Triumverate

Stanleeeeeeeyyyyyy.....get over here!!!

I saw you over there billing and cooing with Ruth
You're history, boy!

 

I'm leaving you for Steve

He's fluffier any way

Irish Twins

If you see my next younger brother today, wish him a very happy birthday. I will try to give him a call later.....

He's the one with music flowing from him like a spring, or a well filled with magic. We  love to listen to him play and sing.

He used to relish this short time each year when he and I are the same age. I wonder....nah....it's probably not nearly as much fun any more as it was back when we were ten.

Anyhow, have a happy, Michael. We love you dearly. Maybe you could come up to camp this year.......

Rain without End Amen

Wildlife of the battlefield. An ebony jewelwing??

Yeah, no hay is gonna get made any time soon. The boss worked on the boy's tractor all day yesterday trying to figure out why it won't start. Batteries seem fine, ground wires ditto, terminals all cleaned and tightened, and many other reasons for lack of spark examined. Oh well, at least it was a good day for the garden. *****Update: brand new batteries were toast. The company replaced them without charge.******

Got another bed of onions weeded out for what seems like the hundredth time and cleaned up the garlic patch...again. That will be ready for harvest real soon. Scapes have been scalped and frozen for winter's soups...tips of the big leaves are already turning brown a little bit.

At least most of the ground has been planted, which is kind of a sad statement for almost July. I still have one flat of tomatoes that could go in the dirt. Or Liz can sell them at a swap. It's such a gamble. If the blight holds off then it is well worth putting them in...lots of sauce can be made for winter. 

If the blight hits, then it's an awful waste of ground that could be planted to something more blight resistant.  Oh, well....it is what it is.

Called in the cutting instructions for the beef yesterday and the freezer is defrosted, clean, refrozen and ready. As are we. Been out of beef a very long time and if I don't see a sausage again for a while that will be just fine.

Thinking...if it doesn't rain the next hour or so..... I may fill some big pots and buckets with dirt and put some more herbs in them. Nothing like homegrown....

Meanwhile I just spotted an entire litter of baby bunnies in the beets.....

Devil's Den, looking at Little Roudtop

Bucket List

Meade's Headquarters

Nearly everybody has one even if they don't call it that.
For the boss a big one on his list was to get to Gettysburg. I know, I know.... Pennsylvania, even the southern part of the state, isn't all that far from here.

However, when there are cows to milk, old cars and trucks that are prone to fail and three better places to put every dollar that goes through your hands, such trips are honored more in talk than in action.

However, last Friday night around ten PM our boy called from the road....a road he had been driving since late afternoon in Washington DC. Traffic had stalled him here and stopped him there and he was going to be very, very late.

"Want to go to Gettysburg tomorrow?" he had his sister ask his dad. Affirmative if tentative. We had talked about doing this for our 30th anniversary, but talk was as far as we had gotten.

And then they hollered in to me...in the shower of course....did I want to go to?

Well of course I did. Although other wars have had my attention, what with reading Kenneth Roberts, Walter D. Edmonds, and WEB Griffin, the Civil War has long been the focus of much interest in my family.

Mom says I had three great grandfathers who fought in it. My paternal grandparents visited many a battlefield, as did my own folks.

Yeah, he climbed up inside the monument picture above.

And besides....road trip.....

And so we left the farm before six in the morning to return well after eleven at night. We saw all we could see in a day. Walking, then driving, after I petered out a bit. We climbed down Little Round Top and then back up, clambered over the Devil's Den. Found the monuments to the regiments of two of those great grandpas. Ate black raspberries.

Dodged poison ivy. Listened to reminiscing about 911 by strangers who met at the Pennsylvania monument, struck as we were by the atmosphere. Everybody talks about that because everybody feels it.

How could you not?

I thought all day of how it must have been for young farm boys who had to march and charge and fight over the broken, rocky ground. And 47.7% of the working population was made up of farmers in 1870, so there must have been a lot of them there.

A lot of New Yorkers too. So many monuments to NY regiments everywhere we looked.

We dodged a hurricane. Bill stopped by just as we climbed down from the Devil's Den and dumped a pile of Gulf Coast weather right on our heads. Some of these photos were taken by Alan who got out of the car in the rain so we wouldn't miss them.

It was all we could have dreamed of and yet so much more. I expected smaller...emptier...maybe a big hay field with a few fences. That is not how it is.

Thanks, guy, for a day we will remember for a very long time. I would surely go again someday.....

Irish Brigade monument, taken by Alan

29th Ohio, also by Alan

137th NY, by Alan

Sunday Stills....Multiple Flowers

For more Sunday Stills

Clovers and Vetches at home

Birdsfoot Trefoil and Clover

The significance of this and the one below is that they were taken at
the Gettysburg battlefield.

.....

Happy Father's Day

We grew up hearing the pipes quite often

I am grateful for mine and for all he taught me and to be able to visit or call and have him right there. (He's handsome too.)

And for my husband who turned out to be a pretty good dad as well.

Hope all you fathers have a fine day today and every day. Take care.

Suspended

It is as if we are suspended in a water droplet. We can see the world around us and it is lovely, even in the rain.

However, we can't escape the silken walls of water. Can't garden. Can't hay. It is raining so much the boss can't even get the driveway leveled off so it is not the grand canyon of the east.

Lots of grass out there. I stood at the kitchen sink looking up the hill to see if the bucks are around. Normally we have a doe and fawns hanging around the house, but this year there are two bucks, one large, one small. They are so tame that they came out of the machine shed the other day when the boss went up there after something. A lot of tracks suggest that they spend a bunch of time there.

Anyhow, through the drizzle I saw something out there, but it was just a greyish blur, not the bright russet of the deer or the stark black and white of the cows.

I was pretty sure it was a coyote, and after a quick run for the binoculars that was confirmed.

No wonder the kids' horse, Sunny, had been spooking and hawking around the yard. It was a BIG one! Looked more like a pale German Shepherd than a yote. Its head was almost pure pale tan to right down behind its ears. 

It hung around, right near the cows and the horse, for quite a while before it moseyed away in grass up to its shoulders.

We never lack for wild things....it's like we live in a national park or something only without the rangers.

Last week it was a fox on the lawn. I think I saw a weasel on my walk the other morning. A %$#&&*(^** chipmunk practically sat on my feet on the porch to drink from the tool carrier I keep the young mint plants in on the porch the other day. 

It has eaten all but one of my new hostas, some sunflower plants, and so much bird seed I simply quit feeding.

Dagnabbit.

Anyhow, it is wet, it has been wet, apparently it will be wet.

Yesterday I taught Peggy to say "water", which was pretty cool.

Liz suggest that her next word should be "ark".

Instead I taught her to say "chocolate." Then I sent the boss out to buy us some.

Father's Day

I have been so eager to tell about the Father's Day gifts I did for my dad and the boss, but I had to wait until I gave them to them, so they wouldn't read about them here first.

And yes, I kind of jumped the gun, but sometimes you gotta.

For my own dear dad, who taught me so much and instilled a lifelong love of learning, I made a salad garden.

We bought a huge plastic pot and filled it with nice potting soil. I buried a big handful of Epsom salts and then planted two good-sized tomatoes, one on each side, with a little trellis for them to grow on. Since I accidentally started somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 tomato seedlings and only about a dozen are in the ground so far.......that part wasn't exactly a big sacrifice.

Two sweet basils we started from seed were added, then we sowed the balance to lettuce mix and a few carrots.

Not exactly instant salad, but all things come to those who wait.

For the boss I sent for a subscription to Lancaster Farming, which is a great farm newspaper no matter where you live. His long term subscription was one of the many things that fell under the cost-cutting axe when things got bad in dairying. Fortuitously they sent us a sale flyer just in time for Dad's Day.....

A good newspaper subscription rewards us in so many ways. When Daisy has what one of my favorite authors, JA Jance, (who also has a little Dachsie), calls "deliberates" on the kitchen floor, newspaper comes to the rescue.

And it is handy when starting fires, which when you heat your house and your water with wood can be important. Especially this year, when we still don't have the big front doors opened because it has been so cool and wet. 

But first of course he gets to read it, especially the auction listings. The man loves him a good auction.

Hope they both have a wonderful Sunday.

A Little Damp around the Edges

Too wet to sow, too wet to mow.

Too wet to hoe, too wet to.....do much of anything outdoors.

Can't weed the peas or the beans. Can't really plant out any more tomatoes until the ground is less muddy.

Certainly can't make hay....

However, it is going to be sunny for a while today and full advantage will be taken.

I already showed optimism and put away most of the winter clothes. And found my favorite Hawaiian shirt and my other tan shorts, which were among the missing.

Yay! Here's hoping it will dry off enough to get some strawberries that aren't covered with sand and mud and make this year's jam before the season is over.

Have a good one. 

Salt Rising Bread

A family tradition going back as far as I can remember. When we were little my father's parents used to visit Hornell where they once lived and family remained. They would bring back a car full from a bakery there and share it with the families of their many children. (We have, sadly, lost a few of those fine people, but I gotta say...all us cousins have enjoyed the many benefits of a very fine set of aunts and uncles....real good folks.)

Now one of those cousins bakes it. That's right...she goes to all the trouble to take two days baking this naturally risen bread.

And then she shares it with the family. Yesterday she arrived at our doorstep after braving the horror of the badly washed out driveway......next time an Ark is built I am voting no mosquitoes....but that is another story.

Anyhow, a little toasting and a little strawberry jam and I was catapulted back to my childhood, willy-nilly.

In such a good way.

Thank you dear cousin for taking all this trouble and thinking to share with us. We are truly honored to be enjoying this amazing treat.

The Mulberry Shuttle

All birds will be Cedar Waxwings until further notice. Neat looking small bird sitting on the silver-green candles of the Blue Spruce?

Cedar Waxwing

Five small birds tumbling over and over one another like entertainers piling out of a clown car?

Cedar Waxwings.

At least thirty fluttering in every bush and shrub and tree?

Don't bother with the binoculars. 

They are all Cedar Waxwings. They show up about two weeks before the mulberry fruit appears and they are everywhere until fall...

They spend all day every day tugging at the half-ripe berries and devouring them.

Catbirds serve as conductors on the mulberry train. Their sleek, yet subtle uniforms and natty caps never looked mussed......but what about those flashy red under drawers?

Cardinals partake. Robins. Starlings. Baltimore Orioles.

Cedar Waxwings.

Birds that are supposed to be seed eaters, but sneak up there to tug away the berries. Gold Finches. House Finches. Purple Finches. Cedar Waxwings. Yellow Warblers are up to something over there. They claim they are just hunting bugs but I have my suspicions. 

And Cedar Waxwings.

There is never a dull moment out on the sitting porch or up in the bird window, but that's okay.....I enjoy the Mulberry Shuttle.

Flag Day

Because....America, you know.

Sunday Stills....Sunrises and Sunsets

Sunrise

It was a dark and stormy week, but we had a couple of pretty mornings and evenings .

And set

For more Sunday Stills.....

Never a Dull

This was soon all back together, but alas the magneto had a fail

Our boy took a quick trip home to see his dentist Friday. 

Tractor teamwork

Dentist early in the AM

For Great Grandma M

Tractor repair and trips to the parts store all day long.

Becky finished this really cool crochet needle case, which is much more impressive than it looks in this photo.

And at the end of a busy day he headed back....leaving us all sad and concerned for his trip...but all was calm and peaceful. Butter wouldn't melt in its mouth.

The boys of summer

Then, after the boys of summer stopped by for a visit while I was talking to him on the phone (hands free of course), all Hell broke loose.

Seriously. 

Tornado warnings screaming from the TV and an Amber Alert from my phone.

At first we just sat on the porch watching the clouds tangoing over the place. Then it started to feel ominous. I went up on the stair landing and watched to the west. It is the only place anywhere near the house where you can see the western sky.

Soon I was calling everyone up to see what I was seeing.

The consensus was that for the first time since we lived here that we should adjourn to the cellar, which we did.

The sky tantrum soon passed, leaving our phone out of order and a fairly large limb off the honey locust. However, much more damage was done in other areas than here. We were lucky.

It was actually worse than this, but we didn't hang around

I guess it wasn't a tornado, just cloud rotation, but it sure was exciting. I saw things in the cellar that I didn't even know were down there. Gigantic rocks built into the stone and limestone foundation. My little drawers of screws, which I put down there in hopes of someday having a workshop and bench for the boss and me to build things ...I had forgotten all about them. And Liz noticed how neatly the floor joists were cross braced...lots of cool architectural details....I don't go down there much because the stairs are treacherous.

However, I will force myself someday soon and get some pics. Meanwhile below are Liz and Peggy hanging out waiting for the storm to pass.....taken with the phone btw. Camera had to stay upstairs all alone.

Eventually all was calm. Alan made it to DC okay. It stormed all night, but I guess we slept through most of it.....today is all blue and white and fluffy.....but there is still that big limb to remove.