Glories of poop

So having an Aunt and Uncle who have a llama farm two hours away has come in handy for the garden. They provided us with some well-composted llama terds to add to our garden. We built one bed after having gotten the poop however, and so it never got any. The difference has been staggering! Look at these squash plants for example at the ends of each of these beds.

And here are some beets with poop...
and without they look pretty pitiful.
Look how far the lettuce garden has come!

Latest Developments

We left our card reader at Ann and Larry's and therefore haven't been able to download any pictures. Plus I've been busy chasing Makili around. He's getting better at walking every day. Yesterday we took him to the beach. He wanted to walk through the water forever. He was completely fascinated by the waves that kept coming and coming. We forced him to get out of the water against his will even though he was shivering. Poor kid was born in Hawaii after all. While sitting in the grass he learned to stand up on his own which he proceeded to practice over and over.

As for the garden, these picture were taken over a week ago and I swear a lot of things are twice the size now. The first pictures shows our new invisible deer fence. Seriously, you can barely see it, except when dew gathers on it. Maybe it works because the deer walk into it and that scares them? Unfortunately, the deer visited our gardens on the other side and munched one of my big tomato plants and gobbled up one of our heirloom tomatoes in its entirety. So another fence may be in the future. Right now I have the other deer deterrence system in place - lawn chairs, kids toys, and random junk. We'll see if that works. The next picture is of our magnificent cauliflower. Doesn't it look glorious? It really is twice as big now and I expect we'll be eating it before too long. And finally, my little sweet potato which is growing fast. It looks so cute and it is amazing to me how they grow. You let a sweet potato sprout and then snap off the sprout and stick it into the ground and it grows. No roots or anything. It just grows. I think that is amazing. We have planted quite a lot and we'll see how many sweet potatoes we end up with. In other news, the regular potatoes are UP (we were a little late sowing them) and peas are flowering!

Raph started his summer job last Wednesday and has been raking in the big bucs. Unfortunately he has to drive pretty far, but he's been sharing the ride with our friend Mark. Today is supposed to be really hot and beautiful so Mark's wife Lauren and I are taking the kids to the beach again. Woohoo.

Whew.

Before leaving Pittsburgh, I was finally able to put the binding on two quilts I finished earlier this year that just came back from the quilter. I was quite happy with both and am now pumped up to put the binding on the other two. I have to hurry up and have another productive period like that before too many people announce babies and weddings. I can't keep up.
My stay in Pittsburgh was great and I was sad to go. I was sadder still on Wednesday night after having spent 13 hours in transit with a baby. Yeah you read that right. 13 hours. When I got to the airport all seemed well. No delays reported. We boarded the plane, they took my carryon because there was no room in the overhead. I figured the couple of diapers I had in my purse would last me the three hours to NH. Then 45 minutes later, we were getting off the plane again and not expected to leave for at least another 2 hours. So I re-routed. First through Laguardia, which as soon as I sat down at that gate, was delayed indefinitely, and then direct through Boston at 6:00 (my original flight was 1:30.) So I had time to kill so my mom came out and had dinner with me at the airport and entertained Makili a bit. Then that flight was delayed until 8:00. Finally we made it to Boston, and of course my luggage didn't make it. But I couldn't file the claim until all the baggage from the flight was on the carousel, which took an hour and then I had a bitchy woman do my claim, who gave me the impression that I was wasting her time. Isn't that her job? At midnight we got home. And this morning while I was at work, my luggage was left on the front porch in the rain (luckily Ann was there to find it!)

But I made it. And though you'd think I'd post a picture of my cute husband to document my return, instead I ran to document my garden. We ate salad straight from the garden last night! YES! Oh the arugula! It just keeps coming! And look at that absolutely adorable radish. It is all I can do not to pull them out of the ground to admire them!


This is the new corn bed by the way, which will also host beans and squash.
The lettuce

The radish


The beds
Sprouted beans, peas and cucumbers!
The first corn stalk, a little blurry!

My Kind of Fun

We came back from Larry and Ann's last night so that we'd be able to get some things done today. YARD WORK! My kind of fun. Seriously. I can't get enough. We built two more beds today, planted our first tomatoes and pepper, got our neighbor to bull-doze some stumps, Raph mowed the lawn, and I'm sure there is more. It has been so beautiful here, although not much rain for the garden, and our hose doesn't quite reach the beds so we've been improvising until we get a new one...


Makili had to be moved to a different bed so that he wouldn't tear out the new plants, but he didn't mind so much so long as he could continue to sink his hands in the dirt.

Look at our little lettuce heads just starting out. That there is the front row is Arugula (or Baluga as my Dad calls it.) My favorite! I'm such a proud mama of my little ones.


Have you EVER seen a more beautiful tree than the gorgeous horse chestnut (or Buckeye where I come from) in front of our house!

Victory Photos

After much planning and pulling the pieces together, we did it! The raised beds are built! Next week, they will be sown after the beds settle. This process was far more work than you'd think. First we rented a truck to pick up the free railroad ties. Then we got our neighbor to use his tractor to scrape away the grass. Then we ordered a butt-load of dirt, which is pretty pricy! Tim got a load of llama poop so big, he made the entire 2-hour drive home at 40mph on the highway. Rebecca was kind enough to lend us her rototiller. And yesteday it all came together. All that is left to do is to drive some rebar through the holes in the ties to keep them in place for ever! We're pretty psyched.