Squirrel Gymnastics

Labor Day

Labor day was a vacation for both of us, for the first time in several weeks! We decided to go find a small open space park where we could hike around. On Memorial Day we had tried to go hiking, with the Cichan's, at a close in park and there was no parking. We were happy to find Pine Valley Ranch Open Space had parking even in the first parking lot when we arrived. We took advantage of the beautiful day to show off the baby belly--I really do look pregnant now!

I also braved an uphill hiking trail for about a mile and a half--I still seem to have a lot of energy--though we did stop in each shady spot for a little rest!

No, we didn't mean to dress alike--we just both have several pairs of blue athletic shorts (and they still fit me this week)

Pickles!

Our garden has been producing lots and lots of cucumbers and sometimes I am able to pick them before they become slicing size. I've been storing them in the bottom of the fridge for about a week (until the basket was full) and yesterday we made pickles for the first time!

First chop them up. Then they sit in the fridge under ice for a few hours while I get the canner going and boil the "brine." We just used a premixed packet of seasonings.

Here is the 25 week baby belly hot packing the first pickles in their jar. Thanks to Amy for bringing over her jar lifter and magnetic lid lifter.

Here are the first seven jars cooling while the last two take their boiling water bath. We'll be very interested to find out how they turn out!

Cucumbers, cucumbers

As I mentioned before, we have a lot of cucumbers. Luckily today I am going to training and I think there will be people there who would appreciate a fresh-from-the-garden cucumber or two! The garden is one of my favorite things about getting up at 6 am to eat breakfast. If I wake up and roll over about this time, Baby decides that she is very hungry and kicks me until I get out of bed to feed her. Then I am awake, so I go and check on my other growing baby, the garden. I was pretty surprise by the number of green beans this morning because I hadn't been noticing them. Then again, there were three ripe cucumbers I missed yesterday. I cut back the very leggy tomato plants earlier this week and today three of them have tomatoes that are beginning to ripen.

Webinar He**

I've been sitting at my computer for almost 5 hours, watching/listening to webinars. After about 3.5, I lost a lot of patience and began to play with the self timer on my camera. This is 23 weeks plus a few days--just over 5 months--isn't this baby cute??!!

The Garden Close-Ups

Our sunflowers survived a hailstorm a few weeks ago, as evidenced by their pock-marked leaves. I think they protected some of the other plants as well. They are just beginning to bloom this week and are well over 8 feet tall!

We have many, many green tomatoes of several different varieties and have been getting one or two ripe cherry tomatoes every few days. Hopefully in a few days the plants will be inundating us with the little treats!

One of many cucumbers growing all over the garden. There is a whole row along the fence and I have been trying to encourage the plants to trail over the fence. Hopefully the bunnies won't discover the cucumbers hanging just in their reach! Since the arrival of gophers, I have been finding the bunnies almost cute and friendly (well, and since Betty fenced the garden and they haven't found a way back in!)

One of two tiny pumpkins just starting out!

The Garden

As we've* worked and worked on our yard this summer, its sometimes hard to remember how it looked "before", so we are at least trying to document a little more of the "after." By we, I mostly mean Betty, who spends hours weedwhacking, cutting, burning, raking and just generally toiling away on her limited days off! I spend most of my time in the garden searching for rodents! It all seems to be doing well, now, and I haven't seen a new gopher hole in two weeks.

Here is one of several cucumber patches in our garden! They seem to be doing quite well--we're already giving cucumbers away in the way that many folks give zucchini away at this time of year!

The green beans are also doing well as plants, but aren't producing many beans--this might be due to the mouse that lives under the yellow squash plant.

These pumpkins grew from seeds that my class and I saved last fall and planted many, many times this spring. After blossoming for several weeks, we are just beginning to see tiny little pumpkins!