July Celebrations

For Independence Day, Elizabeth made her first ever pavlova. 

A patriotic pavlova. 

Happy chickens. 

"Do you have any blackberries for me?" 

Close on the heels of the Fourth of July, is the Eighth of July, a.k.a. Matthew's birthday. 

  Happy twenty-seventh birthday, Matthew! 

One big chocolate-chip cookie. 

And last but not least, our new patio room, Tiki Cove. 

Complete with Tiki torches. 

And mood lighting. Beautiful July.

Snow Flakes on my Window

Since January our dining room has been all decked out in snowflakes and snowmen to celebrate winter. And this winter not a single snowflake has fallen on our home.

This has been quite possibly the most mild winter I have ever experienced, (and for that I am very grateful.)

Not that I'm superstitious or anything, but I'm just about convinced that our snowy decorations are keeping winter away, and I'm afraid that as soon as we take the snow decorations down and put up the spring decorations it will snow.

 So the snowmen have stayed around through April. But Sunday is Easter Sunday so we will most likely be taking down the snowmen in favor of springtime decor. I hope it doesn't snow.

The only snow I welcome.

The Refrigerator has Moved!

Some time ago, it was unanimously decided that the new refrigerator was too big and bulky for our little kitchen, (not to mention too noisy. When the ice maker kicks on it sounds like Buzz Lightyear is in there shooting a ray gun! Trip to Disneyland anyone?)

So a week or so ago we finally moved it out of the kitchen and into the pantry. That may sound weird having the refrigerator on the other end of the house as the kitchen, but it actually works really well, if you don't mind walking when you forget to grab the pickles for the tuna salad.

Then yesterday Mom finished putting all the spices, temporarily being stored in her bedroom, in the rest of the pantry space.

All in all, a happy pantry and kitchen makes a happy home and family.

What I Have Been Up to Lately

Enjoying many cups of tea in my new mug. 

Enjoying the beautiful weather while anxiously awaiting Mama Robin's second batch of eggs to hatch. 

Other than that, it's just been the usual routine: reading good books, eating good food, (my Mom has just learned to make Macarons!) and learning how to knit cables. 

We're All Mad Around Here!

What better way to once again attempt to re-immerse myself into my writing than with a little bit of nonsense?

To combat the dreary, grey rain today, we celebrated our Un-Birthdays with Alice, the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, and all sorts of other mad people in Disney's Alice in Wonderland. With all the tea, wit, tea, cards, (did I remember to mention tea!) I felt right at home.

And now that I have finally taken the plunge and joined Facebook, I can find other silly and entertaining nonsense like this:

 

As my Mom would say: "Yes, let's be silly!"

Waiting

Waiting for what? you ask. Mostly cooler weather. Oh, Fall, when will you return? After that early storm, Indian summer set in just a couple of days later. Now we are in a heat wave and more than ready for fall. If I ever had any melancholy about bidding adieu to summer, as I always do, I do not now. It's too hot! Thankfully today is supposed to be the hottest day and then it will be cooler. On the bright side I can still sport my Hawaiian dresses.

I am also waiting for all the household modifications to be finished. Our new multipurpose Tiki Room is nearly done, and we've been working on moving bookshelves and all the books in them from Rachel's room to the office.

It was nice, in a nostalgic way, to pull out all those children's books and young science reads that I have not looked at in, oh, a very long time. 

I do love books, but I am lazy by nature, and moving massive amounts of books from one room to the next can be very wearing, not to mention irritating with all the dust we've kicked up in the process. But one mustn't shirk duty, and I think all the book moving may finally be finished. Now if only I could have a nice chilly day so I can curl up with one of those books.  

Farmer Fairy

For half of my family, 'tis the week to be camping. Both Rachel and Dad are on a church camping trip up in Tahoe for a couple of days, and Elizabeth is backpacking with our bible study group in Yosemite until Friday. That leaves Mom, Matthew, and I to hold the fort down here at home.

One interesting factor in this is that all the regular chicken wranglers are gone at once for the first time. So, what do we do? Hand out garden hats and take charge of course! Chickens are creatures of routine: they eat, they lay eggs (except Bob,) and they put themselves to bed at dusk; and the little ones are now big enough to be pretty much independent too. So, with a straightforward list of instructions to refer to, caring for the flock has been a cinch.

We still have to count the littles. There's one. 

Two, three. 

Four, five, six... slow down girls, I'm getting you all mixed up! 

And I have to gather the eggs.  It took some looking to find these.

"Ollie-Ollie-Oxen-Free!"

"One of these things is not like the other..." 

A total of four beautiful eggs. 

And now, a tale of two trellises. (Sort of.)

Since Elizabeth has moved in to the house next door, and been busy with her work and chickens, she hasn't had very much time for gardening. This year we had just a small one. Plus she's making plans to cultivate the little yard next door into a lovely garden (of both vegetables and flowers!) So, earlier in the season I started taking care of watering the garden exclusively and have now taken full responsibility for it.

A few days ago Elizabeth and I planted some crookneck squash starters and zucchini seeds in one recently vacated bed.

 

 It's a little late in the season to be planting squash, but we all missed fresh, homegrown squash. Except for maybe Rachel, she doesn't really like squash.

 Still too soon to see any zucchini sprouts. 

We also planted three rows of radishes (above), and a second trellis of peas. We took the seeds for the second trellis from some dried pea pods from our first crop of peas. Homegrown seeds! 

Pea trellis, senior. 

 And last but not least, our single volunteer tomato plant is still plugging away. I'm still waiting to see red on it. 

I love taking care of my own little garden, watering it and harvesting produce. I call it my kitchen garden (I like that term) and I'm already thinking up plans for it next year.

 Life is so beautiful.