Rodeo, First T-ball practice, and Harvesting Wheat

 Last Friday was the rodeo.  It was cold and had been raining.  I didn't feel inspired to take many photos.  Especially when we couldn't even wear our new cowboy gear because it was too cold.  Oh well!  We still had a good non documented time.

 The Budweiser Clydesdales showed up.  They are very impressive.

 Here they are showing the docking move.  The horses swing in an 180 arch.

 And they end up going the way they came from and the wagon has turned in position to be docked at the place they need to unload.  Very cool.  I've never seen anything like it.

Sunday night was Matthew's very first T-ball practice.  We only waited a month and half to get started.

It went very well.

 I just didn't feel like hanging out at the fence, so I didn't get good photos.  But since Phil is missing his son's first game tomorrow night, I will have to step it up a notch.  I've already been informed.

 Last night we got to ride in the combine, while they harvested wheat.  It was awesome.  For those of you who have never been in a combine, this is what the wheat being cut by the header looks like.

 Here is the wheat being collected in the bin.

 Matthew was in heaven.  Mayflies collected on the windows.  So he tried to shoo them off from the inside.

 Yeah, he has a little farmer in him.  He only comes from a bloodline of farmers at least 6 generations back.

How August has been going!

I absolutely can't believe that today is the 17th of August. This has been the craziest month of the summer, I swear. I guess the place to start is with the first of August. It was our first day home from TX. We thought it was going to be a pretty normal month. We started doing more sorting in anticipation of school starting soon. Friday we woke up and Dad didn't feel good again. All the symptoms he had, smacked of the blood infection he had in early June. So we got him a early afternoon dr. appointment. By 2pm he was in the hospital awaiting gallbladder surgery and possibly appendix surgery. Sunday, he had surgery the old fashion way, because the gallbladder was just that bad, with around 8 big gallstones. The surgeon said in 30 years he'd only seen 5 that bad. If Dad wasn't so tough it would have come out several years ago. He got released the next Friday, which was last Friday.

*photo by Mom

Around the last night Dad was in the hospital, Matthew has alot of fun in the hospital bed. *photo by Mom

The day after Dad's surgery, Matthew and I had doctors appointments. Matthew got his kindergarten shots. Tuesday, my Grandmom went in for x-rays to see what the mass in her breast was. It turned out to be where her bones healed a little out, from where she broke her collarbone around 22 years ago. Thank goodness!

Last Thurday, I interviewed for a job at the elementary school. Several hours later, I was offered an assistant position with the afterschool program. I accepted. This will be my 3rd year at afterschool, first at this particular school.

Saturday, Auntie brought Matthew's big boy bed and we were finally able to use his new bedding. He loves it! Finally he's sleeping through the night in his own bed!

This week Matthew and I ran into town, to run errands. The sun was shining at our house. We went 2 tenths of a mile, went around the corner and it was threateningly dark! We've been loving the showers we've been getting.

One night I was in the kitchen and heard the funniest sound on the back window. I discovered the hugest moth I've ever seen, beating the window with it's wings, as well as the poor tree frogs. They looked like they wished the moth would leave. If you've ever seen a swallowtail butterfly, this moth was just as big as one of them. The only bigger moth I've seen is a luna.

Yesterday I took Dad back to the surgeon, to have half of his staples taken out. Friday he'll go back and get the rest out. We are so glad that he is recovering well. We believe the gallbladder caused all the problems in June. So hopefully he'll have a long time of good health now.

Today I got a call from the principal that hired me. She just got clearance to hire a teacher's aide for the 2 second grade classes, which are extra large this year. I got offered the position! I said I'd love to take it, if I could find a daycare/preschool placement for Matthew. I had been told basically all the daycares in town were full. And both I called were, but revised their positions. In an hour, I was able to get Matthew the very last preschool slot at the daycare in town. He starts Monday and can't wait. I start afterschool tomorrow and will start the aide position Monday. The neatest part is I will get to work with my Mom 2 1/2 hrs a day since she is one of the 2nd grade teachers!

kinderGARDEN Thursday: week 13

WARNING! The following photos aren't for the faint of heart gardeners.

I'd also like to announce that we are late again, because we just got back from TX. I was going blog from down there, but I left the camera AT HOME!

This photo isn't bad, just some noodle beans that haven't been munched curling. The scary part is that all the green beans are gone and half of the noodle bean vines have been munched through at the ground and then left alone. If you are going to kill the plant, at least eat it!!!

This was the one bright spot, finally a baby female zucchini, but something went wrong with it while we were gone. Hopefully it's just the start, not the lone female blossom, like last year's pumpkin experiment.

It's so dry and so hot (most days over 100 which is extremely hot for here) that I am working overtime to try and keep everything going. Being gone only increased the problem, although Dad did keep most of the garden watered. Thanks Dad!

Isn't this sad? Only green grass is around the garden. Even the garden looks half dead.

Bright spot when we arrived home, Matthew's sunflowers are blooming!

Matthew was so thrilled he dragged Mamaw out to see.

My favorite spot in the garden, Matthew's space, looks pathetic. Last week it was full of blooms and clover and masses of carrots.

The last horror of the week, Matthew's tomato pushed it's self over, even with cage. But it has so tomatoes and they are starting to turn red. Hopefully the flavor is good.

I found a hornworm on one of the volunteer tomatoes and was very happy to find parasitic wasp larvae on it. I moved it and let nature do it's thing. The rabbits have not been stopped by the repellant I resorted to. For that matter, neither were the shrews that are digging up and eating our daffodil and grape hyacinth bulbs. I'm sooo discouraged about it all, that I'm seriously considering just not going out anymore and giving up. It's time to plant fall/winter crops, but with all the rabbit problems I say, why bother? But I bet tomorrow I'll be up watering anyway and planning where to place stuff. Here's hoping everyone else is having a more full-filling gardening week.

kinderGARDEN Thursday: week 12

Welcome to our garden on THURSDAY for a change. It's nice to chat on the right day and stuff has been happening around here.

Matthew saying, "Cheese."

Miracle of miracles, Matthew became interested in watering again.

I'd been so proud that in 100+ weather I was able to nurse my lettuce along and had high hopes of being able to pick a fresh tomato and harvest the lettuce finally. Those dreams are dead. Thank you rabbits, hope you feel better.

Matthew behind his tomato plant. I wish the tomatoes would hurry up and ripen. The leaves are curling, which I'm afraid is bad news.

Finally, a welcome visitor to our garden!!!

Nope, no blood has been shed here yet....for now it's just tabasico sauce. Hopefully it encourages the rabbits to not eat our beans. The blooming parts of the green beans have been pretty much munched off.

Except for a plant or 2, all the purple green beans have been mowed to the ground. And 3 of my noodle beans vine was munched through so now their vine is in a glass of water in hopes they can mature and be eaten.

And the best growing tomato volunteer has been heavily munched by a horned tomato worm. It was his misfortunate day to also take a nap on it.

Thankfully the red noodle beans are really blooming. If their vine doesn't get munched, we might have some beans. I picked these 2 and will eating them tomorrow. Yum!

What we've been doing for the last month (cause it hasn't been blogging)

Well, I'll tell you, we watched them harvest the wheat.

I've been running after beautiful butterflies trying to get the right shot.

We found the most precious, perfect blue egg. It lasted 3 days till Matthew grasp it too hard.

Taking photos of beautiful flowers.

Working on clearing out clutter and making Matthew's room, Matthew's.

Finally this month, I've started making the rounds to see friends. I've visited 3 cities and hung out with 7 of them now. This particular friend I haven't seen in over 7 years and by chance he was going in, as I was going out. I had to stop and take a photo, cause it's not everyday that some takes you out on the lake and whips you off a tube so hard that when you land you think you must have broken something. But that's another story.

One particular girl, I won't mention names, cough *ANGELA*, thought she could hide behind a shorter girl.

It's been a full month. One day I'll get the photos off my phone of Matthew and I's trip to see the Lego exhibit.

kinderGARDEN Thursday: week 11

It has been truly hot and miserable around here. Matthew hasn't had any interest in the garden, except to add more dirt that he's dug out of the dog wallow.

Which has really made our participation a sham in this contest, but that's how it goes with high temps and 4 year olds.

I believe all the radish infestation is aphids, not that I've ever had them before. But it was truly gross. Many plants (10 at least) have said adiou and been burned, along with single leaves. I think we have the situation under control. Some squash plants have more light and I have seen good bugs like ladybug larve and ladybugs and assassin bugs tooling around, so things seem to be going along alright, for now.

The new variety of green bean is blooming prettily. The 1 plant of the old variety has given us some green beans. We might have enough to have a couple beans each now.

Boy, the garden really looks small with me in it. *photo by Matthew

Here he is doing the only other thing he likes to do in the garden right now, get wet.



We have yard long noodle beans growing. I should measure their growth, cause it's fast too.

Here's our macro shot. I can't wait for the 20+ tomatoes to mature.

We are getting sunflower heads growing. I'd say the sunflowers are around 6'5" tall. But that's a guess at this point.

Although aphids seem to love these plants, I love them too for their beauty and the fact that every time I find a squash bug, they are camping out on the radishes. Different plants have different bloom colors, white to dark purple.

I'm in love with the noodle beans blooms too.

I'm officially throwing up my hands with the strawberry seeds. I've gotten them all to sprout and grow and then try to burn up in the sun and heat and now I have a tree frog wallow in the pot. Obviously this isn't my year for strawberries!

To see what other families are doing in the garden go here.
To see our post from last week, that we didn't get linked in time, go here. It talks about the beginning of the aphid saga.