

An email from Brian, who is on a business trip:

"Forgot to bring Digi cam. But here is view from my hotel room. Guess it pays to show up before they have many rooms cleaned."

My response: "Dude. You suck. :-)"

I knew to keep an eye on the zucchini, but...

I'm pretty sure my snow peas are violating the law of conservation of mass. How else could such quantities of biomass result from water, a little dirt, and a seed?

I've just had to make my first foray into freezing produce, in a desperate attempt to keep up with the tidal wave of peas coming out of my three little rows (one each of English, sugar snap and snow peas). The English and sugar snap peas are producing respectable yet modest amounts; it's the snow peas that seem to have no concept of restraint. Them and the strawberries, profligate floozies that they are.

Reason I love where I live, #14

Fireworks.

Growing up in Oregon, there were heavy restrictions on the kinds of fireworks the public could legally purchase and use, and those restrictions pretty much reduced us to sparklers, ground blooms and fountains. Washington, it turns out, has no such restrictions.

A few weeks ago, our neighbors two houses down mentioned that they were going to be having a "big fireworks show" out of their backyard on the 4th of July. It turns out that "big fireworks show" means a $3000, 45 minute long barrage that was literally bigger and better than most of the city-sponsored fireworks shows I went to growing up. Mom, seriously, this thing went on longer and was showier than McMinnville's shows were back in the day. We set up our camp chairs out on our driveway and had as good as front row seats. I'm still a little bit blown away.