Pickles

I want to start by saying, "I DONT EVEN LIKE PICKLES"!!! So when I saw hubby planting about 10 plants of the dumb things, I was like "I hope you will be picking those!". Of course I knew that answer to that. I would be picking them. And getting stung on the hand while doing so (if you've never seen a pickle plant, they are VERY fruitfull and VERY full of blossoms and bees no matter what time of day).

Luckily he is like a housewife when it comes to making pickles and strawberry jam (but not when it comes to cleaning!) so he did the canning and taught me to can them so when he was out of town I would have to pickle 13 quarts of them. GAH! Our fridge doesnt even have room for milk anymore. We will be sneaking a dozen cans or so into my mom's fridge pronto.

Oh the joys of marriage and putting up with his gazillion pickles.

Blog Name

I thought I would dedicated a post to why I named my blog what I did. You see, all my pictures so far make it look like I live in the country. BUT I DONT!! I live within 10 miles of THREE WALMARTS!! Yes 3. One north, one east, and one south but all within 10 miles I swear.


What is ironic is one basically sits right beside the land which was the farm where my grandma grew up. But anyways. Back in the 1950's when my grandparents bought their farm in this township (one south of where they grew up) to "move away from it all," this township was nothing but farms. Well the suburbs did their creeping as all suburbs do and now I feel like I am part of a farming family in the middle of the 'burbs. I mean our family still farms, we butcher all our own pork and beef, but if I went to school and told my students that, there would be no-one in my classroom who could relate. They are the children of doctors and lawyers and well to do families that barely even understand anything but tennis and abercrombie.

So that's my story. I still live on a street with dairy cows and corn fields, but it doesn't even take driving half a mile to see that this isn't the same community my parents were raised in!!!

Flowers and Cows

I love where I live because all I have to do is go out my front door and the cows come running. They are curious about anyone working outside. I took this pic and liked how it turned out.

The Patch

We've been growing giant pumpkins competitively since 2002. First we were boyfriend / girlfriend so 10 miles separated our patches and we competed against each other. When we got married, we started growing at the same location but in different patches. Well to keep life simple this year with a big vacation on the calendar and all, we decided to share and only grow 7 plants. Share patches / plants / caring for them, etc.

WHAT WAS I THINKING ?!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our growing philosophies can't be any different and pruning / weeding / burying just turned into a time when Nick would yell at me that I was doing everything wrong. So that sharing thing lasted about 2 monthes. I officially have the south 3 plants and he has the north 4 now. I have better soil. He has better genetics. Life is much calmer!! We'll see how this turns out!!!

Trip

The Pacific Northwest!!!!

I was very blessed to have gotten to travel to another "pre-kids" location this summer. We wanted to make sure to travel to a few places before starting to have kids and this was the last major one on this list. We had already done Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, and Alaska. Next biggie: Oregon / Washington. Let's just say the trip was heavenly!! What beauty. I always say I want to move somewhere with mountains, but in realty, I know I could never live in a different county than my family!! haha. Ok you got me. I could never live on another street than my family!! (Yes I still live on the street I've lived on since birth). We saw 1727 miles of the Pacific Northwest and I took probably about the same number of pictures. Pictured above is my hubby hiking near Mt. Rainier.

Sunsets

I always look forward to the fall because of the cooling temps, giant pumpkins, beautiful leaves, and glorious sunsets / cloud formations. Not that you can't see good sunsets at other times of the year, but there is nothing like the fall.

Well, I am here to say these last few weeks of SUMMER (!!) have had the best sunsets and cloud formations EVER!! I am in awe almost every night. I look forward to running out of the house with my camera. Look at what I've captured.


P.S. I don't think I'll ever be able to move away from my house because I will no longer have this red barn as the backdrop to every weather photo I take. LOL.

Double rainbow. Yay. I like how you can see the first rainbow IN FRONT of the trees!!

My favorite so far:

First blog entry

Hi. I like clouds. And farms. And ponds. And I looooove weather. All kinds of weather.

This is my first blog entry EVER. A few monthes ago someone asked me if I blogged or read people's blogs. Nope. Never. Then I linked on from facebook to a blog of an aquintance from HS. I linked to someone else. To someone else. Added it to my favorites, then did another. And I was hooked. Now it's summer break and I am bored so I want my own. It was bound to happen. My favorite hobbies for the summer are growing pumpkins and wishing I had airconditioning. Now blogging.