Cobbler Season is Upon Us!

Yeah it's a season for me. Truly. I. Love. Cobbler. Blueberry cobbler. Blackberry Cobbler. Peach Cobbler. Especially peach cobbler. It had it's debut today. We picked six pounds of blueberries this morning at Salt box Farm. And I made a batch of blueberry jam for my dad for his birthday. (Sorry I'm ruining the surprise dad. ) And then I made two cobblers. One to share with my cousin's girlfriend's Romanian family who are here visiting. And the other just for me. My precious. My delicious. I made one cobbler with the tried and true recipe from Ann, and the other was an experimental version from here. (I altered by the way though and put the fruit on top instead of on the bottom. I recommend this.)

Give it a try. We also picked raspberries this week. Unfortunately, we were a bit late for peak raspberries and it was a LOT of work. I was on my knees for an hours crawling under bushes looking for those dang berries only to hear ladies around me talking about how they were dripping off the branches last week. Damn. Anyway, I've decided that raspberry jam is my new favorite. And since this was the first batch of jam I ever made all by myself, I named it "Solo Jam." Naming jam is, in my opinion, half the fun of making jam.

I guess in addition to cobbler season, canning season is officially upon us. I've also been freezing this year. I have a lot of frozen rhubarb, some kale, and I'm going to try freezing some squash in the not-too-distant future, since we will soon be up to our eye-balls in them. The tomatoes are growing like nuts too. I just found that the tomato cage I put on the biggest plant is not holding and tomorrow I'll have to do something about that. Now if some of them would just go ahead and turn red. The deer mowed down my swiss chard in the flower garden, where there is no fence. I thought that the motion light would keep them away, but apparently, it wasn't on. Oh well, it will be mature soon in the other garden.

Some Recent Beach Picks

Being naked means checking out what's down there a lot of the time.Serious sheepdog Morgan. What a little model.
Beach treasures.
Grandma showing him the ropes.

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!

Getting away from me

What can I say? It is summer. And while I'm loving the sun and the water and the wind, I've been feeling a little down lately. Overwhelmed and bored simultaneously. I think I'm ready for date night or something. Some time alone maybe. Today was a little better, but yesterday I seriously almost lost it. The truth is I need some more big projects like the garden. There is only so much weeding and watering a girl can do. I need to be busy because sitting around playing with Makili all day is making me nuts. I of couse love it part of the time, but he's getting more independent every day and I usually have a little bit of time, but nothing to do with it except quilt. But I want to be outside, doing some thing physical. We helped my cousin and his girlfriend rearrange their furniture and Raph and I played in a pretty great pick-up soccer game this weekend. That was good stuff. I don't know. Maybe my normal hormones have just started circulating again or something. My body is in culture-shock, like being thrown into a foreign country. I'm rambling and I know it.

Water and Vegetables.

Makili and I went to the beach today for a little while, though today wasn't my best day ever. It was hot and buggy outside. Unbearable inside. It was the kind of day it would have been nice to have a friend to share the beach with. But really the sunburn factor would have been a problem. I couldn't think of any projects to work on even though I have a ton waiting for me. Makili was needy and really came close to driving me out of my mind. I accomplished absolutely nothing. The house is a mess. We've seen a few roaches in our house, which is just about the last thing I want to deal with after the mammoth variety that lived with us in Hawaii. So I set out some homemade roach traps I read about online, where you put petroleum jelly around the rim of a jar and put banana peels inside. Yeah I didn't catch one goddamn roach, but now we are infested with fruit flies. And I continue to see roaches.

So yeah, here are some pictures from our glorious day at the river yesterday. This is one of the perks from our CSA membership at Wolf Pine Farm. Nadine and the kids came for the heat relief and for something to do. You can tell she's done this before because she was wise enough to bring lots of snacks, which kept Makili and Morgan relatively happy in the car. Though I think by the time I got home I had endured a solid hour of Makili crying. You can only feed a kid so many mangoes. Anyway. It was great. And finally, the cauliflower I harvested from the garden today. Pretty delicious, and that is coming from someone who is only mildly into cauliflower. Peas are coming. (I'm keeping track of our harvest on the right side-bar incase your're interested.) Cucumbers, eggplant, beans, and tomatoes are flowering. Yes!

Another completed project.

He turns ONE again.

Makili's luau was absolutely lovely. I had a great time. Makili slept under a picnic table for 3.5 hours, but still got in a lot of fun.

3-week old Kane was able to come.
And Tim
And Rachel, who really liked the dogs.
Gabrielle who really like the water.
Quite a gathering on the beach. It was only the kids in the water.
Makili showed off his little plumber's crack.
And hung out with Ariel, his favorite aunt.
He tried on Gabby-chan's glasses
And went swimming with dad.
And hugged Sally.
Grandma made cake

A VOLCANO cake!
Ryan carved a pretty amazing fruit bowl.



Raph stayed up the night before to paint the flowers which looked AWESOME, and yet were not captured in a single photograph.

The McCall family provided the "Big" kids and watermelon.

Sarah and Brogan got a little lost, but found us in time for food and fun.
And Peter (unpictured), Sagrin, and Lilia had a great time. Peter even snorkeled.
All in all, I think we all had a pretty great day.

2 for 2

For the second year in a row Makili spent the fourth of July with his cousin Gabrielle. We went to the New Castle Commons, a pretty fantastic spot we'd never been to before. Our friend Sarah's idea, though we showed up 4.5 hours after we told them we'd be there. Makili and Gabrielle spent the entire time shoving food in their faces. But there was lots of cuteness going around between Makili's buddha belly, Gabby's "independent" self, and Brogan (Sarah and Craig's kid).

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.

Makili's Magic Shoes

So my sister gave Makili these really cool shoes for his birthday. And even though it was pretty hot today I couldn't resist making him wear them. And then we were at Rumble Tumble with the kids I babysit and I was holding his arm as he walked across the room. I realized that I was in fact not actually helping him so I let go and he walked clear across the room! And then he did it again and again! Yes that's right, Makili walks! (I'll post a picture of the magic shoes and hopefully a video of the act soon - hard to videotape and egg on his walking at the same time!)


Here it is. You may be seeing this before Raph, who is still in Boston!

In no particular order.

I tried realy hard to get a sllide-show on here last night, but ultimately gave up. So instead here are a slew of random lictures from Makili's first year and two videos from yesterday. I could certainly have added more, but I think this is a pretty good start.