I love this time of year when we get to eat things from the garden. Up to now there hasn’t been very much to eat. First we had rhubarb and asparagus. They’re done for the year. Then there were strawberries. The first picking is done, but they will keep going off and on all summer. Now things are finally beginning to pick up. We’re eating lettuce and peas. I cut all the garlic scapes and we’re eating them. The garlic bulbs will be ready soon. The raspberries are ripe now. There aren’t a lot this year, but we like to pick a handful every few days. We picked currants, red and black, last week and that means the jelly making season is about to begin. The blueberries are almost ripe. The first of the early cabbages is almost ready. And soon there will be baby beets and cucumbers. The onions are starting to fall over, so they’ll be ready to harvest in a week or two. There are green tomatoes and little peppers, but they won’t be ready until August. And on it will go through the rest of the summer - potatoes, carrots, broccoli, squash. And then the apples start.
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| Josiah picking currants. |
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| Red currants. |
Everything is late this year. Spring got off to a late start and we haven’t had enough heat to catch up. Last week it turned very chilly. We dropped to 39° one night. We had to put extra blankets on the beds. I even considered lighting a fire in the wood stove the next morning. July shouldn’t be sweater weather. It should warm up again this week. I’m ready for a heat wave.
My bees swarmed for the third time last Sunday. I went out in the evening and found the swarm hanging from a branch of my quince tree. I captured them and set them over on the hive platform next to the other hive. When I checked them the next day, the were gone again. They must have flown away again early Monday morning. So I’ve had three swarms and lost all three. In spite of that, my hive still seems very full and active.
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| Capturing swarm number three. |
We had several days of rain during the week, but Wednesday morning was a beautiful, perfect summer morning. I took the camera and set off on a walk. I followed my usual route up the Rapley Road to the hollow then over the fields to the woods, through the woods and out the other side at Burrell’s and then home again. Even after living here for 15 years, I’m still amazed at how beautiful it is here. I hope I always am.
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| Heading up the Rapley Road. |
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| View from the top of the hill toward home. |
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| Into the woods. |
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| Barn swallows at Burrell's barn. |
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| Burrell's barn. |
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| Looking toward Gold. |
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| Our barn. |
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| Home again. |
As you know, I am an avid genealogist. Stacey and I spend every minute we can spare doing family history research. We both have been this way since our early teenage years when our mothers introduced us to genealogy. Last week I had one of those thrilling research moments that come now and then. I have never had information on where my mother’s family, the Rathfons, came from in Germany. I knew that Frederick Rathfon immigrated to America in 1740, but I didn’t know where he came from. Last week I found a clue that indicates he came from the town of Neunkirchen near Saarbrücken. Now I’ll have to try and find church records from that parish and see what I can find. I love doing this. It’s like solving a mystery. To me there is nothing more satisfying than linking these families together.
This morning just before we left for church I took a little stroll through the garden and, to my dismay, I found that a woodchuck has been in my cabbage patch and eaten two broccoli plants, a red cabbage, and part of a green cabbage. It had to have happened just this morning as I inspected the garden yesterday and everything was good. And just yesterday I was telling the Shilligs how great my cabbage patch looks this year and how big and healthy the plants are. I guess I needed a little humbling. We’ve set the live trap and baited it with a head of lettuce, but I don’t know if the woodchuck will fall for it. More than likely we will have to kill it if we can. I don’t like to do that, but when they destroy our food, I will kill them. I’m sure this is the same woodchuck that came up on the front porch one day last week and scratched at the screen door. It is very bold. Or maybe insane. I think I lives in the field across the road. Julie thinks it lives under her side porch. Wherever it lives, it better stay out of my garden or it will be living in whatever heaven woodchucks go to when they die.
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| What woodchucks do to broccoli. |
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| The cabbage patch (the eaten plant were on the end by the fence). |
We had an exciting phone call last week. The mission home from Daniel’s mission in Houston called to say they are preparing his departure papers (they always start three months before the missionary goes home). They told us Daniel will be coming home on October 22nd and they wanted to know what airport they should send him to. We told them Rochester since we will have to take him to our Stake President to be released and he lives in the Rochester area. It’s hard to believe Daniel has been gone almost two years and it will soon be time for him to come home. We’re so pleased and proud of him for serving a mission. We’ll be so glad to have him home again.
Today at church Josiah was ordained a priest in the Aaronic Priesthood. He is now in his last two years of serving in the Aaronic Priesthood. His next priesthood advancement will be when he becomes an Elder when he turns 18 and goes on his mission. That makes me feel really old.
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| Sunflower. |
