Shirking responsibility

All work and no play makes mommy boring!  I had a great weekend just "being".  I was reminded of what an awesome hubby and kids I have, that's kind of sad that I have to be reminded, I need to do more of this stuff!

Friday's bike ride at our local state park...

it was in the mid-90's but the whole trail was heavily shaded, which made it quite nice.

all 3 of my boys :)

I'm so proud of Finnegan, he biked 6 miles that day!

This is the only photo of me :)

brothers...

Saturday was a BBQ for one of the guys who is leaving hubby's work.  Finn got to play ladderball for the first time.

There was one of our illustrious snakes here a few moments before, but I didn't get a photo of it, darn!  Hate those things...

This particular park is only 30 minutes south of us, yet look what is hardy here!  These will not make it through the winter in my yard but apparently are fine just 30 miles away.

On the way home from the BBQ we stopped in at the little "out in the sticks" place (Southern Fried Studio & Shop) I told you about a few weeks ago who have been having all the problems with the permitting and codes division as well as vandal problems.  Just look at this - we pulled in and the place was packed! It's wonderful that social networking can have such a positive effect on our local small businesses, it gives me hope - I was afraid those sites would lead to people no longer needing or wanting face to face contact.  

The kids ate ice cream cones while hubby and I had their fantastic milkshakes on the front porch of the store.  Any business with a front porch is a big "thumbs up" in our book!

Today started out with a harvest, the 1st Brandywine tomato and 1st eggplant of the year -

Time for the annual "it's as big as my head, mom!" photo.

Then off to a birthday party for Finn's friend.  Here's an action shot of Finn :)

and another...

Finn on the left with his friends enjoying a hot dog and lemonade.

I think the lab was standard issue with the pool :)

Egads it was hot this weekend, but was made much more tolerable by having fun instead of sweating and itching in the bean and tomato vines.  Hope you all had a great weekend, now I have to get back in a "work" groove and get ready to do something productive tomorrow!

I'll leave you with a video of Swamp Bugs making their music, they were unbelievably loud Friday evening!

Memorial Day Weekend - Day 3!

The Staycation is going well!  Beach today...

If the kids would put half as much effort into helping me as they did digging this hole, I'd be on easy street!

Here's Finn happily digging before we decided to surprise-bury him...

In true "bad parent" fashion, we buried him up to his neck and said "bye, don't let the ghost crabs eat your face tonight, we'll be back in the morning"...

After realizing we were kidding, we got this smile.

It didn't stop there, after dumping off the beach gear, we headed to the Y to their outdoor pool, more low cost fun!

Eureka, I think he's got it!  One thing I make sure of is that my kids know how to swim.  Not only is an essential life skill in a family that loves to kayak and canoe, it makes my life a whole lot easier.  Finn's a little rough still, but he's getting it, and they have been in swimming lessons for a year now.  Loch needs to be swimming more than once a week, since he has expressed an interest in joining the swim team here.  Lots of work to do!

 Cheap "staycation" dining tonight in the backyard.  Along with brats, I made up a quick potato salad and on a whim threw in some extra snow peas, it turned out really good, the peas seemed to fit well.

We are now finishing up the evening by burning some of the debris collected after the storm. 

It's now 7:15 pm and they are still doing something involving water out there, as I just saw a kid run by the back door soaking wet LOL, no doubt they will collapse into a heap pretty soon!  One more day of this....   :)

***

coming back to amend the post with a follow up - apparently they aren't done yet, since they tore through the house with a bag of marshmallows... went outside to take a photo and from the looks of their faces they will fall out any time after the sugar rush LOL...

Back from our "Staycation"...

We actually started our staycation 2 days before Daddy was set to return from sea. It was a bit like the movie 'Office Space' where he announces that he doesn't really like working and "I don't think I'm going to go anymore"... Truthfully, I was over the single mom thing and couldn't wait for the reinforcement troops to sail in (literally) and give me a break! We have a state parks pass so I figured we would use it at our local state park and go to the beach. This was pretty cool since it's on the Chesapeake Bay and the kids can see Daddy's aircraft carrier, the USS Truman, go by bigger than life about 3 hours before he gets to the piers and we go to pick him up. In past years, this has become pretty routine, non-exciting stuff for me but now that the kids are a little older it is so fun to see them get excited and see things through their eyes. Of course, in their eyes the pirates Daddy is out hunting down are of the Blackbeard "aargh!" variety and the Carrier is just like "Top Gun", lol... I envy them and their un-jaded view of the world...oh, to be 5 again!

Anyway, me-the mom who hates to sit on the beach- actually bought a bunch of sand toys, umbrella, and a beach chair and headed out. Here's Finn at the State Park excited upon seeing the first of the small boats going by belonging to Daddy's battle group.

This is a pretty bad picture, but if you look in the left center of the horizon, you can see a Navy Destroyer, this was just one of the several smaller ships that precede the carrier coming in. (Lame, I didn't get a picture of the carrier - bad mom!)

Not sure what's going on here.

So it turns out the beach isn't so bad after all...I forgot how much cooler it is at the shore, and an umbrella helped! Now if the kids could just be older so I can trust them around the water I could actually read a book! I took one with me and laid it in the sand next to my chair to give myself "the illusion" of relaxing, but in reality was watching my kids in the surf like a hawk.

After Daddy got home, we had a great outdoor lunch at a restaurant on the water and gorged on crabcakes and grilled tuna sandwiches, Daddy also got his homecoming/late Father's Day gifts of a new Leatherman Skeletool and some tactical looking flashlight. My husband is a "geardo" so he was overjoyed, showing the kids "Look, this light is for night vision, etc, etc". You would think he would get tired of it all, but he loves his job and gets downright giddy when faced with a new tactical "toy"! After lunch, it was back to the beach where we remained off and on for the next 5 days, lol! Sailor/Husband also got some new surf fishing gear, so even after a day at the beach, we would head back out after dinner to fish. All this jived pretty well with the garden, since due to the "Minnesota Summer" we have been having my first tomatoes aren't even ripe yet, so my garden is kind of on autopilot right now until the fruits start to ripen, giving me some extra time. Even if we could afford a big vacation this year, we have no time since Sailor/Husband is leaving again in 2 weeks!

This pic shows what it's been like this summer so far: the Ziploc bag of my husband's toiletries never gets unpacked since he's always on his way out! It's like he's a visitor to his own home...I am waiting for him to start knocking on the door instead of opening it with his key, lol!

Finn with Daddy

Finn and Loch digging for crabs

We headed to the beach on base to await fireworks for the 4th of July. Finn is digging to China, of couse.

Not sure what waves Finnegan plans on surfing here, but he's got "the board carry" down pat!

Here's Marley obsessing over her frisbee. She has become quite the disc dog since she came to live with us, but has never played in the wind on the beach in the sand...it was all a bit much for her and I thought she might have a nervous breakdown out there!

We are actually headed out crabbing today - then it's back to the garden! I find that I usually avoid the beach like the plague during tourist season, but am slowly rediscovering the good things about living here that I often take for granted. Plus, it tires the kids out! I am, however, getting really tired of sweeping sand up from everywhere, and the inside of the car looks like a sand dune! Oh, and before I go...here's a mental smell for you...my husband left a plastic bucket in the Outback with some rotting squid bait in it...I got in the car the next day, and....ugh! Yep, Daddy's back, alright!

You know you're "farming" when...

The past week has been filled with work and more work!  It's like one of those yard makeover in a day shows around here!  We have been needing to replace our weather and wind beaten fence for years now, and we decided to do half of that this past week as well as create a border and space for more raised veggie beds along the fenceline.  We managed to do it all without any digging (except for a trench barrier along the bed).  My husband was thrilled to have a legitimate use for his new propane weed torch aka "The Flame Thrower".  He torched all the grass/weeds for the new bed and we then laid down cardboard (courtesy of my neighbors' latest move, thanks guys!), then spread out a bunch of compost we had and mulched the area in.  

After that came the fence.  I believe you can judge how close you are getting to a homestead/farmette farming by they severity of the mishaps involved...!  As my husband was kicking down the old fence, I had my son stand safely away from the area (so I thought) when a huge gust of wind came and blew down the gate on the other end of the fence right on top of him.  It was one of those horrible moments when you can tell what is about to happen right before it does.  I looked up, started running but was too late.  The massive drive-thru gate smacked him down to the ground.  It took both Charlie and I to pick the gate up, and surprisingly, not a scratch on him!  He was terrified for sure, but he fell flat down on his front and took the gate on his back, which was the best outcome for that situation.  We have had that problem with the gale force winds and the solid fence blowing down for years, so I think we have solved it now by installing wire fencing and reusing the wooden posts to channel the wind through instead of smacking into the fence.  The downside to this plan is the loss of privacy and our little microclimate!  I am going to grow Hyacinth Bean vines for the summer, but now need to plan for permanent coverage.  I am debating whether to do something easy like an evergreen honeysuckle or something that will take a little longer, such as Rosa Rugosa or Russian Olive.  Either way, we will need to have some privacy back before integrating "Urban Stealth Chickens" into our family!  If anyone has any experience covering a fence cheaply and quickly for the long term I would love to hear it!  Here are a couple of photos of the new fence (on the left) and the new border and raised beds along the fence.  I hope to have some better pics soon.

The containers hold my new colonnade apple trees!  I am still a little unsure of where I will want them since the border is a blank slate right now, so I figured I would park them in pots in the meantime.

My youngest son Finnegan gave us a scare the other night by having what sounded like an asthma attack.  I took him to the ER where I was relieved to hear that it was not asthma but instead croup.  He had a couple of hours of nebulizer treatment and a steroid to help open his airway and then we were able to get back home (by 3 am!) and rest.  I thought only babies had croup but apparently it is not uncommon at all for a child his age.  I am just very thankful that it is not a chronic condition like asthma.  Here he is breathing his "magic dust"...

He was feeling well enough the next afternoon to plant his apple tree...

Next up, allergy season!  My husband and one of my boys have allergies pretty bad, and I find that every year I live in VA mine get a little worse, so maybe this year I need to get some meds.  I am sure we will all be sneezing today as we get outside to work some more.  I have a huge list of "Charlie Chores" for my husband to finish today since he gets to go on vacation in AZ for a week for his sister's wedding, while I get a "Staycation" at home with 2 kids, 2 dogs and a lawn to mow!  (Note to self:  keep removing parts of the lawn-grass is evil!)