Another Great Visit

This weekend is off to a great start.  We had dinner w/ Patti and Ken and showed them around the garden Friday night.  Patti made a wonderful dinner of Tilapia, mango salad and yams.

Today we went to breakfast at Mother's downtown with Travis and Sarah and the boys.  I had the BEST biscuits and gravy and I even mooched a piece of crunchy French toast from Ry.  It was sooo good.  Then we went to the BrewFest and Saturday market with Travis and Sarah and the boys. Sarah and I took the boys to Saturday Market while the (big) boys were at the BrewFest.  We had a great time.  The boys had snow cones, then played in the fountain for a little bit.  It was so hot it was a pleasure to cool my feet off in the water for awhile.  It was 95 degrees, so we were zapped by the time we got done this afternoon.  Jason and I came home and crashed for a couple of hours.

Then tonight we had another fabulous dinner w/ Patti and Ken!  Beef tenderloin, with fresh peas (from the garden)

 with bacon, swiss chard w/ onions and cannelini beans, and marinated cucumber and tomato salad.  I'm only going into so much detail because I don't think I've ever had such healthy food and enjoyed it so much.  Usually when I like something that much I feel guilty about it! :)  Not this time, I went back for more and didn't think a thing of it.  :)  Jason also made some peach ice cream with the Sweet Sue peaches they brought me from Dallas.  That was delicious too!

Hope you're having a great weekend!  

Stubborn Streak

It defies all conventional wisdom, but I planted some new seeds today anyway.

 It's just so late in the season to start something,  but I was just itching to plant the green beans I've had since last year!  I guess I just figure I like small fresh green beans anyway, so they should have enough time to at least produce some beans even if they're small.  I also planted some of my dahlia tubers that my friend Sarah gave me.  I was determined that they should at least have a chance to sprout this year, even if they don't bloom this season.  My peas, that I put in late in the season, are doing really well! I harvested some this weekend and they're really sweet and crisp.  I love fresh peas!

That's why I called this post stubborn streak.  I'm just too stubborn to give up on the garden this year.  And I'm glad I haven't.  It's looking really good.  I have a lot of weeds of course, but I'm keeping those at bay as much as possible. I'm also happy to report that my tomatoes are recovering from the rainy spring and they're growing nicely.

Our potatoes are doing marvelously too!  Check them out.  I had to hill them again this weekend and I can hardly hill them high enough!

 

Now we're going to be gone for several weekends, so I'll have to rely on my trusty friend Rachel and my weekday evenings to keep things under control.
Other than gardening this weekend, we enjoyed a visit with our friends Jim and Brenda from Missouri and Rene' who now lives here in Portland and her boyfriend Nick.  We all had a great time checking out Farmer's Market and Portland Saturday Market.

Hope you had a great weekend too!

Weekend Away

So, we got away for the weekend... and went to Roseburg, OR, with Jason's cousin and her family for Graffiti Days.  It's a huge "cruise in" with hundreds of cars on display.  In the evening they all cruise around the downtown area.  It's great!   We had a great time, although it was 100 degrees while we were at the car show, so we escaped to the shade often!  This is one version of my favorite car, a '57 Chevy Nomad (I'd prefer the Belair edition though).  It's beautiful, the perfect color!

Jason's aunt and uncle live on the Umpqua river, so Sunday morning we walked/hiked down to the river and took a few pictures.  It was beautiful, and so peaceful to hear the water flowing all the time.

On the way home, we convinced the guys to stop by a couple of lavender farms as the 2010 Oregon Lavender Festival was in full swing.  This farm was just outside Springfield.  It wasn't very big, but they had some nice things.  I bought some soap, lip balm and some lavender short bread cookies.

We stopped for lunch at The Wagon Yard BBQ just outside of Springfield.  It was really good!  It's a hole in the wall little restaurant in the middle of nowhere, but they had GREAT food!

This little lavender farm was beautiful!  The whole setup was amazing.   

I didn't get pictures of all of it, but the little sale barn they had was really pretty.  The wood shown here was from the old barn that they demolished. They did a beautiful job with everything.  I would love to have some lavender plants.  I'm hoping to plant some this fall.  We'll see how that goes. :)

Someday I'll have a cute little shop like this.  In the meantime... I dream!

On another note, the garden is doing well and the tomatoes have recovered from being nearly drowned by the tons of rain we received until the end of June.  Things are really looking up!

Hope you're having a great week!  

Happy 4th of July - Independence Day!

Ok, I'm going to take liberties with the word independence and hopefully you'll indulge me...

Jason and I had a great Independence Day weekend.  Independence from responsibility, as we took the goats to their new "forever home"  with Ross and Julie. (More on this in a moment)... independence from the nasty "lean to" on the back of Kelly's house and independence from having to cook, as our friends Jeff and Karen had us over for dinner and fireworks.  :)

So, about the goats.  I hope this isn't too sad for you, I know I posted pictures of them from time to time.

 But I had to be honest with myself.  We really didn't have shelter for them where they needed to be... in the back pasture.  So, we were feeding them twice a day, which is really not the healthiest thing for them.  And it was a lot of work, with no benefit.  They need roughage and constant access to it at that.  So, my friend Emily's Mom and Step-dad took them.  They were happy to have them and Harold and Maude took to eating the weeds as they were supposed to right away!  Ross built a nice little shelter for them and I hear they're doing well.  :)

Also on our list this weekend was taking down the lean to on Kelly's house.  Dad called and offered to come up and help Monday so we took him up on it.

It was the most disgusting thing ever... rotting insulation and boards.

The skunk aroma that wafted out of the boards every so often, was stifling.  I have to think that Kelly's house is going to smell so much better, just with that simple change!

Anyway, here's to a clean slate!  Hope you've had a great week!

Better Late than Never???

Finally there is something noteworthy in our garden!  They're not ready to harvest yet, but our "Laxton's Progress" peas are doing well.  I'm hoping the heat wave forecast next week doesn't wipe them out.  Do you think I'd be laughed out of town if I put out an umbrella for my peas?  

Also of note are our strawberries!

  

Although they are definitely crowded in their little planter box, they are growing rapidly and have yielded some large beautiful berries. 

 I'm sorry to say, however, that they don't have the same impressive sweetness that they might if we had had the sunny June we can usually count on.  Oh well, we'll take what we can get.  Jason is planning to make homemade strawberry ice cream for his parents' visit tomorrow.  Can't wait!

My other little treasure of the garden is my "Mock Orange" shrub.  It has the most beautiful fragrance.  I wish I put a scratch and sniff spot on the blog so you could enjoy it.  It's just amazingly sweet and fresh.  I wish I had ten of them in the garden.

\

I hope you and yours had a wonderful 4th of July.  God Bless America!