Blasting through July

I can't believe it is already past the mid point of July! At least it is finally starting to feeling like Summer around here! On a very hot late June weekend we went out on Lake Merwin for the maiden voyage of Jade's party boat dubbed the strawberry el-De barge. It is a floating deck and a wonderful addition to the fleet. We tootled around the lake which was very high and had a mass of drift wood floating around in it. The barge pushed right through paving the way for other boats. The snow was still melting off the volcano so the water was VERY cold but by the sweltering afternoon we were all ready to get at least our feet wet. I pulled on my wet suit and eased myself into the water. Yeah, that is amazing, I was in before Russ and after drying off and baking in the sun, got in for another dip. It was a hot day!!

The garden is growing away! I have hopes of red tomatoes.. there are lots of promising green ones appearing from yellow blooms and I also have yellow squash and a few peppers that are almost ready. The cantaloupe is looking pretty good too.



Strawberry season is over, all the road side strawberry stands are closed and getting ready for raspberries and blue berries. I got a flat of the tasty strawberries from a local grower to freeze as I am the only one who enjoys strawberries in the house. I made several tasty strawberry milkshakes with some of the fresh ones too. I picked up some rhubarb from another local road side stand (my rhubarb is looking a little pathetic right now) so I decided to make a strawberry-rhubarb pie. I was quite impressed how it came out. Yum!

Russ and I have been going on low key local adventures, we take short bike rides, went miniature golfing, and pretty much just hanging out the last few weeks. He is staying pretty busy with a deck construction project too. Other than that, there really hasn't been too much going on. I took Warren to a horse show yesterday, which was a long day but a pretty fun time (I write about my horse stuff on another site: http://members.horsecity.com/warrenpeace/ )

I need to figure out how to keep the hens in their coop during the day. They start out there in the morning and somehow figure out how to get free and are running all over the yard in the afternoon. It wouldn't be that big a deal except they have taken to laying their eggs around the yard. I found one of their nets, but I think either the dogs have learned about it too or they have found a new hiding spot to lay them as we have not been getting any eggs the last few days.