The End of August

We got out and did some clean up tonight. The purple pepper plant is really taking off and I wanted to give it a chance so I pruned back the tomato plant quite a bit to let the pepper breathe. The midget is still doing great, although the tomatoes don't quite have the flavor that they had before we started getting all of this rain.

I also had to take the pumpkin vines out. I didn't want to give up on them yet, but they're so fragile and the dogs had completely trampled them. We got two little pumpkins, but one was a little chewed on (by a dog or by bugs, I'm not sure which). When we have more room I would really like to grow some more, but trying to allocate such a small space between dogs and plants that can't take at least a little abuse just wasn't working.

I have a whole nice big box of arugula sprouting up nicely and the radishes and carrots are coming along too. We had a nice baby arugula salad for dinner the other night from the thinnings (heavenly) and I'm wondering if we can eat the greens from the radishes and carrots? Think I'll have to do some research on that one.

One thing the rain we've gotten lately has been amazing for is the roses. The Bicara has really shot up, and the Leo is looking a little less peaky too. Both have lots of pretty burgandy new growth. I'm trying to let them alone, so that they can get ready for winter. I did one last fertilizer just before school started a few weeks ago. I'm trying to let them form rosehips, and then sometime in October I'm planning to cut them way back and find a nice warm place for them in our attic cubby to ride out the winter.

Black Diamond Watermelons

I keep seeing (and tasting) all these cool varieties of vegetables that I want to grow someday when we have a little more space, so I think I'm going to start keeping track of them so I don't forget and grow boring things (like that would happen!)



So, to that end, sweet husband and I walked into the grocery store the other day and saw these beautiful black diamond watermelons. They're just almost black on the outside (hence the black diamond, I'm sure) but they're that perfect, wild, watermelony pink on the inside. And they taste incredible!

Good-bye Sunflowers, and thanks for all the fun....

This afternoon I decided that the day had come to cut down the Sunflowers. Two of the smaller heads had already fallen off, and the big ones looked like they could go at anytime. So, I went out with my pruning shears and lopped of the smaller ones, and Blaine had way fun chopping down the bigger ones machete style.

I had read that you could just put the heads in bags and the seeds will fall off in about a week, but I'm a little impatient so I started breaking the seeds off of the smaller flowers. That got tedious REAL quick, so I put the head from the two bigger ones in bags to hang in the laundry room to see if they'll dry.

The seeds that I pulled off were beautiful though. I like the colors and the different patterns of stripes. And they taste good too. I have very vauge memories of eating sunflower seeds fresh from the flower with a friend when I was younger, but I didn't remember how much different they taste. They're kind of creamy and nuttier than roasted seeds--maybe as a result of not being dried?

I think I am going to try to roast some, though. I'm soaking them in a salt brine right now--I think, in absence of specific instructions, I'll let them soak for a few days and then roast them in the oven and see how they do.

I'm also going to save some seeds for next year. I s'pose common sense would say if you don't have much space you should grow small varaties, but the giant sunflowers were worth every inch they took up (and most of the space was vertical anyway). I definitely want to have more next year.

The Guy With the Cool Tomatoes at the Farmer's Market

Last fall at the farmer's market, this guy would always come with all kinds of neat-o heirloom tomatoes. I hadn't seen him all summer, so I was starting to think he wasn't coming anymore. But, today--happy day--he was there. The bigger tomatoes in the picture are pink roma's. They had a great flavor (kind of like the Midgets, but milder) and were almost a little peppery tasting. I didn't ask what kind the smaller cherry tomatoes are, but I need to go back and track the tomato guy down to find out. They have a totally unique taste--really deep and smokey almost. Very tasty!

Sunflower Seeds, Pumpkins, and Sprouts

The Sunflowers are starting to make some seeds.


My mini pumpkins are starting to form...


...but the pumpkin vine is starting to take over what's left of the tomatoes and peppers.


Baby Carrots and Radishes starting to sprout.


Arugula sprouts (yum! yum! yum!)


I found this little bluebird at Sunrise--he seemed to be asking to go home with me.

Fall Vegetables

I was cleaning the tomatoes out of my Earthbox yesterday when I was surprised by this little guy and his friend. I think he might have been munching on the roots of my tomato plants, thus explaining their sicky-ness.


As part of a little garden clean-up, I left the mexican midget up as it's still making glorious baby tomatoes. I pulled out one of the pepper plants, but left the purple one as it has several little baby peppers on it. The mini-pumpkins I planted in July are starting to take over. There are several little baby pumpkins starting to grow from the vines. I also planted a mix of radishes and carrots in the remainder of the vegetable bed and an arugula (tasty! tasty!), parsley, chives mixtures in the Earthbox, and replaced some of the plants in the planters.

Perseids Rained Out

One of my very favorite memories while spending summers with my dad in Northern California when I was younger is of going out to see the Perseid meteor shower every year in mid-August. We would go out to the levy at about midnight, taking big reclining lawn chairs and blankets. The object was to lay back as much as possible, so that we could see the entire sky. We'd sit in the quiet for a few hours watching the meteors stream down--every once in awhile ohhing and ahhing over a particularly big one.

So far my attempts to see the Perseids in Kansas have been completely thwarted (mostly by sleep), so this year I decided to make a really good effort to get out to see them. To that end, Thursday night at midnight Blaine and I drove out to the dam at Clinton Lake with blanket in tow. The sky was looking a little overcast as we left our house, and by the time we got to the lake it was downright cloudy. Realizing that there wasn't going to be much to see, we headed home pretty quickly.

We thought we'd try again last night, but at about five in the afternoon a nice Kansas thunderstorm blew up and continued all night. So, once again, no perseids this year.

I'm consoling myself with these beautiful pictures on NASA's website (click on "gallery").

Powell Gardens

Blaine and I went on a little "road trip for the soul" (so the slogan is) today to Powell Gardens outside of Kansas City. They're having a tree house exhibit this summer and we're pretty wild about those so we thought it would be a well-spent afternoon. Ended up being a little disappointed in the treehouses (what good is a tree house if you can't get up into the tree?) but we really loved the pictured "Kiderpillar Cocoon" which you could get up and play in.

I also thought the Island Garden was great. They had the big lilypads that looked like you could float on them or maybe use them for tea cup saucers. I was making Blaine laugh by trying to figure out just how big of a pond we would need to dig to grow some of our own.

Also the glass chappel was beautiful--made me want to get married again just because.

Their butterfly festival starts tommorow. We peeked in the door and it looks like it will be great fun, we were kind of sad to have missed it.

If you're laughing...

...I don't want to know. After saving Mexican Midgets for a week, I decided to "put some away" this morning. After $10 (jars and tongs), 2 hours, and numerous scalding water burns this was the result--5 half pints of tomatoes. My conclusion--they'll have to taste pretty damn good (and, I mean, we're talking tiny little tomato gods) to be worth it. But, hey, I'm an optimist maybe they will.

Second conclusion--I have a whole new respect for my grandmother and anyone else who used to do this all the time...by the hundreds.

I think I would have been happier (and gotten more bang for my time) if I had used big tomatoes, but my midgets are so much tastier. I think I may try freezing the ones that are on the bush now. I've read that that works ok if you're only planning to use the tomatoes in sauces and stuff, which is what we'll do. The only problem with that is that we have limited freezer space (in comparison to our super deep pantry shelves), but I think we can make room for tomatoes.

Roaring River

Just got back from a camping trip to Roaring River in Missouri with Blaine's parents, Aunt, and Grandmother. We spent three days tent camping and hiking and most importantly getting up early in the morning to catch fishes.

I think when you become part of a new family, you naturally become something of a historical reasearcher or maybe part of an archeological dig. You want to learn how they do things and why they do them a certain way, and a camping trip is a very telling opportunity to gain insight. For example, when we were packing for this weekend I had to ask Blaine lots of questions.

"Are we going to be pretty campers? Or grungy campers? I don't mind being grungy as long as everyone else is, but I can't not bring a curling iron if everyone else is going to be pretty.

And what will we do during the day? Why do we have to fish so early in the morning? Do we play in the river or do we hike and stuff? Are we even allowed to play in the river? Doesn't that scare the fishes away?"

You're away from home, at least semi-roughing it--it shows a lot about what you value. What do you take with you? What can you live without? How do you cook and what do you eat? What do you do all day when you're disconnected from the phone/internet/rest of the world?

And then you realize that even though there are differences...
going out to breakfast...hobo dinners...camping in an organized campsite instead of out in the middle of nowhere....there are also many similarities....the quiet time after it's dark when everyone is sitting just watching the fire...the smell of woodsmoke...s'mores...going to sleep listening the the bugs chirp outside of your tent....and those kind of images are what you remember later. I think that's what I was trying to get when I was taking pictures this weekend--not really a chronological "On day one we did this, on day two we did this" kind of thing. I really wanted to be able to look back and see all the smells and sights and sounds and textures and even tastes that you get when you go camping. Anyway....whatever may happen later, always begin with a clean dog.



We were on a hike when we heard this Armadillo rustling around in the bushes.












Moe hitched a ride with Dad after he got tired of walking.









And we got some rain....



After sitting under the awning of the trailer for awhile, Moe and I decided to go on a puddle walk (i.e. a walk in the rain where you sort of dress for the weather, but really don't get too bothered if you get a little wet).









The kids that were camping next to us were excited because they had caught these frogs in this cup.



Of course, a major camping activity is just relaxing.



At Roaring River they release trout everyday for people to catch. This is the trout hatchery where the baby trouts are born.












Most of the river comes up from this underground spring that goes down hundreds of feet. The spring is what makes the river so cold and clear.



This was my niece Emma's first trip to the hatchery.



You can buy fish food and watch the fish swim up to eat it.






This was also Emma's first fishing trip. "Panga" bought her a Nemo fishing rod with a plastic fish on the end so that she could fish like the grown-ups.









But soon "Manga" and Aunt Anita had taken over use of the Nemo pole.



And then later Uncle Blaine used it to catch a tree!



But as long as she had her tootsie pop, Emma was a happy camper.



Later we went down to part of the river that you could swim in and Moe and Emma both had lots of fun.


















Since I started dating Blaine I've heard about times that they went to the "axe handle factory" where you pay $5 and get to take as much wood as you want from the defective axe handles that they would otherwise throw away. We made a trip to the axe handle factory to get wood for our fires.






This is Dennis with his fire poking stick. Do not touch the fire poking stick unless you are a qualified fire poker.



We had hobo dinners to eat one night. A hobo dinner is where you put meat and vegetables all in a foil packet and cook it over thr grill. There's a science to making them to come out just right--dinner fit for the king of hobos.



A twilight hike









We picked up s'mores tips from the Dennis, Carolyn, and Blaine--all graduates of the "Phil and Diana Carter School of S'mores Making."



I learned the answer to my "why do we have to fish so early?" question. We went early to stake out a place on the bank to fish from and defend it. Just before the bell rings at seven in the morning, people line up all along the river to reserve good fishing spots. And with good reason. After about the first half an hour the fish get bored and full and start ignoring us crazy humans and our lures.












Moe decided that Aunt Anita has a nice lap.



The art of fire-making (lighter fluid).









These daddy-long-legs were everwhere. It was cool how they almost skim along the rocks and the ground on their spindley legs.



On Sunday we took a drive to the civil war battlefield at Pea Ridge. A lot of what's left there is just fields, but the fences helped me imagine that there were once people there.



On the way home from Pea Ridge we stopped at a fruit stand on the side of the road.