Amber's Birthday

June 26th was Amber's 23rd birthday! And as you can tell from the pictures, Amber's son, Henry, loves birthdays!!! A fun time was had by all and as usual Henry rather stole the show! What joy Henry has brought into Brad and Amber's lives, and we absolutely love being his grandparents! Happy Birthday Amber!!

How Does My Garden Grow!

Wow!! What a difference a month makes!!! The vegetable gardens are in full gear, the fruit trees are loaded with fruit, and the grape vines have many clusters of teeny, tiny, grapes.

As I work in the gardens I never cease to be amazed at the speed the plants grow, and when we begin to harvest I am awed, and sometimes overwhelmed, by the abundance of food produced in the gardens.

While working in the gardens a favorite hymn often comes to mind, it is: We Plough the Fields and Scatter.

We plough the fields and scatter

The good seed on the land,

But it is fed and watered

By God's almighty hand:
He sends the snow in winter,

The warmth to swell the grain,

The breezes and the sunshine,

And soft refreshing rain.

Black-capped Chickadee

The other morning, as I was sitting at the computer reading the newspaper online, I heard a thunk, then a clunk, and realized that a bird must have hit the window. I went to the patio door and lying on the deck, chin on the ground, tail feathers in the air, was an unconcious little bird. After a couple of minutes the bird regained conciousness and sat up, it proceeded to sit on the deck without moving for almost thirty minutes, poor little thing! Because the bird was so knocked for a loop I was able to sit my camera on the deck about a foot away from him and take the picture above. I am assuming that the little bird is okay as it did leave.
If you click on the picture to make it larger you will be able to fully appreciate the delicate feather patterns.

Sweet Sixteen

Today was Emily's sixteenth birthday! We had an enjoyable time together eating pizza and salad, and then the birthday cake of Emily's choice - homemade chocolate chip cheesecake with oreo cookie crust - YUMMO DELICIOSO!!

Strawberry Jam

This morning Dave and I headed out to our strawberry patch for a second picking of strawberries. To date we have picked 14 pounds of strawberries! Not bad for a little strawberry patch.

This afternoon daughter Amber and grandson Henry stopped by for a visit. While Henry took a nap in the chair with Grandpa, Amber and I made a couple of batches of strawberry jam - what rewarding work!

Peonies

I don't know about you, but I love peonies, they are a rather old fashioned garden standard, and they know how to put on a show. Unfortunately after blooming a storm will roll in and the heavy rain and wind will leave the poor peonie looking a little worse for wear. Last week we had very wet weather, my peonies were on the cusp of blooming but they waited until the weather improved on Friday and then bloomed. We had beautiful weather all through the weekend, so enjoyed the peonie show, but all good things come to an end and the past two days we have had a lot of rain and the top heavy flowers are now bowed to the ground, but still look radiant. A word of warning regarding peonies - although lovely to look at they are loaded with ants, if you bring them into the house you will bring along a lot of six legged visitors as well!

Disgustingly Rich Brownies

We love these brownies!!!!

In a large saucepan melt 1 cup of butter or margarine then remove pan from heat, add 2 cups of sugar and 3/4 of a cup of cocoa, stir well. Add 4 eggs and 1 teaspoon of vanilla, stir well. Add 1 and 1/4 cups of flour and 1/4 teaspoon of salt, stir well. Place mixture into a greased 9 x 9 pan and then bake in a 350 oven for 45 minutes - ENJOY