A morning with Miss Bexlee

I was pretty tickled when Kacey asked me to watch Bex while she cleaned on Friday morning.  We had a great time together.  She helped me with the dishes..........

and we drew pics..........

Picked apples to feed to Miss Piggy.

Played with Lucky

Visited with Grandma Ben

Played with Brooks and Dunn (that we had sold to the Bagetta's (across the street from LuAnn)

 

Happy 15th birthday Treyson

Can't believe it.  He's grown so big and tall this past year.  We are proud of him, and love him.  He is doing so well in guitar, and football, and has helped out the Yard Master so much.  Love you Treyson !

He had a great "friend" party a couple of nights ago.  Hope mom and dad can survive the teen years - HA ! 

 

Happy Birthday to Zac

1981 - Just a month old
I can  hardly remember those days -39 years ago.

 

Senior picture  - who knew what life would hold ahead of him. 

Earlier this month - almost 39 years old, with his 3 sons (on earth)   
Love you Zac - Happy Birthday ! 

How does the Garden Grow?

April 2020
Peas are planted (against the fence) - we are starting to plant the corn.  See in the background, the stakes where we will plant the pumpkins/squash.  Snow still on the mountains ! 

May 2020
Peas are poking up, and we've gotten the tomatoes and squash and pumpkins and cabbage planted also.  We've got our new watering system in place. 

 

June 2020
The garden is growing !  The corn is struggling, and we had our last frost on June 9th, where we had to cover cover cover again (I hate that).  This picture is after that, and we've removed all the water wells, and buckets.  You can see the carrots in the raised bed also.  

July 2020
Growing Growing Growing - you can see the onions and spinach in the foreground.  We are watering twice a week, and everything looks great.  It's been a weird summer though......... we are hearing this from all gardeners.  Our last rows of corn are doing so much better than the first rows planted.  You can see the yellow dead grass that we've spread between the squash/pumpkins in the background.  We tried to keep the morning glory under control, but it is so hard to control.  Weed Weed Weed, Water, Water, Water. 

August 2020
So amazing how the pumpkins and squash grow so much !   Some of our pumpkins started turning orange quite early this year, and the leaves are so big, and they hide, and it's fun to see each time we water how much more they have grown.  

Also August 2020
The corn has grown so tall, and I've harvested cucumber after cucumber over and over.  Dad has started to cut the cabbage, I think the largest one was 21 pounds.   The largest blue hubbard squash we grew was 51 POUNDS !!!

September 2020
And now here we are after the Harvest Party - Whew!!!
It would be interesting to know just how many POUNDS of food we grew.....all from a little seed/starts.   We are hanging on to the tomatoes, hoping that more turn before another frost so we can do a little more canning. I'm thinking Tomato Bisque (soup) - in freezer bags. 

Harvest Time - Harvest Party

Pumpkin and Squash Patch - BEFORE

AFTER - all cleaned up

 

We snipped the pumpkin and squash from the vines, and piled them up.  From the teensy tiny white Baby BOOs..., to the striped Pump - Kemons, to the big orange Howdens.  

Then we pulled up vines and piled them on the tractor tines to take down to the burn pile. 

Then we piled them (pumpkins and kids) on the trailer - we had quite a load !!

Now it was time for chicken noodle soup

Aaron and Kuk

Mom and Dad

Me and LuAnn

We even had a Golden Doodle or two............

I can't say cheese, or Bexlee will close her eyes for the picture, so I said, "say Halloween" - "say Spiders", "say pickles".  Not sure what I asked them to say here, but they sure opened their mouths :)

The kids and adults all picked out what they wanted to decorate their porches, and make their jack-0-lanterns.  

Then there was the requisite GROUP picture, which I'm never in, but that's okay by me :)

Bright and Bex picked the last of the zinnias...........

Kacey grabbed this cute shot of Bex and Grandpa "D"

Click here for short video  - you will notice Tagg at the side, not doing much.  He's holding an ice bag to his poor lip.  He was eating a cheeseburger at Thatcher's football game, and a honey bee wanted some too, and as Tagg went to bite it, the bee stung him right on the LIP !!!  Poor Tagg, he was pretty miserable after that.  

Click here for another short video of Bex and Bright jumping in mud puddles for the rain that came earlier in the day.  I'm so thankful it quit, and didn't ruin our Harvest Party.  

Little odds and ends

Bexlee came with her daddy to say HI to me at work the other day, on her way to Aunt Kaley's preschool.  She had on her Peppa Pig backpack, makeup on her face, and a wild mass of curls.  She was a little shy around my co-workers, but then warmed up when offered a sucker.  She is SO SWEET. 

The pumpkins and squash are ready to harvest !   We are planning on our harvest party this Saturday at 3pm.  We will gather for homemade chicken noodle soup and rolls, and will gather everything in.  I can't wait.  I hope it's not too cold.  

Landon and Kacey and kids have been having a wonderful Friday night tradition with some of their neighbors.  Steve and Yvonne host a Friday Night Movie Night, complete with snacks and drinks (to buy)  - just like at the movies.  Yvonne is a food blogger (Tried and Tasty), and she comes up with some great things.   The kids have so much fun and look forward to it every week. 

Roger in a tree - picking pears.  That's what's on the docket to can this coming Friday.  We'll see how it goes !!

Our Cam in AZ - miss her ! 

I didn't take this picture, it's from a professional photographer (her son's on Tagg's team).  Look at that CENTER !!  Tagg in action.  Great picture !!

I thought this was fun, and wanted to share. 

This is me - so TRUE

Mom and Dad - sure love them :)

I've done more canning this year than I ever have before.  So far we've done tomato juice, salsa, pickled peppers, dill pickles, spaghetti sauce...........and this weekend I'm planning on green tomato salsa verde, and pears, and we will most likely do more tomato juice before the tomatoes are finished.   WOW !!

Here's a picture that Lance sent Kuk.  He's in Berkeley, and the wild fires are terrible in the area.  

Here's the spaghetti sauce recipe I used.  It is so good. 

Love it when this girl sends me pics.  School and Work are going great for her.  We are hoping to get her up here for a weekend if we can work around everything. 

Payson has started flag football !  It is fun to watch him really get into it.  

Bless his heart, he sure takes it seriously, and hates to lose. 

 

Building the Pump House

 First of all - scroll to the bottom, and look at the pics from the bottom up.  I don't know why they all loaded backwards.  So frustrating! 

About as DONE as it can be at this point, so that we can keep it straight and square.  I'm sure moving it will be a "killer worry" for me...........  The front and back doors will go on at the Property, and the "shutters" on either side of the window, and the trim and the trex decking.  Then of course, we'll have to paint and put plywood and metal on the roof.   We are back to waiting for the water to subside.   Let's see......  what other project can we start on?    

We picked up some SWEET used Trex decking for FREE, and will be putting it down on the deck of the porch.  It's so heavy, we'll do it down at the Property.  

Thatcher loved to hang out and help.  He even built some benches of his own to use on the porch. 

What's that in front?  A porch of course :)  

Seems they always have an audience :) 

It's bigger than it was, and a little extra lumber was needed.  The back part of the shed will be the Pump House part, and the front part will be a mini-bunk house. 

We didn't want to wait..........  We are not patient.......... We (being Zac) haha.  So we started building in the shop.  The plan is to build it, and then take it apart to move it again.  Of course we won't be taking it ALL apart - we will leave the roof, floor and walls intact.  

We wanted to get started immediately down at the Property, but discovered that with needing to move the pumps and pipes, that they were STILL UNDER WATER, because of the high water table..........  Dang it. 

We got it home, and basically took it ALL APART  - every last nail.  This was unexpected to me, because I thought we were just going to put up the walls, and rebuild a 10 x 12 shed.  But Zac had OTHER ideas.      

After we took it down............

Remember this shed in Herriman?  We took it down on the 24th of July.  It was 10 x 12.