Wordless Wednesday

If you are wordless Wednesday left me know and I will post a link to you.

Ann on and on

Bringing home the bacon and Child labor AGAIN

Now that's the blacksmith is retired he continues to bring home the bacon.

Or in today's case. . . about 4 gallons of the most beautiful blackberries.

Ya gotta love this guy!

Once again we put the grandsons to use.

This time digging potatoes.

We harvested about 2 bushels of potatoes.

In the rest of the garden, the cucumbers are just setting on.


The cucumbers will look so beautiful hanging from their woven wire trellises.



The patty pan squashes have been blooming.
I love these squash and you never see them for sale in the stores around here.
Thinly sliced, dipped in beaten egg and flour and fried until golden brown.
Oh so good!



I captured this Hummingbird moth while walking through the garden.

Heirloom black cherry tomatoes from Flat Creek Farm.

10:00 PM 81 degrees

More beans

When it's 94.5 outside, this is what you do. You cook in the garage. This keeps all that steamy heat out of my kitchen. And heck, a little more steam outside, who knows the difference?

There's more where those came from.

The roma tomatoes are loaded. Thanks Nancy for telling me about this type.

Did I mention we also have this row of beans?

I just pulled out fabric to make an apron for my Australian quilter friend. She has a birthday in July. In all my stash did I have two packages of bias tape the same color? No. Shoot I hate going to town. Maybe I will do multi-colors!

Have a good week!

Monat Family Reunion on the River 2010 Iowa

All good things must come to an end. A huge bonfire was the closing ceremony on Saturday night.

You see we traveled to Lansing, Iowa last week for the 9th triannual Monat family reunion. We were fortunate to be able to take the two grandsons with us.

The drive up got a little scary when the national weather service had us under a severe storm watch. 70 MPH winds and quarter size hail was predicted. Luckily, we stayed about 4 miles ahead of the storm. The radio station we were listening to was very good about telling us what mile marker the storm was at.

Friday evening, we were treated to grilled brats, hot dogs and all the trimming at cousin Tony and his wife Gertie's house. A lot of eating, drinking and visiting took place. The rain did not put a damper on that!

On Saturday morning we all met on the riverfront for a 2 hour boat ride. (Insert the theme song from Gilligan's island here).

Captain Jack took us through the backwaters of the Mighty Mississippi River. The entire boat was filled with family members.

Some sat out front and enjoyed the sun.

This Captain Jack's boat. In his previous occupation he was a tug boat captain on the Mississippi. Now this is his life.

Before launching, some of the cousins took pictures of us, and we took pictures of them, taking pictures of us. Oh those crazy cousins!

Speaking of crazy cousins, here is Mike the realtor from Colorado, at the buffet table. Did I mention there was food? Even Jello jigglers!

Sisters Mandy and Callie finish, let me rephrase that, work on some embroidery work for the auction later in the evening. Cousin Amber looks on.

The blacksmith and grandsons sit back and enjoy the view. Cousin Larry is almost cut off on the left side.

Here you can see part of the route we took.

Later we drove up the side of a bluff to a beautiful park. Three hours of enjoyment, playing games and visiting. Oh, and a little liquid refreshment and food. Did I mention food again?

More visiting.

More games.

It was then time for the group pictures. Here we are with the grandsons.

These are the first cousins whose parents started this reunion 24 years ago.

Most of the group made it for this picture. Sorry Linda, Richard, and Larry that you missed the photo session.

At 5 PM we headed in to town to the Community Center for a catered meal. Did I mention more food?

Our host and hostess, Tony and Gertie give out awards before the auction. I got an award for being the quickest to respond to an email (a beach ball) . Imagine that? There were awards for the furthest traveled (a travel cup), the oldest family member (a box of prunes) , getting lost on the way (an Iowa map), and for having trouble with the law (an Iowa's drivers code book). Sorry Darlene.

And while the adults played, the kids watch movies on the portable DVD player.

Here's Mike again. Did I mention he works for ReMax? He was our auctioneer for the evening. Family members donate items, usually hand crafted or hand created. The funds raised help to off set the cost of the next reunion.

Two family members have passed since our last reunion. In their memory were small remembrance items for us to take. RIP Aunt Mary and Cousin Tom.

For the auction, Ted made his highly desired butterfly houses.

The blacksmith made a bottle opener, a steak turner, garden tools and a Fredrich cross. Altogether, they brought $190.00. There were also fireworks (Illegal in Iowa, but what the heck, we were leaving the next day), t-shirts, Aunt Mary's cookbooks and lighted wine bottles. Plus lots of wine and beer too.

The last item was the quilt that I made. I had the cousins, who attended the last reunion in Colorado in 2007, sign individual blocks at that reunion. I then set it together and hand quilted it. It went for $375. Thank you very much Tony and Gertie. You guys made me cry! In the end we made over $2100.

Thank you to all the cousins for your hard work in making the reunion a success. It was the food, the company, the auction, the family bonding and down right good time that made it so much fun.

Until next time in Show Me Missouri 2013!

10:52 PM 82 degrees.

Thought for the day!

I don't want to brag or make anybody jealous or anything, but I can still fit into the earrings I wore in high school.

Reap what you sow

Let me tell you how lucky I am.

First of all, the blacksmith does most all of the gardening.

When I came home from work Monday night,

he had all the beans picked, stemmed, cleaned and cut up.

All I did was wash the jars.

He loaded the canner, 3 times.

He cooked them outside to keep the heat out of the kitchen.

Did I tell you it was 90 degrees in the shade at 6PM?

What guy he is.

He's a keeper!

18 pints!

And here is Miss E playing with styrofoam peanuts while we were working in the kitchen.

What a cheap toy!

10 PM 91 degrees

Jeremy's first run

The son ran his first race on Saturday.

We were out of town, in fact out of state.

I wish we could have see him run.

Little E gives Daddy a drink of water. Gotta keep hydrated!

Jeremy took third in his age group.
Awesome for his first run ever!
We are so proud of you son!

June rains makes June flowers and more

We've had rain, rain, and more rain. The Missouri river has been above flood stage for weeks.

Now we are soaking in humidity. It doesn't do much for hair styles.

In the mean time it does grow fungus.

It grows bright red nasturtiums.

It grows beautiful wild raspberries that the blacksmith is kind enough to pick for me. Have you tried mixing wild raspberries with vanilla yogurt? Oh so good!

It grows more fungus.

And for today's tease the bees are still hanging around.

10:00 PM 84 degrees.

Child labor

We had the 3 grand kids all weekend. Their parents went on a float trip.

So when you have children . . . put them to work.


Look at these little pea pickers. Bless their little pea pickin' hearts.

The little one . . .well we put her to work cleaning out cabinets.

I am working on getting some things ready for an auction. If anyone can tell me anything about the following, please drop me a line.

Sunday evening 7:00 PM 84 degrees.