Five and a half Hours Later

Remember the pictures in my post "Trying to Catch Up" of the trim work that I was wanting to get done? Well, I went outside at 2pm yesterday and finished up just before 7:30pm. I even swept the driveway. See my local transportation sitting on the drive?...
This curb really didn't take all that long to get done...
...but this one is a lot longer that what it looks in this picture and was REALLY overgrown further down. Now all I have to do is make sure and keep it trimmed so it doesn't get that bad again.
Below is what my garden often looks like after I've picked through it in the morning. I pull the bad leaves off and toss them out of the garden. Later I rake them into a pile out by the alley.

Here's the problem I'm having with the squash plants. The tops of the leaves will start looking mottled and then develop a powdery substance...
...which eventually shows up on the bottom of the leaves also. These are what I pick and toss out of the garden.
I also remove any dying foliage from the ground. Yesterday I picked up this dead leaf and found it covered with dead squash bugs. Something killed them off, but I've not a clue as to what.
I found this cute little bug interesting, a ladybug with no spots!

Golden Wheat AHSGR August 9, 2008 "Picnic"

This meeting used to be held at a park and originally included grilling hamburgers. In more recent years we had gone to buying fried chicken, but it with our aging membership, and fewer children attending to play in the park, it was decided to save funds and hold the "picnic" at our usual meeting location. As usual, our meeting began with prayer and food.
This is also a wonderful social time...
Our featured speaker and new member told her Breit family history with familiar names and places interjected now and then with humor.

On display at the meeting was a very special quilt that a long-time member had made when she was but a girl of 13, sometime between 1933-35. The pattern came from a design in Capper's Weekly.
Here's the Kansas block....
Then we had a short business meeting for the Election of Officers since we won't be having an October meeting. Our president report that at convention our chapter was awarded a ribbon in recognition of our 30th year as a chapter.
A part of every convention are stories written by members about their German from Russia heritage. The society gathers these stories and publishes them with a new publication arriving during the convention. Stories written by several of our chapter members are in this issue.
Certificates are also issued to members that win the storytelling contest.

After receiving her certificate she shared with us a Family Circus cartoon that appeared in the paper just the day before...
...so you can read it...
Another member that attended the convention then gave us highlights...
We finished up the program with German music and song which, with a recent addition to our membership, we plan on having more of.
Visit AHSGR to learn more about the Germans from Russia society.

Trying to Catch Up

Is it even possible? I've had so much going on lately, I think some things I'll just have to let go of. The weather has been absolutely wonderful for growing things, including the grass and weeds. I haven't needed to water my garden in several weeks and it's actually been too much water for watermelon.
I spend an hour and a half or two hours in the garden every morning. Half of that time is spent hunting down bad bugs and their eggs and squashing or torching them. I've also had a problem with a white powdery substance, especially on the zucchini plants. I thin out the worst ones and so far it's all still producing. The tomatoes are slowly starting to ripen. I don't remember the variety of the ones below, but they are your typical round red type...
...then there's the Roma which are taking their dear sweet time to ripen...

...and finally the Lemon Boy which are yellow. These are the first yellow tomatoes I've ever had and they have a wonderful flavor.
My cantaloupe are looking good, but the first one I picked was mushy and didn't have a very good flavor. I think it was due to too much water. Hopefully the next one will be better.
Just look at all the blooms on the spaghetti squash!
Here's the garden from the road view. Looking at the okra plants I'm reminded of a garden that I had years ago. It was two to three times larger than this one, putting it closer to the road. In this garden I planted the okra along the edge closest to the road...
...are you familiar with okra plants? The first leaves that come out are rather broad, nothing special. But...

...the later leaves thin out and are divided into five finger-like parts. I cannot tell you how many "city slickers" slowed down real slow as they drove past my garden, straining to see what it was that I was growing. I was even ASKED if I was growing marijuana in my garden. Uh, yea, I'm going to grow an illegal plant out for the world to see.
Here's what I've been busy with the past couple of days, yard work. Mowing and trimming, it had gotten quite unruly what with all the rain and the fact that my trimmer had bit the dust. Well, I've got a new trimmer and I back in business....
I got the walkway and driveway done, now all I need to do is the curb south...
...and north in front of the house.
When I get the yard work done I should be able to have time to try to catch everyone up with all I've been doing; AHSGR meeting, sister visiting, niece's birthday/jewelry party, etc....

So, STAY TUNED for MORE!

That's the Breaks continues...

Yesterday I drove the dil with the grandson to see an orthopedic doctor about leg...
Friday, the little guy will have surgery to reinforce the bone. After two weeks the stitches are suppose to come out and then a cast might be put on. He's got at least a couple months of healing a head of him. His mom was going to get him into football this year, but it looks like that's going to have to wait till next year. Well, that's the breaks.

That's the Breaks

It's been 9 days since my last post, seems like I've been constantly on the run lately, one thing after another. I'm trying to get things caught up so I can post to my blog about what's going on, then something else happens. Here's the latest....
My dil came by earlier in the day to say that the grandson had injured himself at school, his foot/ankle may be broken. She was advised to put ice on it. When my son came home from work later they decided to take him on in to the emergency room and these are the x-rays from that visit.
He has a cyst on his bone and this made it weak and caused the break. Looking this up online I find it to be fairly common in growing children, more so in boys. They put a splint on it tonight and gave him some pain meds. Tomorrow they'll have another doctor look at it and probably get a cast put on it.

Everyday I've been getting up and spending at least 2 hours in the garden. I start out hunting pest/bugs and their eggs. I clean up and thin the leaves on the squash plants, tossing out lower leaves that are laying on the ground and broken and dying leaves. Then I harvest. I've had a nice supply of cucumber, zucchini, spaghetti squash, okra, lettuce and arugula. My tomatoes are just starting to turn red and the cantaloupe are starting to look nice. The watermelon are still small and I found one split open, probably from all the moisture we've been having. After gardening then it's on to my regular chores and lately my schedule has appointments in Wichita.

Getting really tired, so I'll go ahead and post this. Hopefully it won't be 9 days before I post again.

Lovell Family Reunion 2008 - Page 1

We arrived at our lodging, Savannah Suites, in Arvada Colorado around 1:30 pm on Friday, August 1. We decided to get a bite to eat, so my sil and I took a walk down the street to a Walgreen to pick up a few things, then across the street from the suites to Popeye's for some chicken and sides. We stopped at a convenience store for some cold drinks on the way back. When checking out the facilities at the suites we ran into a couple other cousins that said there were others at the hosts home so we decided to drive over and visit.
When we got there, everyone had gone. We figured they had gone out to eat because of the hour we arrived.
Below is a shot looking down the end of their road.
Early on Saturday morning we all gathered at the hosts home and caravaned out into the mountains...

...through tunnels...
...to Silver Plume.
Here we got together to ride on a narrow gauge railroad called the Georgetown Loop.
I took many, many pictures, so I've tried to cut it down to just a few...
The train took turns that allowed a view of the cars ahead. You can see in the shot below a picture of one of the cousins taking a picture of us taking pictures of her. I haven't gotten a copy of her picture yet.

Just a shot of mountains ahead.
Here we're approaching a bridge that we're getting ready to cross.
This bridge is a recreation of the actual bridge that was originally here.
Can you see the town in the valley? I think this is Silver Plume.
This one is looking down from the bridge. See the track? A road runs under the bridge also.

This shot is looking back at the bridge as we descend down the side of the mountain.
Here we come back around and travel under the bridge.
Below the engine is put on the the other end of the train and we head back to the Silver Plume depot.
Back over the bridge.
Here's another shot of the town. Can you see it?

On the trip back our tickets get punched.
I took lots of pictures of the streams that we crossed, here's just one of them.
If you click on this one, you can see the engine better. One of the engineers is standing on a step on the side. I'm afraid I'd get vertigo standing out over the edge of the mountain like that.
Here's another cloud shot. What does it look like to you? (cont. below picture)
My friend watching the house while we were gone said the same thing I did initially. It looks like a butterfly. But when I looked at it again, it looks like a "W", which is the friends first initial.

Below is an engine pulling another engine from the engine house to move it to the other side of the engine house.

One of the passenger cars setting on a side track.
Some of the pretty little flowers growing around the depot.
Walking down a side track in front of the depot I came to the end of the track and a pile of rail spikes. Growing next to the rusty spikes were these pretty little daisies.
And the engineer waves goodbye as he heads out with another load of tourists to see the mountains and maybe visit the silver mine.
More Lovell Reunion to come...