Sometimes he gets it wrong

Isaac loves to use big words. I love to hear Isaac use his big words. This morning he told me he found his cereal a little threatening.

On the subject of cereal, it is so great you can now buy guaranteed gluten free General Mills Rice Chex in pretty much any store. This is Isaac's new special treat. He just loves it. I have no idea what he meant when he said he found it threatening. It was said with a big smile. I asked him two and half hours later what word he had used to describe his cereal this morning. He just gave me a big grin and said, "Threatening."

Isn't he cute?

I was getting Emmeline out of her seat and noticed this little guy in the zinnias and cosmos outside the kitchen window. Excuse the piece of cardboard. It's supposed to be over by the watermelon plant not too far to the right. He is so tiny and he was sitting right on the zinnia leaf underneath before I ran to grab my camera. He is leaning over in the pictures and grabbing the seed head of a cosmos. If you look you'll see the seed head isn't there in the first picture because he had to lean over pretty far to grab it. I guess cosmos seeds are yummy? I wish these pictures were better! It's taken through a grimy window and screen though.

I love having a large bed of flowers right under the kitchen window. It really draws a lot of birds. Later in the season we have hummingbirds. I love how they will hover in front of the windows looking in. None of the other birds seem as interested in us. But the hummingbirds always seem curious. Our regulars are a couple of families of cardinals. Not long before I took these pictures Emmeline and I were enjoying one of the male cardinals sitting atop a tomato stake in the garden.

For the Baltimore grandparents

This is that sweet dress y'all bought Emmeline. I love how she looks in it. It's such a nice simple old fashioned dress.

Old Easter Egg

David took one look at this and said, "It looks like we left that Easter egg out too long!"

Roses and Dill

I planted the dill around the rose because I thought they would look pretty together. Those are some daisies there in the center I started from seed this spring. They have been growing wonderfully. I can't wait to see them bloom next year.


We had a lot of zucchini to pick today. No surprise there, huh? I have 5 trays of sliced zucchini in the dehydrator right now to put aside for the winter. I watered the corn and the cantaloupe. I mulched one of the beds of corn while trying to avoid the giant wolf spider living in my pile of straw. *shudder* And I got a bed of black eyed peas planted and watered today. I am trying to keep up a steady pace of planting year round and putting up what I can. Tonight from the garden we are going to have glazed baby turnips and sorrel and amaranth greens with our dinner.

Spiders and Stuff

I was inspecting the corn today. The tassels are out. It won't be too terribly long till we have some corn. Isaac is so excited. He picked this corn out and considers it his. I noticed this one spot where a spider had encased this whole section, laid eggs and they have hatched. It's fascinating and disgusting all at the same time.


Can you spot the bug in this photo?


Here are some of our tomatilloes. We have green and purple. We have a pile of Jalapeno peppers in the house right now that the children picked a little over enthusiastically yesterday. In the herb garden I have a nice patch of cilantro. I just need the tomatilloes and tomatoes to finish ripening and we are set for Mexican food!


Here is how the potato bed is doing.


There are two bed of cantaloupe here in the center with three hills each. On the right is a bed of corn we planted later than the one on the left. You can't really see it but it's there.

Alpine Strawberries and Yugoslavian Red Lettuce

I have always wanted to grow these. I started a flat over a decade ago and missed watering them and lost them all. I bought some more seeds this spring and put them in the freezer to stratify. They were planted a couple of weeks ago. I now have 2 flats with a total of at least 100 seedlings. I am so excited. David is making fun of me over how frequently I bring up how excited I am about my alpine strawberry seedlings.

It's an awfully hot time of year to be planting these. But I just couldn't fit them in this spring. My light stand only holds so many flats and things like squash and tomatoes were of a higher priority. We started several hundreds plants inside. It's so much fun and always exciting when things germinate.

This week I am working on my list of what to buy now to plant this summer and fall for fall and winter crops. Isaac wanted to know what I was so excited about this morning and it was Yugoslavian Red Lettuce. I spotted this gorgeous lettuce late spring in The Cook's Garden catalog. I can't find it on their website now so I am assuming they sold out. I don't know that it will be a good fall lettuce so I might wait till spring but I'll admit I can't wait to grow it.