Visits & Reed's Perspective

We are coming down from a pretty busy weekend! B's dad came to visit for a few days. It was his first time to meet Blossom, and a perfect age for meeting her - she's all smiles! He got a pretty good tour of Asheville, from the Black Mountain Sourwood Festival and the Folk Art Center, to the Lazoom Tourbus and The WNC Nature Center. I'm tired just thinking about it!

Bobby's dad grabbed a shot of us, too:

Reed was the camera man at the Nature Center, and took about 50 shots and some videos! I'll just share a few of those with you - he worked hard!
Thanks to his homeschool "Fungi" class, Reed easily identified all these shelf mushrooms!

The man behind the camera (and his new haircut!)

On Saturday, my beautiful Sister-in-law in Charlotte had her Baby Blessing for her about-to-be-born son! I am so excited to get another cute nephew! While we were in Charlotte, my nephew handed down his Exersaucer to Blossom (who loves it - thanks guys!). He was a little unsure to see it go, but it will return soon :)
Now, back to home life - projects need to be done, muffins need to be baked, and the Summer seems to be slipping through my fingers too fast! I'm NOT one to complain about the crazy heat waves this Summer. For me, that's more excuses to go to local swimming holes in the river, eat ice cream and play in the garden! Yet the weather has started to cool down, and public school's are in full swing. boo. I'll try to savor this last bit of Summer!

Around the Homestead

Bear with me - lots of photos tonight... Summer is just one of those times when the gardens and the kids seem to be doing something new every minute!

First, some fun thrift store finds. The kids cookbook is from 1971, has adorable drawings throughout, and super easy instructions, so adult help really isn't too necessary. I also like that is was written before the times of "super careful parenting". I mean it's nice and all to think a kid will help make dinner with only the use of a plastic butter knife... but in reality, kids want to actually help, and they're very capable, if we can just let go of our own fears and trust 'em :) This book has kids browning meat on the stove, slicing and dicing veggies, and of course making plenty of 1970's desserts to go with it (jello salad, anyone?). And as a side note, a recipe should NOT be called "Never Fail Fudge" because when the fudge turns out a gooey (but delicious) mess, and never becomes firm, it's mighty easy to get a bit angry at the title of the recipe.

This is our bean patch. Pretty sad state of affairs. Stupid Mexican bean beetles are trying to get the better of me, but I'll win in the end, you'll see. I didn't catch on to the beetles' diabolical plot until pretty late in the game. However, a lot of the plants are sending out new leaves, so I think we may get a second round of harvest there. These are my fave Jacob's Cattle beans. They look all dead and brown there on the plant, but look how cool inside:
The first sunflower opened up today ~
My new patio garden bed is being over-taken by something from the compost. Not sure what, and it's fine with me, as there's not much planted there anyhow. Always a fun mystery, for sure!

Clay's black-skinned watermelon plants are Rocking Out!! They have completely covered the trellis he built for them:

B's dad is coming to visit soon, which means he's looking around restlessly at all the unfinished projects he'd like to have done before the visit! Including the skate ramp tarping system. That was destroyed in the big hail storm earlier this Summer, and with much grumbling, the project was put on a back burner for a while. Hopefully it will be resurrected soon!

Reed was determined to pick all the "pricklies" off of the cucumbers. These are Edmonson cucumbers from Seed Savers. Oh so yummy!

Figs!!

Hardy Arctic Kiwi plant climbing right up the porch
...

And a few cute baby photos to send you off with. At four month old, little B-girl has started to figure out what her hands can do...

Grab everything!!

This little girl is so full of love, I feel blessed every day to be around her spirit!

So, that's what we've been up to this weekend, hope your days are just as lovely~

Cherokee

We had a great Adventure Day in the town of Cherokee, last week. It's a beautiful hour-long drive from Asheville. We stayed really busy this trip, and decided next time to just hang out :) This time, we played at Islands Park, their new town skatepark, went to the Oconaluftee Cherokee Village, and saw the Unto These Hills outdoor drama at night, before heading home. Everything was really nice, can't wait to go back! And thank goodness to groupon for enabling us to buy half-off tickets for the living history village and the outdoor drama!!

A war re-enactment at Oconaluftee Village:
Reed and one of the Cherokee bears (they were all over town!)
Relaxing time at the river!
Blossom cuteness!
A rare photographed smile from Clay :)
Love to all!

Firefly

This weekend we went on our first camping trip as a family! Blossom's first ever :) There is a primitive skills gathering out in the woods near Hendersonville, NC each Summer called Firefly Gathering. There were tons of classes offered and so many each of us wanted to take. As it turned out, we went to some we wanted and helped the boys in some of theirs and decided next year to go for a longer time (it's offered for 4 days) so we can get more class time in.

Blossom at the campsite, with the neighbor campers' kitten coming for a visit:
Slingshot and other Projectiles class:
Swimming time!
Clay and his buddy on their way to Snakes class:
He knows how to make the girl smile :)

Reed and his pal making tulip poplar whistles:
Soaking the poplar:
Blossom had a great time on her first camp-out! Not surprisingly, lots of friendly folks wanted to hold her during classes so I could get more involved - which was great - we also went to classes on critter processing, mead-making, bamboo cup making and home orchards. We had a great time with the drummers and dancers at night around the campfire as well!

Thank you Firefly folks! We'll be happy to see you again next Summer!

Last Day of Quiet

Last day before the boys get home! I should probably have super productive plans, but I can't seem to find them :) Just enjoying the quiet...
My sweet little angel baby:



Bobby finished up the front steps - so beautiful!

Ew!

Yet another reason to grow your own food! eat locally produced food! eat minimally processed food!
LINK


This article has a list at the end of common companies that are using wood pulp as fillers in their foods - saying that it provides more fiber (although humans cannot digest wood pulp, so it doesn't provide us any fiber).

The more I find out about what big corporations think is okay to sneak in our food, the more disgusted I become! It takes a little more effort, sure, but grow a garden! Support your local farmers market. Make your own foods.


A shot of the garden on this rainy Summer morning - Clay's watermelon are starting to creep up the trellis he made!

New Threads!

The boys are out of town for 10 days! Each Summer they spend about a week with their Grandparents in Memphis, and usually I take a vacation somewhere. Well, this year finds me not totally kid-free this week :) I'm actually being boring and really trying to cram in some work this week! We are certainly having fun times, too - tried a mom & baby yoga class this morning, and did a little crafting yesterday. Here's Blossom's new cute dress I made from a T-shirt:


Pretty cute, right? I love it! It was super easy to sew, I pretty much copied one of her dresses that I really like, and it took about 1 hour to complete :)

Much love all!