Today was the last hurrah before school starts. I took the day off and schlepped my son up to Leif Erickson park, and rose garden. The rose garden took my breath away. It is SO pretty there. My son and I looked around the rose garden and my son went "Wow, mom, you need to step up your game." To which I replied "You need to buy me more roses."
It was a first time visit to the park. No viking ship though. It's still in restoration. I would have taken photos, and I'm kicking myself for not bringing my digital camera, but I'm so used to taking photos with my phone, and my son was using my photo for Pokemon hunting. We got to the park before the rush of Pokemon hunters and we walked all over the place. Once the park started getting busy we sat for a short while and I people watched for a bit. It was interesting, to say the least. It rained this morning so the setting wasn't ideal for a picnic.
Going back on the summer a bit:
Once the nice weather hit my area we went out and about nearly every chance we get. We've done a lot of fishing.
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| Taken this weekend. Love those early mornings. |
We checked out one of our old haunts out this weekend.
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| Also taken this weekend. Just me, being silly |
The fishing is slowing down now. We haven't been doing a lot of watersports this year. I noticed that it seems to be not only us slowing down on the water sports. I'm wondering if it has something to do with the weather, or what. When we go out on to our favorite lake we don't see people doing much more than fishing, or cruising on a pontoon.
We did some home improvement projects. The end of June/early July I decided I would like to stain the deck. A certain someone was happy to help me. I even got a power washer. Those things are awesome to use. And I've wondered how I went this long without one.
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| My beautiful deck |
And to keep my deck beautiful, and free of chicken poo, my husband build me a little gate.
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| A gate to keep the chickens from pooing on my deck. |
Some landscaping around the house was done, too. This makes me very happy, as well.
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| This is a small portion of what we did. |
I won't bore you with pics from all around the house. This is the jist of what it all looks like, except by the deck, where I have my rose bushes and fountain. That area is a little more unique.
The garden grew like crazy when I wasn't looking. Ooops. I spent some quality time in there and it's looking much better. A few things have already started producing. The cucumbers, the green beans, some tomatoes (they aren't doing as hot this year), and I even have a winter squash growing and looking all pretty. I figure I've got at least 4 more weeks of garden weather.
I can't wait to make some dill pickles.
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| My messy garden |
The chickens have been enjoying this nice weather and consider it their absolute right to be outside as soon as chickenly possible. They've also been kicking out a massive amount of eggs this summer.
This little girl loves hanging by her humans. She's extremely chatty this year. My son named her WeepingBell.
Heading over to the water cooler.
This girl was wondering what I was up to.
We call this one Mrs. GoogleEye. She always has a surprised look on her face.
I told them to "act natural."
Grandma P still doesn't have time for shenanigans.
Trey, our Roo, strutting his stuff.
Some of the girls trying to get at the turkeys food. The turkeys are very messy.
The turkeys grew from these adorable babies to big birds, who are now on the cusp of turning into the heavy weight champs they are meant to be.
A little video from this afternoon. The one turkey displays almost non stop now.
The Brahma babies are doing fine. They are sassy little babies.
I just love those feathers on their feet. We decided they remind us of the Dallas cheerleaders, from back when they had the white boots with fringe.
They are still too little to be with the bigger ladies. We may keep them separate through the winter. Hard to say. Brahmas are slower growing chickens, and they take a while longer before they start laying eggs. They are adorable, regardless.
I'm in awe that it is the end of August already. I'm also a bit disappointed with myself that I didn't write more. Without realizing it, I took the summer off from writing.
School starts this week. My son is going to be a middle-schooler. How did that happen? We will be adjusting to some changes to the schedule, and the various changes that come with him being in the middle school now.
I'm still crafting. I've been working on the same two projects all summer. They are both done. I'll write more in a later post.
I have neglected my poor spinning wheel. I looked over at it this weekend and realized there was dust and webs on it, from disuse. So I gave it a nice little spa and cleaned it up. I feel bad. It's so much easier to start and stop spinning, when needed. I've got a spinning project going and I'm concerned my spinning might not be to the same gauge as the yarn already spun. Also, I think I stored away the yarn I was spinning. I will need to dig it out so I can try and match the weight.
There is a small quilt I finally wrapped up during the Olympics. I've been sitting on it for nearly two years. Once I got all the pieces together, made the quilt sandwich, hand quilted, and put the binding on, it took far less time than I expected to finish it. Oh, I can't believe I waited so long. I showed it to a few people and they were suitably impressed. One gal, who is a quilter, told me my points were very good for a beginner. It is about the size of a baby quilt.
I've also done a wee bit of reading. Way back in January, I think, I started reading "Sense and Sensibility." For various reasons, I set the book down and pursued other books and whatnot. I came back to it this past month and Oh-my-gosh, I do NOT care for it. Even with cliff notes and spark notes I was struggling with it. I feel like I went through a ten-step program, trying to decide why I didn't like this book. I finally decided that I felt complete disconnect from the main characters. They were so up in other people's business, who made how much money, and the desire to find a man to support them. Ugh. SO not my scene. I finally completed the book a week ago, or so. Now, when people discuss Jane Austen I have an informed opinion and say that she is not for me. Yes, I understand that her writing is a commentary on the time she lived in. I am so glad I do not live in that time. I highly doubt I will read any more of her writings. I *do* have the BBC version of "Sense and Sensibility" on DVD and will watch it sometimes this winter. My coworker said I might understand it better after watching the movie. I don't think it will change my opinion on the story though.
Well, I reckon that's all my blather for now.
