We promised to take Eric to see the fireworks at Floyd Field Days.  It rained steadily all Sunday afternoon so there was some doubt the fireworks would be held.  We met Jennifer at the Field Days at 8:30 and found that  none of the rides were working due to electrical problems due to the rain.  So we ate junk food.  Eric played a couple of games and we hung out until 10pm when the fireworks went off.  It was a nice 40 minute show.

I tried to capture some of the fireworks with my digital camera, but it was difficult given the lag time in my Canon Powershot camera.  Kathryn would announce when a flare was going high, and I would try to capture it. Some of them worked out OK.

Our garden is doing nicely this year. I attribute it to couple of factors:

• Over the past 4 years I have focused on the garden, adding peat moss, leaves, and horse manure to the soil to loosen it up. In these years, I’ve also figured out the ideal teak patio furniture that the garden needs.
• This year I actually used restraint in planting peas and beans and staggered my plantings to enable harvesting over a longer season.
• We have had timely thunderstorms giving water at needed times. This plus the abundance of horse manure compost have kept enough moisture for the plants.
• I got a some volunteer plants from last year’s crops, namely pumpkins and cucumbers, that I didn’t plant this year but were desired by the family.

Let’s take a look. Starting on the far right is a row of 10 rhubarb plants leading into a row of asparagus which has gone to seed forming big green bushes. In the foreground are about 10 tomato plants. On the far left you can see the edge of a volunteer pumpkin. In the center back are carrots, beans and peas. In the far back is what’s left of a pickup truck load of horse manure which I have been using to compost between rows as they emerge.

This is pretty much the same scene from the other side with a row of carrots, 1/2 row of yellow wax beans and 1/2 row of spinach in the foreground; a row of late peas, and the tomatoes and pumpkin in the background.

I haven’t grown carrots before because they are so cheap to buy, but Eric wanted carrots and they are doing quite well. You can see there is a lot of horse manure between the rows.

The tomatoes are starting to show on the plants.

This picture shows our volunteer sunflower standing at the end of what used to be a row of peas. I planted three rows of peas in early April and we have been eating peas for about a month now. Eric and I would eat them out of the garden and throw the empty pods to the dogs, who relished them. The dogs made the short leap from being fed empty pods to picking pea pods themselves. Unfortunately when they picked the pods they usually yanked the whole plant out as well. Within a week they had destroyed the outside row of peas! So I replanted the row and I am hoping to get some early September peas.

My pea trellis consists of hog panel fence. It worked well for the shorter peas, but as you can see I have a row of peas that required 8′ poles. These peas had extremely long vines and folded over the top of the trellis.

Take a quick walk with me and see some plants we have been monitoring this year. Our pear trees look promising. We have three trees and I plan on planting a couple more. I gave up on apple trees because they required spraying, but the pear trees are low maintenance.

A couple years ago we had a bumper crop of concord grapes. The grapes need to be moved because the trees around them have grown so much they are shading the grapes, but that is a project for this fall. For now they are doing what they are supposed to – making grapes. The concord grapes come out late (to avoid frost) and mature late (I picked our bumper crop the last weekend in October).

For my birthday this year Mom gave me a gift certificate to Miller Nurseries which I used to purchase some new grape vines – table or eating grapes this time. They got planted out in the full sunshine and are awaiting a trellis to climb – another project.

Kathryn planted three different types of clematis next to the deck. The tallest one scales the lattice to the top and has deep purple blossoms. Here are some flower growing tips for you in case you want to have a garden.

The lower clematis are along the stairway up to the deck and are showing pink and red flowers.

My bee balm has come from a variety of sources including my mom, my aunt Marie and The Garden Factory. It is just starting to blossom and is attracting hummingbirds.

We have a 13 acre pasture that previously was kept chewed down by horses, but now requires regular mowing – 2 or 3 times a year, depending upon how much I want to mow.  This year I delayed my mowing until early July to give the nesting birds a chance.

For a couple of weeks we had been seeing a doe in early morning and evening come to the tall grass just below the pond below our house.  I was pretty certain she had a fawn hidden there.  I had not seen the doe for the past week and now I know why – she had moved her fawn into our pasture.

I had mowed about 6 of the acres and Sunday I was prepared to finish the mowing.  I took one swipe along the exposed edge and saw a small fawn run deeper into the grass.  So I avoided mowing that area any further and went to the opposite corner of the pasture where momma deer heard the approaching tractor, popped up her head and took off for the neighboring pasture.

I mowed all but the section I thought the fawn occupied and then recruited searching help.  Eric, Kathryn and I searched all through the remaining tall grass in hopes we could ‘herd’ the fawn towards the neighboring pasture.

No luck, so I carefully mowed the remaining swatch and decided it was a mystery.

Upon leaving the pasture I drove by this thin line of tall grass which filled a swale I deemed too wet to mow.  Out popped the fawn who ran back to the area where I first spotted him/her.  The fawn sniffed around trying to find it’s previous hiding place.  As I left the field the fawn returned to the swale and laid down to await further instructions from momma deer later that evening.

Eric and I went into leadline classes at the Barneveld Horseman’s Association (BHA) Hunter Show courtesy of Ellen and Trevor. Friday afternoon Eric practiced riding Onyx at a walk and Sunday we joined Ellen’s barn at the horse show to participate in two lead line classes. Eric and Trevor had a lot of play time before the classes and it was a trick to keep them clean.

Rachael gave Eric some help tucking his coat sleeves.

Even three year old Maggie was ready to show. Unfortunately she fell asleep horseback as we were all entering the class and couldn’t be wakened to participate.

Eric and Onyx on the way to class.

This is why they call it lead line class. Believe me- it was a hot day to wear a dark sports coat in the full sun.

The judge asked each rider to drop their reins, touch their nose and then pick up their reins again to determine if they knew how to get proper hand position and length to their reins.

Fortunately the judge didn’t make us parade around in the circle very far.

Eric got a 4th in lead line equitation and a 2nd in lead line suitability along with a candy bar and a model horse. Onyx got a carrot. In this picture she is looking for the remnants in my hand.

I had Friday off from work. While Eric was at pre-school in the morning Kathryn and I took the dogs on a long walk to the old homestead on the top of Pen Bonc Hill. We found the house and barn foundations and the old well. Everything is pretty overgrown as you can see by the size of the poplar tree growing in the old house foundation.

The story is that the local family got snow bound during the winter, all their cattle died and they starved out. One of our neighbors says her father could recall the family coming out from the woods at the end of March with all their possessions on their backs and asking which way to Utica. He gave them a ride to the train station in his horse drawn wagon. We are guessing this would have occurred in the 1920’s. On our hike we saw lots of wildflowers: trout lilies, some little yellow thing and even strawberry blossoms! In April!

Eric had Trevor over in the afternoon and played while Kathryn and I worked on repairing the trellis under the east deck and stairs. It has been in place for 20+ years and due to snow piles, dogs, and aging it was breaking up. We have yet to complete a couple sections on the south deck.

Eric wouldn’t eat supper despite not eating since school, and fell asleep on my lap around 7. We thought he was overtired and got him into bed. Shortly after that he called and Kathryn got to his bed just in time to be completely covered in vomit. We changed the bed, we cleaned Eric up and changed him, we both showered and tried to go to bed ourselves. Eric vomited roughly every 65 minutes until 4 AM. Somewhere around 2am Eric said in a very mature and businesslike way “I think I had better not go to my soccer game tomorrow.” Saturday he was quiet and thirsty but didn’t eat anything until having 1/2 a banana in the evening.

Our Soil and Water Conservation District trees came in on Saturday: 50 Blue spruce, 10 white spruce, 10 white lilacs and 10 white birch. I planted the white spruce as replacements for the trees that died out in the pasture. Over the past 3 years I have planted windbreaks totaling about 150 trees – so between the 10 blue spruce from Robert and these 10 white spruce my windbreaks are complete again. I had a row of white pine planted but the deer have nibbled most of those seedlings. The 50 blue spruce went in on our land across the road next to our neighbors dirt road to provide a future screening. The lilacs went on the bank between the house and the road. These were all white lilacs. I have another 10 purple lilacs that I bought with my Christmas gift certificate (thank you Barbara) coming from Miller Nursery. My plan is to have alternating colors. I got everything planted yesterday – except the white birch. They were my impulse purchase and I plan to scatter them around for contrast – a couple across the road and a few near the evergreens.

Between our normal weekend laundry, Eric getting sick, getting dirty crawling around under the deck and planting trees we have been doing laundry almost non-stop. Fortunately the weather cooperated and clothes rapidly dried out after being hung outside. We had to drag Eric’s rug outside on the deck and use the rug cleaner (thank you Barbara) to clean it up.

Lately I have been focusing on my WinterCampers.com poem “I’m Not Going To Lie To You” – but this was a good poem that I wrote for Robert. In 1996 my beloved brother Robert was leaving DMC and his friends were having a going away party for him.  Like most activities associated with my brother humor was needed and a roast-type reading was requested.

Since I couldn’t attend my sister Barbara asked me to write something.  I told her I couldn’t write something without a hook – what was the hook?  In the following days reading the classified ads in the local newspaper I came up with my hook.  This is best read from Robert’s point of view.  J

SITUATION WANTED

I was lying on my couch, this weekend past.
Skimming the paper, and reading it fast.

Scanning the front page, Parade and financial
Searching the classifieds for a deal quite substantial

There in Employment, an ad caught my eye
The details of which I will now amplify.

SITUATION WANTED.  EMPLOYMENT DESIRED.
I need a job.  I need to be hired.

I am quite handy and intelligent too.
I can reveal all this in the first interview.

Now about this job, I hope to acquire-
The work should be casual, like my attire.

No heavy lifting, or labor too manual.
A salary increase at least 12% annual.

I get up quite early, can be there by eight,
But my cows get out, so often I’m late.

I am a cheerful co-worker (unless I am wishing)
That instead at work I was outdoors fishing

A couple weeks off in months June or July
Depends on the weather, I can’t notify!

Just when I’ll show up or call in that day
I’ll make a $100 by selling this hay.

I labor real hard on this annual event
So when I return my work should relent.

Go a little bit easy, a little compensation.
Before I leave town for my Fall Vacation.

So if you have just the right kind of job
Call me at home and ask for Bob.

In the duration of 4 days we have gone from snow

and ice on the pond.

to no snow and ice and blooming crocus.

Demographic data for living here.