Second Garden

This year we decided to do a second garden at Chad's parent's house since they have more room.  We only planted corn and pie pumpkins at their house.  Last year we tried to do pumpkins at our house and it just didn't work because they just didn't have enough space to really spread out.  I'm really hoping we get some pumpkins this year!  I don't know how the corn will do, but we just decided to try it and see what happens.  Here are some pictures from our second garden:

Here are the pumpkin plants.

Here is the corn. 

Here is our ONE ear of corn!

Random Summer Pictures

Here are some pictures of our garden - it's really going strong now!

A close up of a squash flower with bees inside.

More bees and squash flowers.

Chad & Braden out on Becca & Jason's boat.

Becca with Katie in her immobilizing life vest.

Animal Pictures

Recently we've come across a few unique animals and were able to get pictures of them - some are from my cell phone so they are not the best quality.

I ate lunch at Panera one day and fed bread to some of the birds in the outside area.  Here is a picture I took with my phone of some of the birds waiting for me to give them more bread!

On our way to the lake with our friends Becca & Jason we saw a rafter of wild turkeys on the side of the road!  We turned around and went back to get some pictures of them.

 

When I was riding my bike in our neighborhood I saw this box turtle hanging out at the edge of the street.  I took this one with my cell phone too and if I got too close he started to go inside his shell.

This was definitely the coolest thing - we went out to eat and saw a swarm of bees flying around the parking lot.  When we came out they seemed to be gone, but they were actually all swarmed on a tree branch.  We went in and told the restaurant manager, so hopefully they will call a beekeeper to come take the bees.

Cat Pictures

Here are some new cat pictures:

 Sandy found a new spot to hide in.

Sandy doing a yoga DVD with me!

Roxy and Sandy hanging out in the chair together.

Braden's 3rd Birthday

Our friends Becca & Jason's son Braden turned 3 in July.  We really enjoy hanging out with their family and I really appreciate that they include us in both of their children's birthdays and celebrations.  Here are a few pictures from Braden's party:

Ruby's 85th Birthday Party

Chad's grandmother Ruby turned 85 this July and Chad's mom decided to have a surprise party for her at a restaurant.  Almost 60 people showed up!  I think she suspected something, but was still very surprised at how many people wanted to celebrate with her.  At the restaurant our group took up four huge tables!  Here are a few pictures from her party:

The High Cost of Cheap Food

A few weeks ago I was driving down Hwy 74 in Monroe, which I rarely ever do anymore.  I saw this truck and another one full of poor chickens on their way to the processing plant just outside Monroe.  I happened to have my camera with me, so when I was stopped at a red light I snapped this picture.  To me this perfectly illustrates the true cost of cheap food.  I think most people would like to ignore things like this and just pretend that this is not how most meat animals are treated.  But, this is the reality and if more people could see stuff like this then maybe they would realize that the "higher" prices of organic/free-range food is actually pretty fair.  I LOVE the fact that Chad and I have visisted the farm where we mainly buy our meat and eggs and we have seen the animals and the conditions for ourselves.  Farmers who are really trying to do things right don't mind people stopping by to visit - the farm we visited even said we could come back on chicken processing day if we wanted to see how they kill and process their meat chickens - try getting a tour of Tyson or Perdue's processing plants and see if anyone will let the general public in.  Like Joel Salatin and Michael Pollan say in Food Inc. and Omnivore's Dilemma cheap food isn't really cheap - it's just that the animals and farmers pay the true cost.

4th of July

The 4th of July has become one of my favorite holidays.  We've established a few traditions over the last few years and Harrisburg really does a great job with the festivities in the park, fireworks for 2 nights, and the parade.  One of our traditions is meeting some friends at the parade and this year we were able to ride our bikes to the parade from our house and that made for a MUCH quicker trip!  We also were able to walk to the park both nights from our friends Becca and Jason's new house, which meant we didn't have to find a parking spot and fight all the traffic after the fireworks.  We had cookouts both nights before the fireworks and just had a very nice long weekend.  Here are some pictures of everything we did:

First Night of Fireworks

4th of July Parade

Second Night of Fireworks

Bird refuge

One day when a thunderstorm blew in we noticed that a few birds were taking shelter in the tree in front of our house.  They were hanging on to the branches while the wind blew.  We also had a few come eat off the feeder during the storm - I guess the tree gave enough shelter to keep them out of the rain while they ate. 

You have to look closely - there are 3 birds in the tree.

This guy looks a little wet, but the food stayed dry during the storm.

2011 Garden Starting to Grow

Even though we got a pretty late start with our garden this year, things are starting to really grow.  We recently got our first few squash and zucchini too.  Here are a few pictures of our garden starting to take off...

Here are all the beds after Chad added the lattices.

A close up of one of the squash flowers.

Our okra bed - it gets the least sun, but we grew okra there last year.

We also have a bed at Chad's parents' house -

we're only growing corn and pie pumpkins there.