Enlarging My Borders

Well, it's that time of year again........time to build a new row.  And what do I do when I want to build a new row? Call Carolyn, of course!

She can swing a pick ax.........

She's strong enough to pull up Salmon Berry roots......

She's willing to chuck an endless supply of rocks into a trailer with a smile on her face........

AND, she can back up a trailer like nobody's business!!!!

GOOD JOB!!!!

I, on the other hand, drive in forward only!

The area we were working up had a lot of rocks in it. One rock in particular was quite large....

Maybe too big?

No way!!! The two of us worked and worked, and worked on it. We managed to dig out around it, roll it carefully down the hill, tip the trailer down by balancing the load and lifting the tongue up in the air, and rolled that baby into the trailer!

Have you hugged a giant, dirty rock today?

 Of course we had a big crowd of interested spectators the whole time........

We found lots of large earthworms during our excavations that they were delighted to eat.

And here is the finished product!

Next we moved all the tubs of potatoes into place......transplanted some leeks, and planted radish seeds...

We removed the row cover from the Pea tunnel and placed row cover over the new row....

And with the little bit of space we had left, we planted some of the Raspberries that had been displaced.

The plan is to continue to build more rows in the following years for the Raspberries. The "patch" method just hasn't been working for me, so I am really looking forward to having them organized in rows.

It feel so good to have that huge project done............thanks Carolyn!

Cleaning Up The Celery

The weather was so nice here for the past week....everyone and everything just soaked it up!  It's better than medicine. The rhubarb especially loves it and just gets bigger and bigger...

I never get tired of looking at the beautiful stalks and leaves.

Watering is quite a chore when the sun shines....our plants are used to copious amounts of rain, so they grow shallow roots and demand water every day!

I got alot of projects done outside during the nice weather.....one of them was cleaning up the celery patch. When celery is transplanted it goes through a bit of a shock. First the plant stops growing and some of the outside stems start to die....but then, the plant recovers and the center starts to grow again. Once the plant looks fully recovered I like to clean up the plant a bit by pruning off those dead  and sickly stems.

 Before

 After

 Before

After

There now, isn't that better?

Ada Gets The Eggs

The other day my little friend Ada happened to stop by with her dad, right when it was time to let the ducks out...so of course I gave her a basket and let her gather the eggs.....

I love being a part of educating kids about food....I like to think that they leave my place thinking differently about that egg and toast that they eat the next morning at breakfast....that eggs don't come from the store.

And it doesn't get much cuter than this..........

Even More Pompous And Circumstantial

Tonight was Levi's graduation!

And Mr. Adams and Ben and Emily were able to make it in for the ceremony!

 

 And Gramma and Grampa were here!

And a good time was had by all!

I wonder what the record is for the number of graduations occuring in a family in a single year?

Picking Up Apples

This morning before church I drug Dad to the beach with me to grab a few buckets of seashell sand and starfish.

And when I saw him bending over, picking up starfish, putting them into buckets, I came to a realization....I realized that he was picking up my "apples". That's right, he was picking up my "apples".

You see, when I was a kid growing up on my Dad's farm, one of our chores was to go out into the orchard and pick up all of the apples that had fallen to the ground and put them into buckets (the fallen apples were then fed to the hogs). This chore sounds simple and pleasant enough now, but at the time you think we'd been given a death sentence or something....we HATED to pick up apples! I remember one time I even feigned a stomach ache.... I just sat on the ground and leaned up against a tree while my brother picked up the apples only to miraculously recover as soon as he was done.  Why did it seem like such a horrible job back then? I would give almost anything now to be able to go out into my back yard and pick up a bucket of apples!!!!

I hope it wan't as bad for you Dad...........Thanks!

Your Mom!..........And Dad too!

Guess who came to visit!

And they brought fresh Oregon strawberries too!!!

And yes, they taste as good as they look......their neighbors grow them and pick them when they are ripe....

And someone is very happy about it.....

Salute!

Today we found out that Levi is going to be Co-Salutatorian of his graduating class!

Salute, Levi!

He worked hard during his high school career and really deserves it.  Only one B during all 4 years!!

He got it in World Geography.......
 

To celebrate, I took him out to dinner....at Ludvig's, of course!  Ludvig's Bistro is a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant that serves amazing Mediterranean cuisine.  Levi had the steak.....it was tender and amazing....

I had the lamb chops again......because they are so DELICIOUS!!!

And for dessert Levi had the chocolate torte with raspberry sauce......Beautiful.......

I'm so proud of you, Levi!!