It's been quite some time without a post around here. Ellis finished school and we're slowly getting adjusted to a summertime routine. We'll probably have that complete about a week before school starts up again. The boys are mostly managing to get along alright and are enjoying the play structure that we finally got complete a couple weeks ago.
On other extended project fronts, we finally got our stove replaced (we were rapidly approaching 1 year with only one functional burner). While my parents located and delivered a replacement stove for us waaay back at Thanksgiving, we had to get a new gas line run to enable the switch from electric to gas. This, in turn was complicated by their needing access to an outside area of the house, which was blocked by a stack of paving stones, which were frozen together by snow and ice all winter. It kind of reminds me of the song about the hole in the bucket. Anyway, spring came, the ice melted, and we now have multiple burners. Plus, because they are gas, we are on again able to properly stir-fry. Hallelujah! AND we've finished painting and family room and hung up new curtains. Trey built a low shelf for the kids toys which needs to be sanded and painted and then there will be pictures. In case you think we're productive, let me just state that mean time to project completion = 8.75 months.
What else, then? Garden is bursting and we're hoping to have at least two dinner's worth of proper beets this year. Lettuce, peas, beans, chard, kale and broccoli are all doing well. The cucumbers and squashes have been somewhat bothered by the damp and we've lost many leaves and a couple vegetables to powdery mildew. Curses! Out sweet was voted least likely to succeed by Trey, but so far it's looking pretty good. Only bad news was Ellis and I went to let the dog out on Sunday and found a deer hanging out in the front yard. Further investigation showed that 4 stalks had been nibbled. Double curses! Three other stalks were knocked over; Ellis claimed the deer must have stepped on them, but I'm pretty sure they were actually the victims of an earlier wind storm. We don't have a fence and so far have kept away most critters via use of carnivore urine (you guess the source if you don't already know). At any rate, whatever we ultimately harvest, it's been totally worth gardening just for Ellis's excitement. He loves seeing anything new blooming and watching the vegetables develop from the flowers. And he's pretty sure that the corn cobs are going to pop out of the middle of the stalk (I think he's picturing it like broccoli) , so there are more surprises in store for him.
Now Maddox being somewhat less helpful by harvesting a hard, green tomato:
This week, our purple pole beans ripened. Ellis was really excited to grow some unusually colored vegetables, and I think they're pretty delicious raw (we haven't actually cooked any). Maddox gave them a try:
And so did Ellis:
But, unfortunately, they weren't as pleased with the flavor as I was:
Here are Maddox and Trey checking out the map to the top.
I didn't go up Camel's Hump last year with Trey and Ellis so I didn't realize how much Ellis loves hiking. He runs most of the way up and must always be in front. Trey said "oh, yes, he's always curious to see what's going to be around the next bend." Ellis, unfortunately, latched onto this phrase and repeated it about 37 times during the 40 minutes it took us to reach the top. A photo op near a giant boulder:
Here's a quick stop to check out a ridiculously large millipede (though not so large you can see it in the picture):
The top...hooray! It was a lovely view of the Adirondacks and Lake Champlain, considering the minimal investment of time.
No pictures of our descent, as it was my turn to carry Maddox :(
The upper bed has more peas, beans, edamame, a couple tomato and pepper plants, more lettuce and radishes, and some chard. Due to space limitations, I was planning to plant only pole beans, but we ended up with a little extra room so we also planted some bush bean seeds that Lucy sent to Ellis. However, they're growing very tall and showing no signs of stopping, so I suspect they were some sort of elaborate practical joke on Lucy's part. If they take over the pea fence, though, she'll have to answer to answer to Ellis. In this photo, you can also see Ellis headed out to pick black raspberries from the edge of our forest. I asked him to run inside and get a bowl. I guess he was hoping for a big harvest, since he chose a bowl larger than his head. We picked about two dozen, of which zero made it back inside the house.
