Camping at Pi Pi Valley

We had a fun 1-night camp in Pi Pi (pronounced Pie Pie) Valley with another family from our Pray and Play group. It was so beautiful there. I didn't bring my camera to the water area to get pics but that was really pretty and the most fun.

Francesca really had fun gettin' dirty at her first camping trip...

A little dirt never killed anyone... right?

Beautiful trees everywhere

Bye Bye Pi Pi!

Garden Update

Here's some photos from our garden this week. The vertical gardening is going pretty well. I like how the veggies are kept off the dirt so they stay clean, mostly bug free, and are easily harvested.

Here is our pumpkin patch in the "triangle" garden area. I know I planted these too close together but I do every year. One year I will learn my lesson. maybe going back and reading my blog garden posts will help!

The cucumbers are the most abundant produce this year so far. These are the burp-less variety. I also have slicing cucumbers. One day this week I picked 9 cucumbers in one day. It seems about every 4 days or so I get a bunch.

Below is our mini-stand of corn with pole beans climbing the stalks. Jason read about this method in a book.

See the bean vine?

Black Beauty Eggplant. I made some eggplant parmesean last week for my first time.

Serrano chile peppers. These are the type of peppers Herdez uses, Jason's favorite jarred salsa. We just got a pressure cooker in the mail today so I will can our own version of Herdez.

Here was some sad news this week. A gopher got to my biggest watermelon plant. So sad... hopefully we smoked him out with a smoke bomb tossed in his tunnel. Here is a pic of the wilted plant. I thought perhaps the drip irrigation wasn't working properly in this square foot. But then I discovered the pile of dirt nearby and a hole.

Here's the watermelon that seemed to be doubling in size almost every day.

Some good melon news... the cantaloupe are doing great! Here are some fuzzy baby fruit...

Here's one quite a bit bigger...

And here's one almost ready for the picking! This is my first year with cantaloupe, watermelon, and cucumbers.

Fragrant sweet basil.

And lookey here... that is not a hose! I found this serpent this morning, just two feet away from me pulling weeds. Yikes! Any tips on how to deter snakes from a lush garden?

Look in the middle of this photo and you will see his slimy little head. Click on any photo to see it larger.

Fresca's Free

Here's some pics of Francesca crawling...

closer...

closer...

closer still...

gotcha mommy!

Bad News on the Farm

FOUR, count that... 4 of our teenage chickens disappeared. I don't know if it was dogs or hawks or raccoons or what. There was no evidence of foul play (carcasses or loose feathers). They just disappeared. What a bummer. So, we lost two Barred Rocks and our two fancy Cochins.

ohhhhh... another apron giveaway!

This lady makes some sweet vintage aprons and her blog is packed full of fun ideas and recipes, plus I love her blog name! I just made her My French Baguettes , last night and Jason thought they were store bought! Next recipe of hers I will try are her stuffed tomatoes.

Frisky Fresca

Lime-a-licious Giveaway!

This post is so yummy looking, my mouth is watering so much just as if I was eating one of those tart key lime cup cakes right now!

Miss Independence

Happy 4th of July!!!

To commemorate the day, Francesca has officially begun crawling and enjoying her new found independence on Independence Day!

Quote by Vincent

"Sometimes God makes some really cool things. Not pretty, but cool."

~ Vincent Isaiah Poteet

Cucumber tendril

U-Pick Blueberry Farm

Last week we met some friends at a local blueberry farm. Its a small operation but after a couple hours there, I had my fill of picking blueberries in the sun. I'm glad we went last week cuz this week has been in the 100's.

Zack and Vince with their friends.

Between the boys, baby, and I, we picked about 3.5 pounds...

plus a little here and there for snacking.

Cute little girls...

Our God-daughter and her big sister.

See, told you the baby picked some too!

Zachary and his best buddy having their blueberries weighed. I love that porch!