The last couple weeks have been so busy. Harold and I have spent many hours doing garden and yard chores and preparing for a family visit. Both of my sons came with their children to visit. One son came on the train from Massachusetts and the other one from the Twin Cities. I enjoyed time with 4 of my 5 grandsons, and it had been several years since my sons were able to get together. I was also happy to meet my son Jerry's new girlfriend who also came to visit. I think the grandkids all enjoyed doing "grandma things" here on the farm, but the biggest draw was, of course, the new kittens! After the initial shock of all the kids, the cats settled down and were quite friendly and the 10 new kittens got plenty of handling and socializing.
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| My grandson Jeffrey is feeding the Mama cats leftover pancakes, eggs, and hash brown potatoes. My cats will eat anything! |
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| The kids enjoyed lining up some of the older kittens on the porch to play. |
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| Harold gave Jeffrey a ride on the 'big tractor', a real thrill for a young boy! |
We had more turtles come into the yard, too. In fact every day we had a couple of them digging in the garden or yard. Not only did the grandkids get a kick out of the turtles, but the cats are getting very curious, too! Here is one of my tomcats taking a risk by putting his nose close to a snapping turtle!
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| Better watch out, kitty! Those snapping turtles can bite! |
We also have a deer that comes into the yard every evening to eat grass and flowers. She is quite tame, so we talk to her and call her Clover.
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| Our tame deer that we call Clover likes to eat wild mustard flowers. They grow just outside the kitchen window. |
My sons enjoy cooking, and both of them claim to have found the "perfect pizza recipe". So one night we had a pizza bake-off competition! Jerry made his specialty and Kelly made his special recipe. Everyone got a chance to judge the final results. In the end, we all agreed that both pizzas were absolutely delicious and couldn't decide which was better! I like to cook and bake also, so I'm glad my sons took after me in that respect!
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| Kelly prepares the sausage balls for his pizza |
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| Jerry chops green pepper and mushroom for his pizza. |
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| The final results! Jerry's deep dish whole wheat crust green pepper and mushroom pizza is in the iron skillet. Kelly's thin crust Jalapeno, pepperoni and sausage pizza is in the pizza pan. Both boys made their own crust from scratch, and told me it was nice to work in Mom's kitchen with quality equipment and ingredients. These pizzas were very delicious! |
I haven't had a "cute kitten photo" for a while, so here goes:
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| Here are all the new kittens sleeping in a pile in their cat house. The little white long haired cutie out front was named Luna by Jerry's family. They would have taken her home if they had not come by train. |
After all the company left, Harold and I spent the next day or two working in the garden and greenhouse to get things back in shape after several days neglect. We had a few days of rain and cold, which did not help the weeding cause. But my flowers are beautiful this year. I tried my hand at growing double ruffled petunias. They almost look like carnations and are so pretty.
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| Look at this beautiful purple and white double ruffled petunia! They are very large, too, measuring a good 4 inches across. |
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| I also grew pink and white double ruffled petunias. Aren't they pretty? |
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| The greenhouse is full of everything now. The snow peas in the back are almost to the ceiling, the garlic is nearly ready to harvest, and lettuce is growing like crazy. |
Our summer has kicked into high gear now with heat and humidity and rains every other day, so garden work is multiplied a lot. We are also busy with the farmer's market, and our bees are working like crazy. The 2 acres of sweet clover we planted last year is in bloom and the bees are loving that! It promises to be a good honey year if all goes well.
