The Tree

It's been five years since we last visited the tree, and yesterday, we had a great family day trip there.

The last time we visited the tree was the summer before we met Gyunay.  It's still the best tree we've ever seen.  It's still so much fun that we spent a lot of time there.

We also visited the fort, but I'll post about that tomorrow.  The tree deserves its own post.

Fall in the Garden

Since it was so dry the last few months, the chickens have not been happy with staying in the third chicken yard, since the normal amount of greenery is mostly brown.  They've been escaping to my garden a lot.  Normally, our first frost hits around next weekend, so that is usually the end of the tomatoes for me.  Since the chickens kept escaping and munching on the green tomatoes, I finally picked most of the green tomatoes from the arch garden and let the chickens have the run of the yard.  They are very happy.  I have a peach basket full of tomatoes.  I hope at least some of them ripen.

Panther and I sat out in the yard for a long time yesterday afternoon, watching the chickens.  He likes to stretch out his claws over me, but he never claws me.  He's pretty fond of me.

Most of the green beans are done.  I've got a cushaw growing, and a couple more pumpkins.  I don't know if I'll get to harvest them or not, since they aren't near ripe.  It all depends on the weather.  I've gotten a lot of carrots lately, and we have more growing.  Fresh carrots are the best; their flavor is amazingly beyond anything you can get at the grocery.

My latest project...

Nathaniel and the teens helped me drag logs to the front yard yesterday for my latest project.  I have been making plans for a sort of cottage garden out front.  It's going to be a work in progress for quite a while...

This is the "before" picture.  We did have a big tree in the middle of the front, but Nathaniel cut it down for me a few weeks ago.  It was dying.  Afterwards, I noticed how much sun I can get here, and I started getting excited, so I added some logs:

Then the guys helped me, and now I have a full row of logs and brush.

We will be covering the logs with dirt (more huglekultur!)  The whole front yard will be a "sort of" cottage garden, with lots of flowers and food plants.  I'm very excited to get it started now in the fall, so in the spring, it may look halfway decent in parts.  It's a long-term project, and I still haven't made all of the decisions, but I'm starting anyway.  The bulbs need to be planted now if I want some flowers there in the spring.

Also, here is Gyunay in the pajamas I recently made for him:

He loves them.  They are so soft.  Elijah asked why I made him a prisoner outfit, but hey, he does look cute.

Book Review - Unscripted by Davis Bunn

  I read Unscripted fairly quickly.  Anyone interested in how movies are made might be interested in this story, as the details of the film industry are prominent.  For me, the main characters weren't fully fleshed out.  I like the idea of a redemptive tale, but this story seemed to rush the changes for all of the characters, to the point that it didn't seem very believable.  The details of movie-making were believable and interesting, but they seemed to take center stage at the expense of the characters.  This is an okay book, but it could have been more with more character development.  It reads more like a Hallmark movie: pleasant, but without enough real-life depth.  I actually think it would make a better movie than book, and that is an unusual comment for me, because I prefer books to movies.

I received this book from the publisher, Revell, for the purpose of writing a review, but all opinions are my own.

Update: I forgot to add that I really hated the way the author had so many sentence fragments throughout the book!

September Harvest Totals

It's still hot and dry here.  It still feels like the middle of August, with temperatures reaching over 90 most days.  I am looking forward to fall...

It has been a great year for tomatoes here, though.  And several other things have done well, including green beans.  Here are the harvest totals for September:

Arugula - 2 cups
Beans, crescent - 4.3 lbs
Beans, dragon tongue - 2.9 lbs
Cantaloupes - 3 (total 7.1 lbs)
Carrots - 45
Cucumbers - 2
Eggs - 84
Lettuce/bok choy - 1c
Peppers, Bulgarian sweet - 3
Pumpkins - Long Island Cheese - 3 (one weighed 9.94 lbs, the other two were too heavy for my 20lb                      kitchen scale to handle!)
Radish - 1
Sweet Potatoes - 9.6 lbs
Tomatillos - 4.8 lbs
Tomatoes - Total - 64.3 lbs
       Black Beauty - 2.7 lbs
       Black Krim - 4.4 lbs
       Carbon - 13 oz
       Emmy - 5 lbs
       Golden Jubilee -4.2 lbs
       Jennifer's - 20.7 lbs
       Mortgage Lifter - 11.5 lbs
       Roma - 7 lbs
       St. Pierre - 8 lbs
Watermelon, sugar baby - 1 (1.9 lbs)

Also, we had basil, dill, sage, oregano, cherry tomatoes, mint, and cilantro. 

Right now in the garden, I still have tomatoes, tomatillos, and green beans.  My cushaw plant is growing, and I hope to harvest at least one cushaw before frost.  The two peanut plants look healthy.  I have a few peas growing, and lots of carrots.  There are still some Bulgarian peppers ripening.  There is fresh arugula and some lettuce and bok choy coming up, and most of the herbs are still available.  We should keep getting at least some produce until frost. 

Fall?

In the mornings and evenings, it is finally starting to feel like fall.  We've been taking advantage of the good weather by having some school outside.  Gyunay set up a makeshift desk on the deck:

Lydia prefers to work on the shed roof (with cats):

It's nice for me, too, because I can check on them easily while working in the garden.  I still have green beans to harvest about every other day.  We are still getting tomatoes, although no where near as many as just a couple of weeks ago.  The chickens keep flying out of their yard and munching on the tomatoes, so that doesn't help, either.  I harvested the fourth Long Island Cheese pumpkin yesterday, and I think I've dug up all of the sweet potatoes.  I'm working on turning some of the front yard into a cottage garden of sorts, so that will take quite a bit of work.  I've been waiting for nicer weather, and it is finally here.  It still gets over 80 in the afternoon, but the mornings and evenings are so pleasant, and we've had a nice breeze most of the time.  Fall is teasing that it may come.  I do hope we get some great fall weather.  It's so depressing when it goes straight from summer to winter.

5th Grade Book List

I've finally completed Lydia's book list for this school year.  Like last year, each month will have one book we read aloud and one book she reads independently.  Also like last year, she reads many more books than this on her own!  Unlike last year, I have not read the majority of these books. 

August
  Independent: Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad by Ann Petry
  Read-Aloud: By the Great Horn Spoon! by Sid Fleischman
September
  Independent: The Golden Goblet by Eloise Jarvis McGraw
  Read-Aloud: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
October
  Independent: Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes
  Read-Aloud: The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street by Karina Yan Glaser
Novemeber
  Independent: Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter
  Read-Aloud: The Rise and Fall of Mount Majestic by Jennifer Trafton
December
  Independent: Redwall by Brian Jacques
  Read-Aloud: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
January
  Independent: Heidi by Johanna Spyri
  Read-Aloud: Bird in a Box by Andrea Davis Pinkney
February
  Independent: Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George
  Read-Aloud: On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness by Andrew Peterson
March
  Independent: Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
  Read-Aloud: The Borrowed House by Hilda van Stockum
April
  Independent: A Band of Angels by Deborah Hopkinson
  Read-Aloud: The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald
May
  Independent: Ben and Me by Robert Lawson
  Read-Aloud: Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes

Both kids working side-by-side at the table (which almost never happens):

As you can see, Gyunay is not using his slant board any more.  It was his decision, and he's doing quite well without it.