Our Annual Trip to the Zoo

Monday we went to the nearby children's zoo. It was a nearly perfect day. Sunny, but not too hot. All the animals were moving around. We saw the wolf walking, the otters wrestling, the penguins swimming and amazingly, we finally saw the bobcat. He's always been hiding somewhere when we have come before. The only disappointment is that the train wasn't working.

Deb and Aaron in the Dinosaur Dig area.

Milking a "cow" at the new farmyard exhibit.

There were still a lot of butterflies in the butterfly house.

Of course, we had to feed the sheep.

Deb looking at the new pig.

Since the train wasn't working, we took extra rides on the carousel.

The Last Blueberries

On Tuesday we went blueberry picking at our favorite blueberry farm. Due to the cooler weather we've had, this will be the last day for picking. We got out there right at 8 am. The berries were big and full and there were lots of them.

We picked a little over 20 pounds. This is only one of the two containers I filled with blueberries.

And for other garden news, we harvested one of our tromboncino squashs and fried it up for supper. It is actually cooler to look at than to eat. I'm going to try it in a stir fry and see if we like it any better.

Church swim party

Last Sunday, we went to a church member's home for a last summer party of the year. The weather was warm enough for the children to swim, but not quite warm enough for the adults. The children really liked the pool.

The diving board was a great hit. The boys were astonished when we told them that back when we were children, all pools had diving boards. They were mad that the diving boards had been taken out.

A rainy Saturday (and other items)

We had a rainy Saturday morning today. So my dh decided to work on the model airplanes with the boys. They were thrilled. They finally finished painting parts today and began to start to put the planes together.


We took this picture yesterday of a banana spider on our corn plants.

My refrigerator is full of pickles and other vegetables so I'm now looking at another use for the cucumbers. I'm glad that the vines are slowing down otherwise I don't know what I would do. I made some sweet pickle relish yesterday with the last big batch of them. It turned out very good.

And today (Saturday), I picked a new record for cantelope - 11! My dh made a cantamid or a pryalope (whichever you prefer).

Nathan pulled me outside to show me the leftover raindrops on the grapes.

An Old Fashioned (sort of) Ice Cream Social

We went Monday night to an Old Fashioned Ice Cream Social put on by our local Historical Society. My dh was on a trip and I wanted to do something fun with the children. We've become members of the Historical Society last year and have thoroughly enjoyed their programs. I say that it was a kind of Old Fashioned Social because it had to be held indoors. We had the first real rain in months - 1.1" of rain in a slow rain all day. So the Social was held indoors. They had a cake walk, face painting (again - not really old fashioned - I never heard of Laura Ingalls getting her face painted), and several games for the children. Below is Nathan pitching balls at milk jugs. Both Aaron and he got 4 out of the 5 jugs.

Deb is throwing a bean bag at the bean bag toss.

Stephen displaying his prize for the bean bag toss. It is a hilarious looking rubber tiger finger puppet.

And of course, there was the free ice cream with all the toppings you could want or your mother would allow. It wasn't your everyday Walmart ice cream either. It was ice cream from our favorite local ice cream shop in town. An ice cream shop so good that even I would eat their Blue Moon ice cream (which Deb has by the way). We listened to a ducimer band while we ate our ice cream.

Garden update - tomatoes and grapes

The tomato wave is beginning. This is my first batch of tomatoes waiting to be peeled.

They turned out very nicely. But this is only the beginning. I have tons of green tomatoes just waiting to turn red.

Today I noticed that the tops of two of my tomato plants have been completely stripped of leaves. I looked and looked and finally found this monster of a caterpillar munching away. Here is a picture of the condemmed prisoner awaiting my dh's return from a business trip.

I've since then noticed four more plants with the top leaves munched, but I haven't found any more caterpillars. They are very hard to see. I'm sure I will find them when I go to pick tomatoes. I hope I don't ever touch one. I know that God made insects and made them to have useful roles in life. I just wonder why He made them so ugly.

Now to a beautiful picture. Here are our grapes, ripe and ready to eat. We've been eating some of them already. The insides are sweet but the skins are not. You have to eat them in one bite otherwise you end up with just the skin in your mouth and that doesn't taste good by itself. They should make great grape jelly when I get around to that!

We're going to the Fair!

We went on our annual outing to the County Fair last night. We got the traditional fair treat - cotton candy (the true pink kind, not that grape flavored stuff).

We watched the free animal show. This year it was a parrot show. It was pretty fun and we sat right up close this year.

We went through the Merchant Barns and the Animal Barns and the 4H building. Then on to the Ferris Wheel! Last year we went on the Ferris Wheel during the day and this year the children wanted to go at night.

Aaron waiting in line, gazing up at the Ferris Wheel.

A happy Stephen, during the ride.

More park pictures

It was a gorgeous day on Thursday, one of our park days. We enjoyed every minute of it.

Light sabers are an essential toy for the park.

Fair Results!

We did pretty well at the Fair this year. Deb got first with the pickling cucumbers and Aaron got first with the carrots. Granted that we were the only entries in those categories, but the children were pleased anyway.

Stephen got third with his summer squash.

Unfortunately our potatoes and tomatoes didn't place. But we know better what the judges seem to be looking for - big vegetables.

And our eggs got third place in the open category. Nathan and Stephen were very pleased.

And what did we do with those prize winning eggs? Fried them up, of course!

20th Wedding Anniversary

Yesterday was our 20th anniversary. My dh did it up right. This is what I found in my dresser drawer in the morning!

I have always admired a friend of mine's bracelet and now he gave me the same kind. Then later in the day, these arrived at the house.

Here we are ready to go out to our nice dinner. We had a great time together. When we got home, we looked at a video that my uncle had made us. It was of the rehearsal dinner and the picture taking and the reception afterwards. It was a little blurry at times (camcorders were newer 20 years ago) but it was fun seeing all the relatives and friends. My, everyone looked better 20 years ago! Younger and thinner! It was a little bittersweet too. We saw some relatives and friends who have since died. The funniest thing was that video ended with all my relatives laying around my parents' living room looking tired. One of our newly married friends related a story about how his wife's father offered them $10,000 to elope and that she didn't take it, wanting the church wedding. He said, "Why she didn't take it, I'll never know," and then the video ended.

Woods and Meteors

Sunday evening, we went for a walk in the woods. We haven't had much rain here and we wanted to see if the river was flowing through our woods. Turns out that it wasn't. So of course the boys wanted to walk on the relatively dry riverbed.


Deb did too, but having a dress on, it didn't work out. So she stood on a dry spot on the "ocean side" of our bridge (Nathan coined that term years ago).

This picture is for Mike. I laid on the bridge and looked up to see this. The tree isn't turning colors yet. The golden color is from the setting sun hitting the tops of the trees.

When we came back, I was able to finally get Mavis's only trick on camera. She stands up to receive a pat on the head.

It was very clear Sunday night and we invited some town friends to come out and see the meteor showers (the Perseids). Two of our friends took us up on it and we all laid out in the front yard and watched the stars. The meteor shower was great! Nathan saw 30 in an hour and 1/2. We saw some amazing ones also. One had such a wide trail behind it that it look as if it was on fire. And one of the last ones we saw before heading to bed was so big and bright that the trail left behind glowed in the sky for about 10 seconds. Amazing!