GARDEN

this year has been quite the year for our garden...early this spring and the start of summer we've had alot of rain and the garden looked like it...some days it was full of water and we thought that the seeds and plants were just going to float away...so we have been surprised that we are now beginning to reap the harvest from it...

we are enjoying cukes--zucchini--onions--radishes--lettuce--to name a few..

the corn is just beginning to make tassles and we hope in a week or so we will be able to pick some...i have even made some pickles this year and haven't in a few years due to the harvest of the cukes...our tomatoes have gotten the blight i think-- so the tomatoes will be few and far between...no canning of any of those not enough...oh well there is always the grocery store...tonight we will have fresh dug potatoes for the first time...no new peas to go with them thou...one thing i can remember as a kid  is new potatoes and fresh peas with a cream sauce that my mother would make to make you die for...mmmmm good...

the apples from our trees dot the lawn already it appears that we may have a good crop it they stay on the trees...haven't seen any deer under the trees eating them yet..but the rabbits are..

trying to get caught up on projects around the house before we take off for sept...home for a week or two then off in oct for 2 weeks..home then hunting season starts ...;leaving for florida before christmas as lisa and andy are moving there the end of this month...

lots of things going on here in upsatate ny...

 life is always good

LONG TIME

it has been some time since i have  put anything on our blog so it is kinda a rainy day so i thought it might be a good day to put something on the blog...

this spring we watched a pair of barn swallows make a nest on our back porch and lar has keep a picture record of them...when we would walk out the back door we even talked to them...the parents didn't like us so much and they would dive bomb us to drive us away so off we went to do what we were on the way to do...

it has been fun watching them from eggs to fledging ..that we never saw except we know when they did it...one morning i went out to hang clothes on the line and they were all 4 of them sitting on the edge of the nest..i told them it was time to jump and in the house i went to finish my coffee...about 1/2 hour later out went lar and they were gone...with lots of barn swallows flying around  the back yard...no mosquitoes...so they had left the nest...

life goes on in the country

FRIENDS

habitat friends are here from virginia and also from pa.a couple have been here in our driveway and the others are in the hickman's driveway...we  have all built in dade city and thought why not have a renuion in ithaca..so we have been busy seeing the sights of upstate ny for the last few days...

have toured the ithaca falls--cornell--ic--and the area around...made a trip to the curtiss museum which lar and i had  not been to the new one...which was a whole day of adventures...then on to bath and the national cementry where larry and mem had a friend buried this spring to visit the grave site...

we have checked out most of the state parks around they only one we  have hiked into as of yet has been taughannock falls which was an easy hike for me..not sure i want to do all the steps in the other parks...

yesterday off to corning we adventured to go the corning glass and also the rockwell museum...again lar and i had not been to the new part of corning glass so we found it most interesting of course we ran out of time to see it all and we were there early...the to lunch most of us had great reubens after lunch it was the rockwell museum and of course had to make a visit to the corning store...most of us bought something and lar even bought himself a new pie plate...

it has been a fun visit and we are even seeing things that have been on our list but don't have time nor do we take it when home...so this has been good for us...just marking things off our buckets lists...

we have had out our list to visit the new museums but hadn't gotten there now we have...

also this week i was discharged from PT but it is still recommended that i do exercises at home which i have been doing...

life is good and busy..

humnmer at one of the feeders

 mem finally made it to the falls

 walking across the bridge at the end of the hike

 the falls

 barn smallow and it;\'s nest on the back porch..it has 4 eggs

COUNTRY LIVING

yesterday while eating lunch lar shouts out look out the window and there was a mama wood duck and 6 babies sneaking across the back yard...as some might know our yard she was very close to the apple tree...we watched her for a wee bit and i said where's a camera when you need one..oh lar says right in front of you on the table..so he picks one up and opens the back door very slowly and quietly goes out on the porch and snaps a couple of pictures....

then a couple of weeks ago we had a mama turkey and a pheasant in the back yard at the same time checking each other out..then this week i was  working in the garden and heard a swish above my head only to look up to see the turkey coasting over the garden...landed on the other side and took a walk in into the woods...we think she must have a brood some where near by as we have seen hr often of course we have no idea where or even if we just think it...

so life in the country sure can be entertaining at times....

 then with a new app tyler helped us load on to the tablet we found out what this bird was that we found in the garden...an oven bird...the name of the app it called "merlin" you can find birds hear sounds etc and the best part is that is is FREE

MONDAY MORNING

yesterday at breakfast lar says to me can i take over  your kitchen??? so of course i ask why...he answers i "WANT TO MAKE A PIE" and it will be blueberry...first time he has ever ask to make a pie..i had other things i wanted to do so why not...i asked him does he want to use my pie crust recipe or find his own..he wanted to find one himself...so he did...i thought to myself i need to stay out of the kitchen and let him do this on his own..(oh it was hard not to say toooo much)...so off i went to dance with the vacuum cleaner--do my exercises--elevate my leg--etc...while he tended to making the pie...

so he had fun in the kitchen...he said he wanted to do something different than going to the barn to straighten it up..or go to the cellar to fix something he was sick of that so in the night he decided he wanted to make a pie..

so he did and it was/is good...now he can take over the pie making in our house

BUSY SPRING

 here it is almost July and i sure have not been very good about posting...oh there is lots of excuses but for the most part we have been busy..

first as some know i had knee replacement the end of april so that has taken up alot of my time going to dr's appt and physical therepy..

then May 1st it was spring turkey season and you know who was busy hunting..he was successful in filling 3 tags so now the freezer has some wild turkey (not in a bottle)..

got the garden in and lar came up with an idea of putting in some raised beds and they seem to be doing quite well...as a matter of fact we are eating green onions and today had some fresh lettuce on our sandwiches so that was  a treat...now we have a woodchuck that seems to want to get in the garden...it has eaten some of the leaves on a few plants but they look like they are going to recover time will tell...we have not had to water the garden other than first planting it as mother nature has taken care of that...but it has been wet enough that we have not been able to get in it to do much weeding..but not my favorite job anyway..

last week we had some habitat company...and it was good to see them since winter...enjoy dinner with a couple of habitat couples...

;also during that time we have had damaging rains and flooding in the area...funny haw it goes but for us at the house we had only 3/4 inches of rain but if you go a mile down the road they got over 4 inches...lots of roads washed out and even a railroad bridge...

the big project for us has been having a new roof put on ..we knew that we needed one for the last couple of years but of course kept putting it ...he would get up on the roof and think he patched up some trouble spots and we wouldn't have any leakage till it rain hard ahhahaha...last fall we checked with a company about making arrangements to have a new roof and was told call in the spring..so he did right when we returned back home only to be told that they were not taking on any more jobs ...so off to lowe's we went and made arrangements with them...finally they arrived in between rain storms to do the job this week..he three days we now have a new roof...lar was impressed with the work they did...a young crew all under the age of 25 we are sure...so now it can keep right on raining cause we have a new roof....

 on of the turkeys

waiting to finally go home

HOME

 we are finally home after 3 months on the road...we got out of town and january 3 and believe it or not we drove back in the driveway apr 3...so that is a total of 3 mths away...we had a good winter wetter than usuall but didn't hurt us to bad..we were n't able to ride our bikes as much as we would hve liked to but we did ride in alabama which was good...

visited lots of interesting places and got several junior ranger badges..visited with logts of family and friends along the way and even did some habitat buikding...one 2 week build in dade city and then while in foley alabama we found a local habitat that only works 3 days a week..so we gave them a day..they would like to be able to have a car-a-van build but the campgrounds in the area wokn't give them a break and they are thinking of building their own with maybe 10 spaces all this is in the thinking/developing stages..

we got back in time for easter and went to the sunrise service on cayuga lake..looked out our window easter morning and it was covered with some white stuff so we could see if the easter bunny was here..saw no traacks so i guess he missed us...church then off to my sister s for dinner...had a great time with family...

now it is back to the old grind again and the calendar is filling up with stuff to do...

it is good to be back and life goes on

life is good...god bless

easter morning and no easter bunny tracks can be seen

our famous falls in our area