Shooting rockets

Somehow Jack got it in his mind that he wanted to shoot a rocket and my husband and his brother took that idea and ran with it. They went out and bought two brand new sets of rockets and a bunch of the little engines and we all ended up at Valley View Park to shoot them off on what had to be the hottest day of the year to date.

The boys got ridiculously red and hot, not sunburned just very flushed with all the effort of running and laughing and jumping in 90 degree weather.

The rockets worked fabulously and shot hundreds of feet in the air and came floating down (most of the time) only to be launched again.

Alex decided to go home with with his Grandparents after about a half an hour and I laid out a blanket in the shade of a tree and watched with Echo from relative safety. Not long after the rocket ended up in a tree and hilarity ensued as I watched two grown men figure out the best way to get it down. Andy climbed the tree to shake it out. Jack and Mark found baseballs and took turns trying to dislodge it, but in the end drastic measures had to be taken.

One  pole saw and a carefully stowed away branch later the rocket was retrieved and launched two more times before they finally decided to give it up for the day and retire to a cooler place.

How does your garden grow?

So we had finally finished up the garden and my husband went and got the good dirt for growing and filled it all in. I got all my vegetables planted and am faithfully watering and weeding everyday to help the little things grow. Turns out that my garden doesn’t have a weed problem, it has a tree problem. So everyday I go out and pick tiny little maple trees that are trying to survive out of my garden in the hopes of preventing a giant tree from growing in the midst of my raised beds.

It also turns out that the plants have very little need of help from me to grow. They are all healthy and very much able to get along without much interference from myself. Remember what it first looked like when I planted my tomatoes? Now they are nearly three feet in height. In the box they stand nearly as tall as me.

You can’t even tell where one plant ends and the next one begins.

This might be a little better reference. I had my kids help me by standing next to them to give a little reference to height. Granted they are not the tallest of children, but for a months growth you can get an idea of what I will be dealing with by the end of the growing season.

My once tiny little stalks of corn that was so afraid would not make it and I had, in fact lost three of them to various things in nature. One died by squirrel, one just wouldn’t grow, and the last one was broken at the base of the stalk by the wind. The rest, though, are doing wonderful.

You can’t tell by looking at them now, but we had a storm pass through not too long ago and the wind beat them so badly that two thirds of the stalks were laying at a near 45 degree angle onto each other . The next day for whatever reason they swayed back to the other direction and I was afraid to try to stand them up straight because I thought I might break them. Two days later they were standing upright by themselves apparently just needing the strength of the sun to pull them up.

My pepper plants that my brother in law gave me were scattered all around the edges of the garden until we finally got the last box done. I transplanted them all to neat little rows and they are all doing wonderfully. I also had to move around six of my smaller tomato plants that won’t be growing as enormous as the rest of them to make room for some more tomato plants that were getting too big to be randomly planted as well.

Of course, this also meant I needed to move the watermelon vines as well. They were looking a little wilty after their transplant, but perked up about a week after with some everyday watering. I was also able to plant the pumpkin sprouts that my Mother in law gave me that were near dying. They are also doing very well and are showing some very nice signs of growth.

The cucumbers are taking over everything and I now know for next year to give them plenty of room as they are now beginning to grow out of the raised garden and into the walkway.

My ONE zucchini plant looks like eight. I had no idea how giant these things can get. I can already see tons of flowers and four to five actual zucchinis forming.

You can’t tell but there is also a spaghetti squash plant as well as an eggplant growing there as well. Below is what they looked like when I first planted them. Quite a difference.

The strawberries are growing by leaps and bounds but not producing very many actual berries. There must be some trick that I’m not aware of. The onions are doing pretty good and the carrots are coming along nicely though it is hard to tell because they are all underground .

All in all the garden is coming along way better than my expectations. Andy was able to dig up enough gravel from around the yard to make pathway between the raised beds that should help keep the weeds and grass down.

He was also able to move the fire pit away from the garden another three feet in order not to burn our plants when we have fires.

He also is in the process of putting a natural rock border around the whole thing to contain the gravel in the places we want it and keep it from migrating into the yard.

I am really proud of the work my husband has done. Our yard has come miles from when we first moved in.

It all looks so amazing.

Echo’s sleeping positions: Too funny not to post

Echo is such a funny sleeper. I thought that it was just a one time thing, but she continues to sleep half in and half out of her bed whenever she is with me in my craft room. Perhaps I don’t put her bed close enough to me because she doesn’t do the same thing when she is in the living room.

It starts out slow. She actually does start all the way in her bed curled up in a little ball.

Then she slowly works her way out and onto the floor, but can’t seem to bear leaving the bed completely.

No one will get my green puppy. I will guard it with my…zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

She continues stretching and shifting positions, each time moving further and further out of the bed and closer and closer to my chair.

Maybe the floor was cool.

Half in half out. Comfort is overrated. She has nearly made it all the way over to me. Like she is being sneaky or something.

This is my absolute favorite.

Must reach my mommy, but can’t leave bed. She’s just not long enough.

Echo’s first bath

We were finally able to give Echo her first bath. We were under orders from the vet to not give her one until at least ten day after she had been spayed. She did very well though it took a while to get her to stay in the tub for us without trying to jump out.

I wouldn’t say she was completely thrilled, but then again neither are my children.

Once she got the hang of it, or at least realized Andy wasn’t going to let her out, she resigned herself to sitting still.

Poor thing is looking at Alex and wondering why he doesn’t save her. Her eyes say traitor.

Awww, soapy puppy butt.

She was amazingly still while Andy doused her in water to rinse her off.

You could tell she wasn’t enjoying the bath though, merely putting up with it. Those are some truly sad puppy dog eyes.

She survived and shortly following the towel dry was the inevitable dog shake. I got slimed, but at least it was by a clean dog.

The nearly finished garden

We have finally finished the last raised bed for our garden and are looking forward to a small break prior to working on getting it fenced. We still need to add the dirt, but that won’t take too much time, and then put some plants in.

This is Echo trying to be helpful, but, of course, getting in the way.

The posts go up. This is probably the easiest part of the whole process.

It took about two days to get all the boards up and finally we got the rail on the top. It still looks unfinished because we aren’t putting railing all the way around to make room for the fence.

Andy used an outdoor caulk to adhere the rails so that there won’t be any screws visible on top. Can you see how well my corn is growing? I lost one to the squirrels, but the rest are doing great.

The corners look really good if I can toot my husbands horn. Of course he will look at them and tell you they are terrible, but he has standards that I don’t quite get when it comes to his own work.

The tomato plants are doing extremely well too and you will notice that there are more. This is due to my brother in law who brings his abundance of plants to our house to share. So now I have pepper plants along the edges of the garden beds wherever there was space to put them.

The finished shape and boxes. I am super impressed with my husbands ability to come up with and build the things that I ask him to with no prior experience on how to do them. He is an amazing man. Some might even say Super…

Spiderman and his brother

There is a pine tree in our front yard that the boys have found is very easy to climb because the branches act much like round staircase that they can basically just step up. So naturally they climb it whenever they have free time or remember it is there.

Alex thinks he really is Spiderman sometimes and gets constant use out of Jack’s Halloween outfit from three years ago. (Not that Jack doesn’t get just as much use out of it, just Alex wears it more.)

Note the look of complete satisfaction at having successfully climbed a tree just like a spider.

Jack loves anything to do with climbing and loves to see how high he can go.

He slid down the last couple of branches because he found this was easier than climbing down. (Easier on Jack, not so much on the tree.)