Morrisville has a new AYSO team with 6 players having never played before. HP Gold took advantage of their inexperience and beat them 14-0 with scoring by Eric, JD, David, Luke, Logan, and Matt. We moved kids around but everyone got in the rout.
Tuesday night on my way south on Route 274 I hit a deer crossing the road just south of Outerkirk’s house. It was 6:50 – just dusk and although I had my headlights on I did not see the deer until it was at the mid-stripe in the road. It destroyed my headlamp, pushed in the metal around the headlamp, cracked the grill and dented the front left fender.
Kathryn recruited a team for the Pumpkin Patch Run; a 5k obstacle course that runs across the entire farm. Participants needed to climb steep inclines using ropes, cross multiple pits full of mud, scramble over hay bales (the giant round ones, not the square type), tread through tire piles, and escape a “web” of bungee cords.
Friday afternoon we picked up Eric from school, drove to Dolgeville and got Stone and Dakota and went to Jeanne’s house for a spaghetti dinner with the rest of the team. The next morning the adult team went off in the 2nd wave at 10:30.
At 12:30 the 2k Kids Run had pretty much all the same obstacles except the corn maze and long run.
A good time was had by all.
This weekend I picked a grocery bag of Roma tomatoes and a 5 gallon bucket of Early Girl tomatoes and then tore up the three rows of tomatoes. I pulled out the green beans and enlisted Eric’s assistance in digging up our row of potatoes. I washed all the potatoes, wrapped them in newspaper and put them in a sealed five gallon bucket in the basement.
Our pear trees have a bumper crop and Kathryn is attempting to make apple/pear butter spread. We gathered three buckets of apples from the wild apple trees across the road.
Kathryn re-joined the Dirty Skirts team for another Dirty Girls run in the Buffalo area. This time the race was held at the Elegant Builders Raceway Park, a racecourse (i.e. level ground). The Dirty Girl obstacle course is not timed or competitive so one can go at their own pace. She ran the 5k mud run in 37 minutes with someone she met at the race, Nina, and then re-joined her team to repeat the last third of the race course.
Before and after pictures of Kathryn.
The end of our gardening season is coming. We have had a couple nights of frost and needed to cover the garden. Out of view of this scene are acorn squash. Shown in the foreground are yellow wax beans that I planted the yellow wax beans late as replacements for the peas (largely eaten by the dogs).
Then there is a row of brussel sprouts, broccoli and volunteer cherry tomatoes. The brussel sprouts will continue to grow into snow season; we are trimming small broccoli heads; the cherry tomatoes were a mistake. I should have pulled them out to keep them from spreading all over the garden.
There are three rows of tomatoes Burpee Early Girl and Roma tomatoes. Finally a row of prolific green beans.
Eric and I built a fire pit in the backyard and held a small bonfire while he and I played badminton over the clothes line.
Kathryn has had a 3-tier clam steamer she received from her mother many years ago. We have stored it in the barn loft and finally she scheduled a meal with the Helmers to try it out. The bottom tier held water that would become broth as the levels above steamed. The next level held sweet corn and potatoes. The third or top layer, not yet deployed, held clams. We got a good heat going with the charcoal.
Max and Freck came to watch.
We knew there was a line of thunderstorms coming our way and we could see lightning and hear thunder for 15 minutes before it hit. We sprang into action just before it hit and rigged a plastic tarp over the fire to protect the charcoal from the rain. The tarp was effective in shedding the rain, but the runoff from the storm formed a stream through the fire pit. Phillip struggled with the fire.
The rain came down hard.
Phillip was ankle deep in a stream of runoff that doused our charcoal fire.
Phillip deployed the smoker but the flames were a little too much; engulfing the clam steamer and causing steam to come off the tarp. Rachael and Phillip began dumping water on the fire to douse the flames. Plan B was to cook inside but since the power went out Plan C was invoked to cook on the propane grill.
Kathryn and the boys stayed inside and played board games.
So we ate by candle light and a fantastic meal. Unfortunately, the components were prepared separately and we still didn’t get an opportunity to use the clam steamer.
Kathryn has been canning in the wanning days of summer
While we were in Utah the rabbits ate the beans down, but they recovered nicely and we are now drowning in green beans.
If you are at our house this Thanksgiving there is a good chance that green beans will be on the menu.
The cook had some spirits to help her get through the process.
Yummy tomatoes. Probably there will be more to come.
This past weekend we took our pop-up camper to Soft Maple Campground. Kathryn and Eric took the camper up on Thursday afternoon and then returned to participate in our Thursday night Sand Fleas volleyball playoffs. Friday morning Eric played in his scramble golf party. After golf, Kathryn loaded up the dogs, picked up Jack and they drove up to Soft Maple. I drove up to Soft Maple on Friday night following the AYSO coaches meeting arriving about 9pm.
Saturday the boys went swimming in both the morning and afternoon. In the afternoon they heard about a rope swing on the island just out from Soft Maple campground. Before dinner we launched the canoe and paddled out to the rope swing where another family was enjoying the plunge. We watched for a moment or two and then the family left and Jack/Eric had the rope swing to themselves. Below, Eric swings out from the bank.
The following day, Sunday, the boys re-visited the rope swing and they ‘competed’ in making creative jumps called Tarzan, Old lady crossing the street, Superman with his cape on fire, Escape from a burning apartment, largest splash and highest splash. Below Jack prepares for his jump and completes a nice ‘pencil jump’.
Eric makes some interesting moves.
Everyone got into the act fishing for bass, blue gills and “bunkers” in Robert’s Pond. Eric was fishing for bass.
Barbara and Kathryn did a lot of chatting during Barbara’s fishing stint.
Kim’s daughter and friends were novice fishers and got really excited when they caught a fish. Instead of fishing for ‘lunkers’ they said they were fishing for ‘bunkers’.
