Random...

Roasted Tomatillos, onions and peppers for salsa...YUMMY!

The neighbors cat, who likes my garden.

This is what my neighbor saw, when he came by and said that we needed a garden tractor. I smiled and pointed to my boys and said that I wasn't just raising vegetables, I was raising boys.

I finally got a picture of the okra blossom. Isn't it lovely?

8 quarts of bread and butter pickles.

Sunset

I was hoping to get a picture of the fireball that  was rising over the church but as I walked closer, it took me to lower ground and hid the sun behind the church. Instead I got a picture of a neighbor walking her dog. Its interesting to me to see who else is about when I manage to drag myself up early enough to see the sunrise

My beautiful niece Kara, graduating from Paul Mitchel beauty school. Anyone could comment and so I said, "many of us say,  'When I grow up.....',  well, when I stop being grown up and boring I want to be just like Kara. She is brave and daring and fun and I hope she never changes."

Birthday Girl

The day before my birthday, I had to go out of town. Chance called me later in the day and asked what I wanted for my birthday. I told him I wanted him to clean his room. He just laughed. But then he said that he had my cake taken care of. SWEET! I love it when my boys show initiative and do something nice for me. It was our family favorite ice cream cake with a twist...covered in "Mother's Iced Circus Animal Cookies", which are my favorite. (Which is unexplainable because they don't contain chocolate.) He also had candles on it that spell out "cool mom". That isn't necessarily how he feels about me, we just already had candles that said "Congratulations" and he wanted to figure out something else, since you don't particularly want to tell your mom congrats about turning 47! Hee Hee!

August Garden

Garden of E   ~  2012

Just now starting to get overwhelmed with produce. This year I planted Okra (new), 2 rows of cucumbers, tomatoes, magic beans, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, brussel sprouts, eggplant, tomatillos (new), 3 kinds of melons, basil, cilantro, green beans, purple beans (new), celery, several kinds of peppers, marigolds, onions (new), beets, gold, red, and russet potatoes, corn, asparagus (new), parsley, and alfalfa. It is lovely. I only wish I could plant it and care for it, then get someone to pick and process all that produce. That is not my favorite part. But the eating is good!

Beets and Onions

Banana Peppers

Potatoes

I love red marigolds

My pitiful sunflower

Asparagus and Parsley

5 rows of Alfalfa so far. I will till it in in the fall and plant in the rows next year.

4 rows of sweet corn.

These are melons growing on the same vine...go figure.

Basil....mmmmm....pesto anyone?

Next time I plant something new, I will do a little more research. These are the HUGE tomatillos that I grew this year. My rows are 5 feet apart and I have to keep trimming the plants on both sides because they are growing  into the neighboring rows.

Cool tomato plant hedge

Feed me Seymour!

Beautiful Broccoli

Pretty Purple Beans

Magic Beans

Okra. I will have to get a picture of the blossom. It is beautiful!

Loaded with Honey Crisp apples.

The fruit trees are doing much better this year.

Annual River Trip 2012

My brother-in-law was a river guide in his youth and it is something that he loves. So he plans a Snake River trip up in Alpine, Wyoming for our family and his family every summer. I wasn't planning on going on the river trip this year. Dallin was going to be gone to Boy Scout camp, my checkbook was still recovering from our DL trip, I really am not that fond of camping and I do not like river rafting. (I don't like being cold and wet and sitting on the raft for 2 hours hurts my butt.) But Chance informed me that if we didn't go, come hook or crook, he was going without us. So, I realized that this time next year, he will most likely be on his mission and then the following year, his cousin Miles will be going on his mission and so this was the last year they could be on this trip together for many years. So we went and it was pretty relaxing. I got to spend a few hours with my great-nephew William and he is a sweetheart! We told entertaining family stories around the campfire. My friend Sandy, who lives not too far away, brought her daughter to raft with Chance. It was nice catching up with her. My birthday was during the trip and so Melodee and Jeff made me dutch oven cobbler. YUM! She was going to put candles on it but I'm glad that she forgot. We could have started a forest fire! 

Family, fun and food. What is better than that? 

Always good to be home though.

Ready for an adventure!

Too much fun...

Deni and her niece, Zoe.

Darling William and his beautiful mommy, Leah.

My blonde boys

Chance and Caitlin daring the rapids in a kayak.

James and Joclynn

My awesome sister, Melodee.