Independence Day dawned chilly, 37°. I was concerned that the weather would put a damper on the day, but by 10:00 it had warmed into the 70's and by afternoon it was perfect. Tabor and Josiah left early in the morning to go fishing. It was “Fish For Free Day” and the could hardly wait to get to the river. At noon we all went down to the house where Stacey works to go swimming. They have a beautiful heated swimming pool. It was great.
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| Hazel. |
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| June. |
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| Tabor. |
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| Josiah. |
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| Swimming. |
After swimming, Tabor and Josiah headed for the river again to fish and I
tagged along to take photos. They caught a few trout and I took a few
good photos.
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| Fishing on the Allegheny. |
That evening everyone gathered under the maples in our front yard for delicious food. Then when it began to get dark, we went over to Shillig’s yard for fireworks.
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| Getting ready. |
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| Hazel eating a 'smore. |
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| June with a sparkler. |
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| Fireworks. |
We had comings and goings all week. On Tuesday Tabor flew home. Rachel, Hazel, and June will be here for a while yet. On Thursday Kohl’s husband Vernon arrived. They will be here until Tuesday when they fly home to California. Friday evening nephew Aaron Shillig arrived with his family. We are expecting Sarah and Tosh to arrive any minute now. And tomorrow Stacey’s sister Audrey arrives with her family. All the bedrooms are full and the tents are going up. The fun never stops here in Gold.
The big news of the week, as you’ve probably already heard, is Josiah’s mission call. It came in the mail on Tuesday afternoon. Josiah waited to read it until later in the evening when we could get all his brothers and sisters connected through the internet. The suspense as he opened it was tremendous. He is going to the California Arcadia Spanish Speaking Mission and will report to the Missionary Training Center in Provo on September 21. We’re pretty excited. That’s a part of the country we are very familiar with after living in Southern California for twenty years. We’re glad he’ll be speaking Spanish. He’s had four years of high school Spanish and that will help. So the big adventure is about to begin. Now we have to start getting things ready, and there’s a definite deadline to meet.
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| Josiah reading his mission call. |
Every summer when Rachel comes to visit she picks a project to do. One year she helped Hannah paint her bedroom. Another year she helped Josiah paint his room. Last year the project was our woodpile. This year she decided to tackle our kitchen. The kitchen on our house is small, which is surprising on such an old house (147 years old). Despite being so small, it’s the busiest room in the house and it’s subject to a lot of wear and tear. It’s been years since we last painted it and the old paint was looking very shabby. The fasteners on all the cupboards were shot so the doors wouldn’t stay shut anymore. Rachel decided to change all that. She began the project on Thursday with some help from Josiah and me. We took down all the cupboard doors and brushed paint stripper on them. It didn’t work as well as we hoped. We kept working at just getting the old paint off on Friday and Saturday. This is going to be a big project and much harder than anticipated. Old houses have a way of being stubborn and uncooperative when it comes to projects like this.
All week long we waited for rain. The forecast gave us hope – 40% one day 50% another day, but nothing came of it until Friday. Finally on Friday we got some measurable precipitation. It wasn’t a lot, not near what we need, but it was something and I am thankful for it. The garden responded immediately to the moisture.
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| My tomatoes. |
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| Larkspur. |
My straw bale garden experiment is showing results – good and not so good. I can see now what does well with this method and what does not. Onions do not grow well. We usually grow a lot of onions, enough to last us a whole year, but that won’t happen this year. The few we’ll get will be puny and won’t store long. Squash, cucumbers, and pumpkins also don’t seem to do well. Next year I’ll grow those things in the old conventional way. Other things look good – tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, beans, cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower. The Icelandic poppies are done blooming now, but the pompom poppies (Papaver somniferum) are just getting started. These are the big frilly poppies that I especially love. The larkspur is at its best now, but will soon fade as the weather gets hotter. The hollyhocks have started to bloom. There are still some big flower events waiting as summer moves ahead – lilies, dahlias, and gladiolus. We’re eating garlic scapes now and the Juneberries are ripe and soon there will be currants and gooseberries.
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| Purple pompom poppy. |
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| Pale purple poppy. |
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| Red poppy. |
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| Garlic scapes. |
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| Juneberries. |
This weekend the annual Balloon Rally began up in Wellsville, New York. They kicked off the celebration yesterday with a parade and this coming weekend they will launch hot air balloons on Friday night, Saturday morning and evening, and Sunday morning. We went up to watch the parade – the first time we’ve ever done that. It was a long parade with lots of old cars, fire trucks, and other floats. Every vehicle in the parade threw candy to the children on the street. Hazel and June thought it was miraculous to have candy flung at them.
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| Waiting for the parade. |
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| Old car. |
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| Firetrucks. |
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| A balloon jet. |
With all this family visiting – and more yet to come – our days are full of fun. Meals, the ones we eat together, are a big deal. No one’s house, the Shillig’s or ours, is big enough for us all to eat indoors, so when we have a group meal we have to eat under the maples or on Shillig’s back porch. We spend a lot of time sitting and talking, getting caught up on what’s been going on in the lives of our families. This week there will be lots of things going on. We’re going up to the Hill Cumorah Pageant on Tuesday. There will be trips out to the Amish. There will be games. And food, lots of food. It’s great.
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| My favorite hollyhock. |
