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We went camping last Friday-Saturday at Soft Maple and returned on Saturday evening.  There are several attractions at Soft Maple.  One is the large sand hill which the boys climb,

and then roll down.

Needless to say the end result is a lot of accumulated sand on the participants which then requires cleaning.  There is a small beach and swim area that the boys enjoyed.

There are also several short hikes to nearby waterfalls which offered opportunities to climb around on the rocks (and throw sticks and rocks into the stream).

Later that night we cooked hot dogs and salmon patties over the fire.  Here Eric and Trevor share a chair by the fire.

And later at night the boys roasted (burnt) marshmallows for a good sugar fix before bedtime.

Everything went well except that Trevor fell out of the camper during the night and Kathryn had a conniption.  She went to check on the boys and he wasn’t in the bed.  We did a search and found him sitting on the ground outside half asleep! He had squirmed between the bed and the canvas side of the pop-up and ended up on the ground.  Funny now, but we were in full panic mode for a few minutes.

As we were packing up to leave on Saturday night Trevor reached into the fire place to pick up a stone and burned his thumb and fingers badly.  He cried like a banshee until he fell asleep on the ride home. Like I said - it went well…..

Our garden is doing nicely this year.  I attribute it to couple of factors:

• Over the past 4 years I have focused on the garden, adding peat moss, leaves, and horse manure to the soil to loosen it up.
• This year I actually used restraint in planting peas and beans and staggered my plantings to enable harvesting over a longer season.
• We have had timely thunderstorms giving water at needed times.  This plus the abundance of horse manure compost have kept enough moisture for the plants.
• I got a some volunteer plants from last year’s crops, namely pumpkins and cucumbers, that I didn’t plant this year but were desired by the family.

Let’s take a look. Starting on the far right is a row of 10 rhubarb plants leading into a row of asparagus which has gone to seed forming big green bushes.  In the foreground are about 10 tomato plants.  On the far left you can see the edge of a volunteer pumpkin.  In the center back are carrots, beans and peas.  In the far back is what’s left of a pickup truck load of horse manure which I have been using to compost between rows as they emerge.

This is pretty much the same scene from the other side with a row of carrots,  1/2 row of yellow wax beans and 1/2 row of spinach in the foreground; a row of late peas, and the tomatoes and pumpkin in the background.

I haven’t grown carrots before because  they are so cheap to buy, but Eric wanted carrots and they are doing quite well.  You can see there is a lot of horse manure between the rows.

The tomatoes are starting to show on the plants.

This picture shows our volunteer sunflower standing at the end of what used to be a row of peas.  I planted three rows of peas in early April and we have been eating peas for about a month now.  Eric and I would eat them out of the garden and throw the empty pods to the dogs, who relished them.  The dogs made the short leap from being fed empty pods to picking pea pods themselves.  Unfortunately when they picked the pods they usually yanked the whole plant out as well.  Within a week they had destroyed the outside row of peas!  So I replanted the row and I am hoping to get some early September peas.

My pea trellis consists of hog panel fence.  It worked well for the shorter peas, but as you can see I have a row of peas that required 8′ poles.  These peas had extremely long vines and folded over the top of the trellis.

Take a quick walk with me and see some plants we have been monitoring this year.  Our pear trees look promising.  We have three trees and I plan on planting a couple more.  I gave up on apple trees because they required spraying, but the pear trees are low maintenance.

A couple years ago we had a bumper crop of concord grapes.  The grapes need to be moved because the trees around them have grown so much they are shading the grapes, but that is a project for this fall.  For now they are doing what they are supposed to - making grapes.  The concord grapes come out late (to avoid frost) and mature late (I picked our bumper crop the last weekend in October).

For my birthday this year Mom gave me a gift certificate to Miller Nurseries which I used to purchase some new grape vines - table or eating grapes this time.  They got planted out in the full sunshine and are awaiting a trellis to climb - another project.

Kathryn planted three different types of clematis next to the deck.  The tallest one scales the lattice to the top and has deep purple blossoms.

The lower clematis are along the stairway up to the deck and are showing pink and red flowers.

My bee balm has come from a variety of sources including my mom, my aunt Marie and The Garden Factory.  It is just starting to blossom and is attracting hummingbirds.

We have a 13 acre pasture that previously was kept chewed down by horses, but now requires regular mowing - 2 or 3 times a year, depending upon how much I want to mow.  This year I delayed my mowing until early July to give the nesting birds a chance.

For a couple of weeks we had been seeing a doe in early morning and evening come to the tall grass just below the pond below our house.  I was pretty certain she had a fawn hidden there.  I had not seen the doe for the past week and now I know why - she had moved her fawn into our pasture.

I had mowed about 6 of the acres and Sunday I was prepared to finish the mowing.  I took one swipe along the exposed edge and saw a small fawn run deeper into the grass.  So I avoided mowing that area any further and went to the opposite corner of the pasture where momma deer heard the approaching tractor, popped up her head and took off for the neighboring pasture.

I mowed all but the section I thought the fawn occupied and then recruited searching help.  Eric, Kathryn and I searched all through the remaining tall grass in hopes we could ‘herd’ the fawn towards the neighboring pasture.

No luck, so I carefully mowed the remaining swatch and decided it was a mystery.

Upon leaving the pasture I drove by this thin line of tall grass which filled a swale I deemed too wet to mow.  Out popped the fawn who ran back to the area where I first spotted him/her.  The fawn sniffed around trying to find it’s previous hiding place.  As I left the field the fawn returned to the swale and laid down to await further instructions from momma deer later that evening.

Arlene and Bob held a July 4th party / Karen’s sixtieth birthday party.  We had good food, good company and a good time. The back porch served as a pre-meal staging area.

The youngsters found appropriate attire and were busy through out the night ensuring our defense.

The multi tattoo-ed Martha absconded Karen’s birthday hat.

More folks gathering around the grill.

Linda looks on disbelievingly at Robert’s story.

Mom & Marie share good food and conversation.

Bob was also taking pictures everywhere.

Robert, Karen, Jim, Barbara and Jeanne.