Summer

I'm sitting here at my desk (about to start paying the monthly bills) and I can hear so many sounds coming in my open, shaded windows. I can look out and see the old rancher next door on his red tractor, making large circles in the field, making the first cutting of hay this season. The smell of freshly mown hay is drifting on the breeze, teasing me with remembrances of summers long past when I was a child and the neighbors would be cutting hay, and afterward we would haul load after load to our barn for winter feed for the horses. I remember the sweet grass smell, dry grass tickling my arms and legs and prickling too, hot summer sun and sweat, and billows of dust when each bale was thrown down from the truck to the pile.

As if that weren't enough distraction from my grown-up activities, I'm also hearing a riding lawn mower from my office window and smelling the freshly mown green grass. Charles is riding the dark green Craftsman mower, exercising dominion over the land by making the grass all uniformly short. I see him on his passes down and back around the open area across from our house, in the hot summer sun, watching the June beetles and bees buzzing and clicking their wings as they fly out of the way.

Isn't freshly mown grass the smell of summer? I was day dreaming a bit about that when I realized that though both smells are of freshly cut grass, they are distinctly different. The one makes me think of hot summers, where the land is beginning to dry up and iced peppermint tea in the shade is cooling and refreshing. The other makes me wish for summer, as if it weren't truly here yet. The green blades of grass, moist from the dew, have more of a promise of the heat yet to come.

Many other distractions pull at me: the rushing of the water in the creek, the birds twittering and calling to each other in my cherry trees, the whir of bike tread on asphalt as Nathanael goes whizzing down the road toward the river, the teasing breeze as it plays with the pages on my desk on it's way in the north and out the west window, and when both the tractor and the lawn mower are on the far side of the fields I can hear the rustle of the breeze in the burning bushes that flank my windows, and of course the dappled sunshine on the adirondack chairs set to over look the creek is teasing me to come out and play.

But, I need to grow up again, and after a sigh of remembrance and regret, go back to my responsibilities.

Yet... maybe I'll go play in the creek later with the boys!

Oops!

Well, I guess I forgot to say that we did return from our trip to Southern Oregon... two weeks ago! We had a great time with the family, went fishing, cut firewood, pulled weeds in the garden and built some patio furniture. Of course, the boys also found time to ride motorcycles, make new wooden guns and play some basketball.

While we were away, our garden kept right on growing, though we almost drowned it because it rained here instead of being sunny like it had been predicted, and we had set the automatic watering timer as if it would be hot and dry! Well, it's all growing fine and we're getting ready to plant the second wave of some of our crops. The flowers are doing well, also, and we're getting ready to plant 3 grapes. That will give me grape leaves for my pickling recipes this summer, and in time we'll have grapes to eat, juice and make into jelly!


our garden


our raised beds


the new grapes (Thompson Green Seedless, Concord Seedless, Suffolk Red)

Here are a few pictures from our trip south:


My nephew Sydney, Nathanael, step-brother Justin, and Mikael.


Nathanael, Mikael (with the snorkel) and Justin at Lost Creek Lake.


My dad, Syd, Nathanael, Mikael and Justin.


The view across Denman Pond to Table Rock at sunset.

And next time I'll share a little about why we're 'wide-row' gardening this year!

We're off!

We're off to Southern Oregon to visit family in about 5 hours. I should be sleeping, but there are always last minute things to get done, like planting more beans and beets because the first ones didn't germinate well, setting sprinklers on the flowers and the garden, programming the new hose-end water timers, adjusting sprinklers, more adjusting sprinklers, dishes, packing, making lists, paying bills, responding to emails, and now blogging, all starting around midnight! Whew... I'm tired just typing all that stuff!

Well... off to finish the bills and lists. See you in a week!

Ugh... It's allergy and cold season!

Well... other than the coughing, scratchy, sore throat, sneezing, stuffy head, running nose, itching, red eyes and the never ending "hack, hack, hack", we're doing just dandy! I think the boys started out as allergy driven colds, and I'm thinking that I just have allergies. Charles is the only one who seems well, which is good, since he's the one who has to go to work!

In spite of our sniffles and coughing, we've been out trying to get things planted in the rain. Last Saturday, May 2nd, as a family we attended the Clackamas County Master Gardner's Spring Fair! Despite the rain alternating between drizzling and pouring, and Nathanael developing a fever during the tour of all the vendors, we had a good time. Nathanael has recently developed a keen interest in bleeding hearts (Dicentra spectabilis)

and therefore, it was his mission for the day to spend some of his saved up allowance funds on a beautiful specimen for him to plant at home. Mikael, on the other hand, had not really bothered with flowers and didn't plan on spending his money on anything like that until I just had to detour into this one little booth that had Japanese iris of a different color than what I currently have, so I bought the iris ensenata "Gypsy Queen"

and while I was paying, Mikael noticed the picture on the tag of a Dianthus "Eastern Star". Though we didn't stop and buy it then, all throughout our browsing and lunch time, all Mikael could talk about was "his dianthus." So, when we went back through and purchased everything we needed for the garden, ("we" being Mikael and I, since Charles and Nathanael went to the Suburban to get sicky-kid-Nathanael out of the rain) we also had to stop so Mikael could buy "his dianthus"

which is still in the pot and not in the ground yet!

Among the other things we purchased were garden starts of tomatoes, cucumbers (eating and pickling), peppers (hot and mild), zucchini squash, yellow crook neck squash, basil, rosemary and sage. I also purchased a flat of marigolds to plant around the garden to entice the good bugs to come and eat the bad bugs! I still have to find rhubarb, raspberries and strawberries. Then, I have to plant all our other seeds, but that will come when the garden isn't a marsh!

ah... ahh... ahchoo!

Has it really been that long?

Well, since I finally checked my blog and realized that it's been a little over 3 weeks since I've written, I decided that I better tell you all that I'm still alive and that we're all doing fine!

In brief: We traveled back to Southern Oregon the Saturday night before Easter and stayed through Monday morning, arriving in back in Gresham in time for Mikael's practice at the batting cages. Between baseball practices and games, we're pretty swamped, and then add in Wednesday morning Bible Study, Theology class and church service on Sunday, Friday School (homeschool co-op) on Friday:) and then occasional entertaining and play dates. Oh, and I forgot to mention that we're trying to get a garden in, meaning that we tilled up the sod and are trying to amend the soil, plot it out and also build 2 large raised beds and one large planter (2'x 2'x 12'), and then of course, plant it. Oh... and we're doing a bit of work on the back porch - installing a post and beam system from which we'll hang our porch swing.

I think that pretty much covers what has kept me away from my blog for the past 3 weeks. So, now a positive update. For those of you who know about our situation, you would know that it's tenuous at best. The Sandy Hatchery had lost all funding beyond June 30, 2009 and would be shutting down and we would be moving again to who knows where, yet, we know that God is sovereign and He can and will do what He chooses. It's our job to get our will in line with His and rest in His care. I'm sorry to say that I wasn't resting nearly as well as I should, but God is faithful always, especially when I can't deserve it! Tuesday of this week we found out that our funding is back and we will not be moving!!!!

In case you don't know me well enough yet, I really don't like the whole "move" thing. It just throws my life into chaos, and despite having chaos in my life at frequent intervals, I despise it.

Anyway, looks like I'll be blogging from Sandy, Oregon for a while. What a relief for me! The boys both cheered, as well, when they heard the news. Now I can garden and landscape for the long-run. The boys can make friends without fearing they will lose them shortly, and we can all heave a collective (might I add, faithless) sigh of relief.

Well, Friday School is quickly approaching and I still need to get everything loaded up, so I'll go for now, but try not to take 3 weeks to post again:)