Wow - is it really the last week of June already?! This summer sure is going fast. How are you all doing on getting stuff done on your summer "to do" list? I am soooo far behind! The grape arbor is finally in the air; just needs the lattice put on the top. Pop thinks it needs some lattice on the bottom or maybe on the sides - there he goes, changing my mind again!! He got downright irate when I said maybe I ought to plant some clematis on it instead....

The weather has been really nice here this past week - cool evenings, in the 80's during the day, sunshine..... Dang - I hate to have to go snooze today!! Here's wishing you all beautiful weekend weather to enjoy!!

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2001

Answers

I just got a FSA! (Froggy Seal of Approval)

The plants around my artifical pond by the back door had filled in nicely, but no amphibs. It finally got warm enough, long enough to put in a hardy water lily. And Bingo. Here they are. Two leopard frogs and a toad. Hope you can hang around for a while, guys.

(:raig

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2001

Geez, Craig, if it's toads you want, I could send you a couple of dozen. Nice fat ones too.

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2001

That's really cool, Craig!

(ribbet! ribbet!)

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2001

Thanks anyway, Cass...

But I'll pass on your offer. Don't want to get a bad case of warts, ya know. :)

(:raig

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2001

Raining here today (ho hum, what's new? Actually, it's been very nice lately.) Mr. S. and I were out the door at 6 this morning and hit the trailhead for our hike today by 7. Had a glorious hike (like a two- hour stair-master workout) (similar back down again) up to a high lake nestled beside some sheer snow-flecked peaks. Beautiful! Didn't see too many people on the way down, and it started to rain just as we got back to the truck. Pays to get going early, eh? Home by a little after noon (oops, missed church again!)

Sugar Snap peas are ready to pick; so are strawberries. Spinach I is bolting, and Spinach II is pickable now. Corn is languishing. Beans are doing well!

I built a temporary shelter for the young rams yesterday. They demolished it by last night... LOL (I thought a more pyramidal structure would hold up better to their shenanigans, but NO-oh!) So, I may be out messing around in the rain to get something else rigged up. I'm attempting (apparently in vain) to provide them with a place to get out of the weather so their fleeces can stay dry enough to shear. Rain is more mist-like, so I'm not too concerned. Still... The ewes have it so nice, with their cozy barn and hay racks.

Yesterday (? or Friday?) I chopped (by hand, using pruning tools) the rest of the large blackberry canes that the goats won't touch. They have done a nice job of keeping the growth down, but the old stuff was still standing. I think I finished about a 1/3 of an acre and I am sore as all get-out! However, I can run sheep in that paddock since the grass is coming in nicely. I don't like getting brambles in the fleeces!

Anyway, rain... Well, at least the pond will fill back up! And Mr. S. got two sides of our house painted yesterday afternoon. Whew! ttyl.

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2001

Haven't been online much lately. Between running our auto repair business (for Uncle Sam) and keeping up with the garden, we're right out straight---as I'm sure you all are also! Weather has been excellent here, both for the garden and the weeds. Last week my Mom and Stepfather arrived from N.C. for their annual Maine "adventure". We filled them full of lobster, steamed clams and fresh caught salmon for four days! Then sent them on home with home canned goodies. En route, in Conneticut, my stepfather had a stroke. Thank goodness they were not driving at the time!! My Mom was a basket-case as she is totally dependant on him (she is diabetic with all the complications that go with it). Sooooo, we've spent the last few days in Brewster, N.Y. at a really nice hospital. They were wonderful there! Thankfully, he is almost fully recovered and on hs way home to N.C. Wonder if we fed him too many Maine goodies!!?? Lost four of my 2 wk. old turkey poults while I was gone. Heads were chewed right off...weasel maybe?? Did FINALLY get a chance to spend the night out on our boat. It was very peaceful...foggy, but peaceful! No phone, no T.V. no goats hollaring to be milked!! When things settle down (yeah, right!) hope to get started on our firewood. Need 8 cord to heat this house for the winter. Hubby and I are truly part of the "sandwich generation"!! Hope you all have a good week!!

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2001

Marcia,

Sure sounds like you have had a tough time of it. I hope you get more chances to relax.

MMMM....lobster sounds so good...one thing we don't have out here on the left coast!

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2001

Hey Sheepish...I've always heard that left-handed people are in their right minds. Is that the same for left coast people??!! Love coastal living....that's for sure!

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2001

Using that logic, Marcia...

The minds of us North Coast people must have gone South.

(:raig

-- Anonymous, June 25, 2001

Well,welcome home, Craig "Frogspit" M. (everyone who concedes to move south,at least in spirit anyway,gets to have a new cool,hick nickname)

Come on over and sit a spell here on the porch swing with all the other Gourdheads.... me and Cornbread and Pollywog (I decided I just didn't like polecat enough,something about it just didn't smell right),and Poke Salet Annie and Cindy Bob. Did I forget anyone? Why you just pass them green beans over here and we'll help snap em.

-- Anonymous, June 25, 2001

Craig...Well, my family STILL thinks we were "not in our right minds" to move further north from Mass. We just headed for the poorest state n N.E. Any place where I can smell that salt air is fine with me (even at low tide!:-) I just can't seem to understand why most of our family followed us here....we're all crazy!!!

-- Anonymous, June 25, 2001

The campout went great. We had about 1/2 hour of rain in the late afternoon but other than that the weather was fine. Even the roast corn turned out good. I got to wade around in a pretty stream for most of the afternoon. I had forgotten how many stars there really are in the sky, and there were so many fireflies in the trees it looked like flashbulbs at a rock concert!

The only downside to the trip was that the two other guys in our party snore! Mike snores loud enough to wake the dead, and Oz snores loud enough to annoy the living! We put their tents way on the other side of the campsite but they still kept me awake. Oh well, I guess it helped scare the critters away. :-)

When I got home I picked the last of the peas and the beets. The pole beans are really climbing, but no blossoms yet. I planted some Purple Peacock pole beans, I knew that the beans would be purple but I wasn't expecting the stems to be purple too. Some of the Early Cascade tomatoes that were blooming last week now have little baby tomatoes on them. The Amish Paste tomatoes haven't started blooming yet. It's finally gotten warm enough for the squash plant to take off. I had a couple of pictures left on the roll of film from this weekend so I took a couple of photos of the garden, I'll post them when they're deveolped.

-- Anonymous, June 25, 2001

Okay, fess up Sherri,

Where's the roast corn coming from in June?

(:raig

-- Anonymous, June 25, 2001

Well, let's see. The tomatoes are blooming like crazy and we even have some small green ones on the early girls. The pumpkin vines are blooming and growing like crazy! On the other hand my herb/butterfly garden is in stasis or something. Nothing is growing bigger there:( Went to the secondhand store this morning and found 5 great summer dresses all in my size! I'm learning to make hemp jewelry this week with my daughter. That's been fun! My sis in law is in town with her kids this week. That's been fun! We're going to make a day trip this week out to the Great Serpent Mound, Seip Mound, and then on to Chillicothe for the Tecumseh play. Oh Sherri,I got Panther in the sky. So far it's really good. How is it connected to the sight of the Hunter's Moon Feast? I read The Frontiersmen by Alan Eckert and really liked it too. Have you ever read it? It's too bad that we couldn't have all lived together peacefully. The Indian lifestyle made so much sense in so many ways. What a great week!! Writing it down for you guys made me realize that!!

-- Anonymous, June 25, 2001

Well, I was jealous of all the fun Polly was having, so today "I" am moving manure! I'm cleaning out the cow stall and paddocks. I let the 2 new jersey boys out this morning and they ran and kicked up a storm. We need a little rain for the garden, I'm carrying buckets again, but it looks beautiful. I think I'll get on the garage roof and take a pic of it and put it over on the pic site for you all to see. Will let ya know. All the flowers are wonderful.

-- Anonymous, June 25, 2001

The corn came from the store, the only thing I steal is firewood! :-) My garden consists of 2 4'x12' raised beds, so I don't have the space to grow corn.

Denise, I hope that I told you the right book. My dad borrowed all of my James Thom novels and liked them so much that he won't give them back, so I was going from memory. Is the book you're reading about Tecumseh and his brother the Prophet? I don't want to ruin the ending, but there's a huge 'battle' at what is now called Battle Ground, Indiana. The Hunters Moon Feast is held in Battle Ground. Prophetstown State Park is in the same area.

-- Anonymous, June 25, 2001

Between working lots, and computer problems, I haven't had much online time. If nothing else, when I'm on, I've tried to at least read the posts on BTS. The berries are doing great here. Been having raspberry smoothies for breakfast. And the blackberries (mostly wild) are just starting to come in good. I've canned the whole berries in the past; think I'll make jam this year. Well, yesterday we got started on cutting the cedar for our house-to-be. Jim cut them down, and I debarked them. I'm so excited we're actually started. We're having someone come out (this week or next) to pull up the stumps, then we'll move the topsoil and can start on the foundation. Yippee! With all the rain, the garden looks great. The beans are jumping. The milky spore doesn't seem to have had any effect on the Japanese beetles yet, so we're hand-picking morning and evening. Have a great week.

-- Anonymous, June 25, 2001

I'm melting....meeeelllllltttiiiinnngggg!!!! (Oh what a world, what a world...)

It is nearly 90 here today, it is supposed to get over 90 tomorrow...Agh! Yesterday I finished off one of the new beds, and put in about 14 kale starts, 3 chili peppers, 3 sweet peppers, brussel sprouts, and lots of marigolds and parsley, and even a few cosmos, just to pretty it up.

I was going to do the last of the early tomatoes today, but I have been lying in the house in front of the fan. Spent FOUR hours last night (at bedtime, of course) doing a guinea pig round-up. Somehow, the cage went over (I don't know if those little devils were having a 'popcorn' festival or what, just heard the crash!) and guinea pigs went everywhere. Fortunately, they didn't fall far, so no one was injured, but all were shaken up, and they all scattered and went into hiding (they go 'tharn' like rabbits do).

I found Zinger easily enough, she was hiding behind the curtains, but the kids, oh lord! They're so little, they can go EVERYWHERE, and then they don't come out. I thought they'd start calling, but they were silent as could be. It took me four hours chasing them out from under the sofa (and then under the computer stand, then the sideboard, then the bookcase, back to the sofa--). I got 'em all back in, shaken and stirred, and called it a night.

Bunny is being kept in the garage, where it is about 70 degrees. I'm sure that he would appreciate it if he knew how hot it was outside. To make amends, I gave him sliced carrots and a piece of banana. I'm gonna have to go out and hose down the horses tho in this heat...time that I did that!!! Maybe I will be planting tomatoes by the yard light tonight...

-- Anonymous, June 25, 2001

You all are having too much fun!!! I wanna come over and play! Find the guinea pigs, find the thrift shop dresses!! Oh my....sounds like heaven to me!

-- Anonymous, June 25, 2001

Hello Everybody!

Lauri-How do you make Rasberry smoothies? Yah, we are doing rasberrys now too, The strawberrys are almost done, didnt get too many of them this year.Boo Hoo, they are my favorite!

Picking Japanese Beetles as we pick raspberrys, the chickens love em! A couple of chickens follow me around as I pick and when I see one I hand it down to them and they gobble em up. I also carry around a mason jar, and take some to the other chickens. Just love to see them eat up those dumb beetles! I think that I have more fun picking beetles then I do berrys!

Denise-You go girl! four found dresses! My Jim wanted to go yardsailing this weekend and I found some goodies! Get this, 10 bottles of essential oil( some of them in Colbalt blue bottles!)for 5 dollors, make my day! Someone had been given them as a gift, had a book with them, all good quality, I gave em the smell test, lots that I can use, Tea TRee Oil, which goes on all Leas bites around here, where she has been biten ,I mean, Clary Sage,all kinds, I'm gonna have fun with those. Oh , and I found another old apron, so pretty and blue.

Well we got back from our little get away. Too soon! I didnt want to come home. Am I bad? I love my home, guess it was just so nice.

We went to Ashwood gardens .A daylily farm, the man there is so talented and kind. We walked and walked around his gardens untill in the heat, the daylilys all started to look the same. So we got the ones that first impressed us, two yellows, a soft red, and an allmost white. And then ,charming man that the owner is, he gave us a gift, one of the yellow frilly ones that I had admired. For you daylily lover's they are Ice Planet,Woodside Parfait, Atlanta Supreme, and Lines of Splendor.

Then we went to a stained glass artists studio which is in a huge old barn with stained glass windows, We found there, a nice round piece with a diamond in the middle, hanging in my kitchen now, love it.

We did our first try at a bed and breakfast, and ate at the fancy Howard House the first night.

Well we should have skipped that, because the next day is when all the magic happened, we drove the ridge top over to Blue Rock state park, we watched the skys as an awesome storm gathered, that wonderful storm chased the mugginess away and left us cool and clean! Just perfect for being in a camper cabin, Yep we camped out,made supper on our fire, we were camped beside the flow off of a little lake and dam, the water cascaded over the rocks all night long, and we were the lone swimmers on the misty lake in the morning, AWESome, AWESOMe, .

We looked up an old covered brige which Had a cool little waterfall beneath it, we waded in it's waters and were amazed at the beauty of the blue shale rock which it flowed upon.I wanted to stay right there for ever. But of course it was time to go home the next day, and it would be Friday and the camp would be filling up for the weekend and wouldn't stay so quiet.

So if you stop by to see me and I am emveloped by my thrid load of laundry and my second of dishes, well if there is a Fuzzy, not too focused look in my eyes, remember I am not really there, but I am really swimming in a cool misty lake in the foggy morning, or I am wading within the currents of a country stream, and my feet are walking upon soft blue shale, and moss.

Everybody have a GOOD Week! Tren

-- Anonymous, June 26, 2001

Cindy, I just finished looking at your website. With all those black and white animals, you should have called your place the Generic Ranch! That Dixie sure is a cutie, I really like the 'freckles' on her nose. I'm normally not much of a dog person but I make an exception for border collies.

-- Anonymous, June 27, 2001

Oh, the library is a good thing. Staying cool and getting to use the computer. The library is one of the ways I don't mind my tax dollars being spent. Still having keyboard problems, but at least I can read BTS. Trendle-I forgot to bring the book with me, but let's see if I can remember what's in the raspberry smoothies- 2c fruit 2c yogurt 1/3c orange juice concentrate (I want to try lemonade, too) honey to taste milk (I think 1c). Blend. I've also put in a banana. I like them; hope you do. Laurie

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2001

Thanks Sherri, since then I got a black and white Alpine doe baby. But my two new Border pups are red/white and blue/white. They're soooo pretty, I'll have to take some pics and do a new page.

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2001

Well, yesterday, I was considering killing my "new" dog. She bit through her leash and took off. She was temporarily tied to the garden fence, something I have been doing with her from day one. Fortunately, she hadn't gone far (and she's easy to spot, being white), and she came when I called her. I was able to tie the leash together well enough to get us back home safely. I was already in a bad mood because some jerk had stolen the bale of straw that I was using to block rabbits out from entering my garden. [really shocking bad words!]

Time to go to dog training, I guess. I've been reading a lot of stuff on the web in the last 24 hours. Actually, things are better already. I was giving her time (me too, really) to get acclimated, and not pushing anything on the training. Well, the free ride is over.

Today, she found a dead rabbit, but dropped it when I shrieked (literally) NO! I don't know what she'd have done if it was alive. But she did find a live baby bird, too young to be out of the nest, picked it up, and let go when I told her NO, so maybe she isn't as awful about animals as I thought. Found an interesting web page about introducing a dog to cats -- a big concern for me, since I have two of them. If you're interested, go to: Introducing Dogs & Cats

We really need rain. I can't remember when it last rained, but it's more than a week, and with temps in the mid-80's things are drying out. Hard to believe after all the mud we had just a little while ago. Supposedly we'll be getting some on Friday or thereabouts. We'll see! Debating going to a friend's house for the Rhythm and Booms show Saturday night (fireworks set to music, which is broadcast so everyone can listen on portable radios). It's a great show, but it takes hours to get out, and I'm not sure if the dog will be able to hear the fireworks and how she'll react. Of course, there will be more fireworks on the 4th from various places. I sure hate dealing with crowds though!

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2001

Cindy, there are lots of stories in Celtic mythology about white animals with red ears, they are magical otherworldly creatures. In Welsh mythology there is the Cwn Annwn (pronounced coon annoon) which is a pack of white dogs with red ears that belong to the lord of the underworld. They hunt damned souls through eternity. In Ireland, St. Brigit was supposed to have been raised by a white cow with red ears. (according to legend, St Brigit also had the magical ability to turn her bathwater into beer!)

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2001

Solid white with just red ears and no other red? I haven't heard that before. My friend has a Border that is white with red ears, but she has red splotches on her body too, but the body is basically white. I have heard about the red cow, but I will have to go read that again. Booger, the pup, has a red body with white collar and markings. That is strange about the beer!

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2001

Trendle- I forgot the vanilla 1 tsp (I use more), and the milk was supposed to be 2c. Of course, it's all negotiable anyway, but I thought I'd give you the original recipe correctly. Enjoy! Laurie

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2001

I have a ewe named Bridget... I'll toss her in the tub and see if we can save Mr. S. some brewing time! Think it'll work?

Oh...yeah,...nothing really saintly about this ewe, come to think of it. She likes to paw me from behind to get me to give her a scratch! Not comfy!

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2001

Lauri, thanks for the smoothies, they are great! TRen

-- Anonymous, July 01, 2001