TGIF!

Today is my mother's birthday. She would have been 78 years old. It is also my brother Doug's birthday and its a close bond the two of them shared when she was alive. This picture was taken when she was around 3 years of age and I love it. That frilly pink dress is just too adorable! She is on my mind at some time everyday, whether its a song I hear or when I'm out hanging clothes on the line, a memory or thought is evoked and I smile.

Nathan spent most of the week with his Grandmother and attended the evening bible school at the Episcopal Church. Wednesday I met a friend and her kids at the Watermelon Festival and Nathan enjoyed spending time riding the rides while AnnaBelle absorbed the sounds and sights in like a sponge.

I put the sandbox down at the garden and it was an instant hit with AnnaBelle as she claps with approval. I think she enjoys throwing, eating and putting it in her hair more, though! I'm just glad I have something to occupy her time while I pick butterbeans and tomatoes because she is starting to walk away. At least she walks towards the house but I think its those kittens that are drawing her like a moth to a flame. They don't venture down to the garden so she goes looking for them. Usually Nathan is watching out for her or yelling to me that she is walking away. When I get down in between the rows, which stand over 5 feet tall, it's hard to see her take off.

She loves to walk up to the flowers and say ahhhhh.

My sister Mary made this adorable dress along with some others. AnnaBelle loved wearing it and kept staring at the butterflies and ladybugs on it. I just love it!

Friday Post

This has been a very productive week in the garden. George and I picked over 4 bushels of butterbeans and we still have more picking to do.

George has been shelling them in the evening and I have been blanching them during the day.

So far we have close to 20 quarts of butterbeans in the freezer. You may think that crazy, but we eat alot of butterbeans. And then the holidays roll around and the butterbean is a staple in the south on the table during Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.

Slim Jim and Chunky Munky have been enjoying the outdoors. I filled the pool up for them to swim in on these hot sticky days.

AnnaBelle fell into the bushel basket yesterday and the wire cut her mouth. When it happened she initially cried out and then began sobbing. The saliva mixed with the blood made it look alot worse and once I got it cleaned up I could see the small slit from her lip and near her cheek. What made things worse was when she fell again that evening with something in her hand and cut her lip again. This picture was taken before the second fall. Today it is starting to form a scab. She's one tough cookie.

Another Fun Weekend

We took the boat out on the Nottoway Sunday afternoon. We put in after 12:00 and decided to go back to the same spot we claimed last weekend. There were more families on the river, digging for teeth and grilling on the shore. It was nice to see everyone having a good time together with loved ones and I saw one of my former students who is now married with a child of her own!

Nathan went tubing for the first time. I bought an innertube from Walmart and George plopped him down and explained how to ride the current and off he went. The current was moving at a decent pace for a light rider and I think he tubed several times before finding something else to get into.

Lazily floating down the river..........

We remembered to bring the umbrella for the picnic table and it was a good thing because it was HOT! The first couple of hours we were there the sun was baking and then the winds turned more northerly and it became overcast with a nice breeze.

We dug for sharks teeth but didn't find any. What we did find was whale vertebrae and bones. The large dark piece in the middle is the vertebrae.

While blowing bubbles on the deck Saturday evening, Nathan swallowed some of the liquid and quickly found out how nasty it tastes!

Miss AnnaBelle and her Franklin Bronco ball. This little girl loves to play with a ball. It doesn't matter if its a football, tennis or basketball as long as she can throw it. The other night I was awakened to a loud bang on the baby monitor. I went into her room to find her wide awake and throwing a baseball against the solid side of her crib. How it got in there, I don't know. She grinned at me as I took the ball away and laid her back down to sleep. And to complete the story the next day she said her first sentence, "Play ball", as she picked a ball up to throw to me. That's my girl!

Nathan had to run and get his fishing pole so he could fish with his Daddy. He also loves any opportunity he can get to terrorize AnnaBelle, but she is starting to become immune to his antics and I can't wait for the day when SHE has the opportunity to get the best of him!

The red throats were plentiful on this outing. The two of them were catching fish or had one on with every other cast.

We've decided to take more staycations this Summer. We are just a short 15 minute drive to the Nottoway and we haven't even come close to showing the kids its full beauty. When we put the boat in we only go downriver less than 2 miles. I won 2 free tickets to the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens in Richmond from Farm Bureau on their FaceBook page. I have never been there but from what I have seen online and what friends have told me, the kids are going to love it. They have an amazing butterfly garden, children's garden and a water play area. I'm really looking forward to seeing all the natural beauty.

The family reunion is August 14-15th. George is going to cook the bbq here and then I'll put it in containers to freeze for the trip to West Virginia. We might head to Hatteras after the reunion and stay with Jimmy for a week. It sure will be nice to get back down there and let the kids play in the surf and sand.

The butterbeans are officially ready for picking and we picked a bushel today in between rainstorms. It's supposed to be scattered showers for most of the week, but not oppressively hot. That'll make picking alot more comfortable.

Friday Stuff

We received some much needed rain this evening. It measured close to two inches in the rain gauge and the garden stretched skyward to greet it. The pictures below are during the week so they were taken before the rain and you can see how dry the ground was. The last measurable amount of rain was at the end of June and we used one of the many wells around the farm to water some of the garden, but not all of it.

The garden is becoming one of her favorite spots. Just wait until we move the sandbox down there. That will occupy plenty of her time when I begin to pick the massive amounts of butterbeans we have.

Nathan is starting to climb higher and higher on his swingset. There are monkey bars that run the length of the set and he has started to swing on them and I am teaching him how to move from one to the other across the set but he's happy enough just swinging right now.

Those marigolds on the left are the biggest I have ever seen. They should be blooming by the end of the weekend.

I gave the butterbeans a haircut and trim by cutting off the runners that were going WILD!
Have you ever seen so many butterbeans?

Nathan hammin' in up for the camera.

Brotherly love as he shows her how to use the bubble wand.

Cool looking picture of some altocumulus clouds when a cold front moved through during the week.

Wednesday Notes

My gladiolus have started blooming next to the root cellar. I didn't devote much time to them this year with the garden taking so much of my time, but this fall I plan to burn off the spot and concentrate on mole control and hope that next year they don't eat the rest of the bulbs!

We ventured to the Drewry Blueberry Farm on Tuesday. The weather was gorgeous with no humidity and a heavenly breeze. Nathan was amazed at the number of blueberries and couldn't wait to eat them. He didn't pick half as many as he ate but I didn't care, he had a great time.

We ended up with 4 pints. They are $1.00 a pint and run on a "honor system" basis. This place is a little unknown gem in Surry Co. Va.

Ahhhh the cucumbers we are getting from the garden have been non-stop. We easily pick over a five gallon bucket a day. This is a bushel that we picked last Sunday. I decided to make a first attempt at canning sweet pickles. My m-i-l gave me her recipe that she has used for years and her pickles are delicious. It is a 3 day method that has the cucumbers soaking in lime and 4 rinse baths before adding to the vinegar, sugar and spice mixture and boiling.

I started on Monday and this morning I boiled them for one more hour then put them in the jars and sealed them. I had a little over a quart of pickles left before my liquid ran out, so I put them in a tupperware container and we will eat them now. They have a sweet taste and should be wonderful in salads!

We cut up a store bought watermelon the other day and the kids went wild......

Nathan sounds like a little motor engine when he eats it.

Miss AnnaBelle thinks its the best thing since sliced bread.........

She stole my slice of watermelon and went behind the golf cart to eat it.

These are the jubilee watermelons we have growing in the garden. Some of them should be ready by the end of the month along with the cantaloupe. We are headed to the Norfolk Zoo tomorrow to meet up with a friend and her child along with her sis and her kids. I told Nathan the other day that we were going, but I am sure he has forgotten, or maybe not. He is with his Daddy today on a jobsite in Virginia Beach. He couldn't wait to go to work and had to dress similar to what George had on. He took his Bob the Builder tools with him and told me he would be back when the work was done!

Fun on the Nottoway

AnnaBelle was so happy to get back to the river and play in the rocks!

We set up camp on an island. In the 1500's the Indians dug out the right side to create the island and trap fish coming downstream. They would dam up the end where you see the trees and the fish could be kept in a holding pond. The first natural aquarium!!

This sleepy girl enjoyed a snooze on the way back to the boat landing. Probably dreaming of all the fun she had in the pics below.

Nathan caught a nice red throat while George gets it off the line for him.

A view of the Nottoway upriver.

This was our campsite for the day. The picnic table was $20.00 from the local ag-supply store. It folds up completely into a case and sits four people. It also has a hole for an umbrella! What a bargain and I am sure we will get alot of use from it in the coming years. We plan to cover it with bumper stickers from our travels.

George brought a watermelon and the children absolutely devoured the stuff.

This little girl can eat her weight in watermelon. We planted the jubilee type this year in the garden and they are huge. I will have to get a pic of them and post them this week because we should be eating them by the end of the month along with the cantelope.

The majestic Nottoway River holds such a lure to a young impressionable boy. We have told him the stories of the river's history and its importance to the area. When he found his first megaladon sharks tooth he was hooked. He often tells me how much he loves to go the river.

This was the first picture I took when we reached our destination. He couldn't wait to get out of the boat and into the water. We found some whale bone on this trip but didn't find any teeth, though we didn't dig that long. We fished and laughed and swam with the kids. AnnaBelle floated in the current with me holding her for the first time and she giggled and smiled. I can tell now that she is going to be a fearless kid. When we got to the boat landing she nearly sailed out of my arms and into the water. Nathan was content throwing rocks from the shore but he watched as AnnaBelle tried to break free and told me, "Momma, I think she wants to jump right in!" It's amazing how different two siblings can be, but I'm beginning to understand why. It balances you as a parent and doesn't allow you to lax even for a second. This parenting stuff is a work in progress for me, but I am enjoying and absorbing every minute of it.

Awe Shucks!

We shucked close to 80 ears of corn today early in the afternoon and I prepared it for freezing by blanching the corn in boiling water for around 3 minutes and the corn I left on the cob I blanched around 8 minutes. Once they were blanched I placed them in the sink that I had filled prior with ice. I allowed them to cool for 15 minutes and then cut the corn off the cob and scooped into quart size freezer bags. The corn that I left on the cob was completely cooled and I made sure all of the water was off the cob (this prevents those ice crystals from forming on the corn) and then placed 2 ears cut in half (4) in a freezer size quart bag. And that was it! The house smelled so good that Nathan was begging to eat a few ears. He would ask me if he could eat some of the kernels that had collected on the cutting board, so I gave him a few. This is the best corn I have ever eaten in my life and the family that grows it will not reveal the strain of the sweet white corn.

Nathan and AnnaBelle enjoyed the spectacular day we had. The temperatures were in the high 70's and with a northeast wind blowing it kept the humidity level way down. Tomorrow is supposed to be a carbon copy of today and we are headed to the Nottoway once again to dig for some sharks teeth and cook out on the grill. Nathan is already itching to get into the river.

The plums on the tree next to the house are ready for picking and I better do it quick before the birds beat me to it. In the last two days they have pecked at and dropped over half of the plums and they taste so good this year.

Looking forward to next weekend when we head to Wilmington to visit my sister and her family. It will be AnnaBelle's first beach trip and Nathan remembers the fun he had a couple of years ago when we went to visit so he is asking me every day if it's the day we are going to see his cousins. ♫♫♫Hot Fun In the Summertime ♫♫♫