Gardening Pleasures

The last two weeks have found us doing some serious weeding in the garden. The result is that the garden is looking great! I'll have to post some pictures of it soon as it is really pretty! These are the salads we ate a couple of nights ago. The is butter lettuce, spinach, red and green leaf lettuce, fresh dill and a little scallion. We topped this with calamata olives, feta, and a yummy tahini dressing.

I've also been drying some of my pineapple mint for winter tea. It sure makes the house smell nice! I have a large batch of dill weed sitting in the oven. It has dried with just the pilot light. Now I need to crush it and get it into jars.

Here's a little shot of the butter lettuce patch.

And....my favorite! Mr. Blueberry Eyes found this toad and had a boatload of fun with it!

Happy Gardening! - Nanette

Biking the Hiawatha

Events are happening so fast in our lives this summer that I can hardly pack and unpack for them, let alone blog about them. But, I have been taking pictures and I thought I'd stay up a few minutes tonight and put some of them on for you to look at. The Wood Artist and I celebrated our 14th anniversary recently and celebrated by doing some exploring in Northern Idaho. We went to museums and antique shops in Wallace and had fun biking the local trails.

These pictures are from the Hiawatha Trail. What a beautiful, fun ride! It started with a 1.7 mile tunnel where we had to use headlamps. It was so cold in the tunnel! The rest of the day, however, was pretty warm.

My headlamp wasn't very new and bright, so I had a little difficulty seeing, but eventually, I did make it.

We stopped partway down and had a haystack picnic!

At the bottom, we met a bus that took us back to the top. Here's a picture of the bikes hanging in the bus. The trip was a total of 17 miles. It was made on the famous, old train track called the Route of the Hiawatha, so the trail was gradual and an easy down hill. It went over tressles and through a number of tunnels. So there is one of our latest adventures. - Nanette

Tired

This picture sums up what we're feeling right now. Exaustion! I haven't been on my blog for so long and I miss it! I should be able to be more failthful at it now that most of our summer travels are over.

I took this picture of the kids today as we were driving home from our latest adventure. The children both spent the week away from us. Mr. Blueberry Eyes stayed with his grandparents for the entire week while Laughing Water went to summer camp for the first time. They both had a fabulous time!

The Wood Artist and I spent time working on more curriculum writing for our online tutoring service and then celebrated our 14th anniversary by spending the weekend at a historical town a few hours from us.

I'll write more, but for now, I'm just checking in.

Nanette

Oh, Summer, Where Art Thou?

This is a picture of one of my life's great memories. My 80 year old grandmother came from North Dakota for my brother's wedding. After the festivities, she, and the other relatives stayed an extra day - a rare thing for them. They wanted to go to our local nature reserve and see the sights. We took them hiking to one of our favorite lakes, a five mile trek on a rather uneven trail.

We stopped at my favorite, upturned tree for the photo above. Grandma hiked with the best of us, charging up the trails and stopping only to check on those who had fallen behind.

What an amazing legacy she's given us. She re-inspired me to stay strong and healthy so I can continue enjoying life! Thanks, Grandma, for showing your daughters, granddaughters, and great-granddaughters the way! I want to be just as strong as you are when I'm 80!

In other news, summer is being a naughty child who doesn't come when called. We spent Independence Day gathered around a campfire, wishing for hot chocolate rather than the coolers of water and pop that were there. Lastnight, I was working late in my office and had to start a fire in the woodstove to keep warm.

My garden is less than thrilled. The zucchinis are not much bigger than the last picture I showed you. Inside the hoop house, however, things are going much better. The kiddos picked three trash sacks full of kale for me on Sunday. I made a banana/strawberry/kale smoothie for my lunch today. I also put flax oil in it. Yummy!

Today, I did get out to weed the beans and put twine on the green bean tipi. I might try to get out there again tonight.

Yesterday, I visited a new doctor who seems to know an amazing amount of balancing ones' hormones. I'm so excited to have met her. Hopefully things will go well with her natural prescriptions.

Just checking in, Nanette

Wedding Whirlwind

Last Sabbath was the long anticipated wedding of my Brother MP and his bride. I don't have time to blog much today, but I thought I'd post a few pictures of the festivities.