A Busy Weekend

My busy weekend started on Friday when Bean, Emmy & I headed to the Columbus Zoo.  It was our first trip of the year.  Despite the LARGE amount of school children on a field trip, it wasn’t that bad. 

We started in the aquarium…

Checking out the new gorilla…

It’s a baby!!

Checking out the orangutans…

The kangaroos were the 2nd favorite animal this time.  I taught Emmy the night before how the kangaroo hops.  Right after this picture, two of these took off to the other side of the exhibit.  She said, “They boing.”

Here’s the #1 animal so far of every trip….a “duck”.  Emmy still thinks anything with feathers larger than a bird is a duck.  Where we like to eat lunch there was a family of geese… “baby duck”, “mommy duck” and “daddy duck”.  Emmy was in heaven.  Anytime she’d spot a duck, goose or swan, she’d say, “I see ducks”.

This “duck” really wanted her lunch.

The baby elephant was asleep…I hope!

Still loving the polar bears.  Even though it was apparently time for a nap…they’re just so darn cute!

Checking out Brutus & Buckeye, the brown bear brothers.

The bobcat.  Emmy thought it looked like our cats… “meow”.

Finally, a decent bald eagle picture for Scott.

There was hardly anyone at the otters by the time we made it to their exhibit. I got some good pictures, but this is my favorite.

So that was Friday.  Saturday was spent at the garden (see the post below) and visiting with my brother and his wife in the evening. 

Sunday after church I went on an impromptu road trip with my Mom, little brother Nick & Bobby B.  At first, Mom was going to treat us to McD’s and eat it on their back deck.  But as we headed there, she was like, “KFC sounds good.”  So we headed towards Coshocton. We took the KFC to Lake Park for a picnic.   Afterwards, we walked around the Lake and then stopped for a Frosty on the way home.  We stopped at Emerson’s, too, for some flowers to plant.

The Garden Is In

Between the rain and work schedules and other obligations we finally were able to get the garden in last Saturday.  It was so hot!  But I am so glad that we were able to get everything done.

We were lucky to have Bobby B.’s help for an hour or so.  Together we hoed and planted six rows of corn.  We do have some more to plant in about another week to stagger our produce a bit.  When the first of the corn is done, we are going to try to plant some winter squash…we kind of ran out of room.



In the mean time, Scott was tilling the other side of the garden for our mass planting.

Guess what we’ll be picking in a few weeks?

Here’s our beautiful strawberry patch.  You wouldn’t believe all the runners it is producing already this year!  The best thing is we have a mix of June bearing (which only produce once in June) and Ever bearing (which will produce throughout the summer).  I can’t wait to taste these!!

Rhett & Scott getting the net down to protect our berries from the birds.

After this, we planted and sowed and planted and planted some more and sowed again.  We put in watermelon, cantaloupe, spaghetti squash, butternut squash, green beans, cucumbers, pumpkins, eggplant, bell peppers, banana peppers, hot peppers, sweet potatoes, corn, radishes, carrots and tomatoes.

Here’s a look at the potatoes and some of the peas.

The Garden Is Growing

Unfortunately, so was the weeds.  I spent about 5 hours Saturday & Sunday weeding.  Then Monday, Scott, Emmy & I went down to the garden and spent all day weeding and tilling in preparation of next week’s big planting.  Emmy had a blast playing in the dirt, dancing in the yard and taking a walk with Aunt Chris, who was visiting from Omaha.

The good news is that we have plants growing!  I’m absolutely thrilled the peas grew this year.
      
The onions & potatoes are also growing.
      
And the best news: the strawberries are blooming & even have some fruit!!
 
Bean’s asparagus has taken off.  Should be yummy next year!

Emmy & Aunt Chris:

Ready for more planting:

Awww:

Garden 2011

Last year we planted our first garden. Grandpa Jim was nice enough to lend us some of his yard.  In the fall, he was nice enough to enlarge the space. We started working in the garden on Sunday.  Of course, we weren’t able to do it last week when it was nice & warm outside.  We did some tilling.  Nick & I helped pick up sticks in Grandpa Jim’s yard while we waited to start planting.  We planted 4 rows of peas, 2 rows of potatoes, a row of onions and 12 asparagus plants.  Last year our peas didn’t grow (I think we put them in too late).  We are trying potatoes and onions for the first time.  The asparagus is a first as well and was a request from Bean.  I think we are done until the middle of May now.  We have corn, watermelon, pumpkin, cantaloupe, bush green beans, carrots, cucumbers and radishes to plant. We’ll buy tomato, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce and pepper plants. Maybe I’ll try some sweet potatoes again.  Last year we had some “friends” eat the sweet potato, broccoli, cauliflower & lettuce plants.  We are putting up a little fence/barrier this year.  There should also be a strawberry harvest this year. If not, I’m going to be mad!  We planted like 75 strawberry plants last year and they are supposed to bear fruit this year.  Anyone have any tips for planting pumpkin seeds?  Ours did not grow last year.  I’m hoping that maybe I just waited too long to get them in the ground.  If you’ve got any gardening tips, let me hear them!

My first time running a tiller:

Nick helping with some old logs:

Jim helping with tilling:

 

Fresh tilled earth…yum:

Scott hoeing us a row for onions:

Nick & I planting onions:

 

 

Jim getting potatoes ready to plant & Scott planting peas:

 

The strawberry patch is just on the other side of Jim:

Putting in the potatoes:

The asparagus:

 

Nick throwing down some fertilizer: