Finally Some Rain

It's finally raining- we have had a whole night and a half day of good soaking. It feels great to get some rainwater on that garden, and I am sure the farmers in the area are going to be in better spirits these next few days for it.

We have zucchini...well, that's an understatement. I planted one hill at the beginning of the garden, and Phil informed me that we needed a lot more than that. Long story short, we ended up with 10 plants. Ten big plants. When they started putting on zucchini, we were excited- we love them fried in butter! Well, we had them for a few nights, and then took a few nights off to eat other food. When he went out to grab one or two from the garden last Tuesday, this is what he came back with, explaining that there were about 10 more half this size. Though the picture doesn't do them justice, just imagine that each one is about the size of your forearm.

Needless to say, we have a few zucchini. Phil explained that they will KEEP COMING throughout the summer. You can believe that got a good deer-in-the-headlights look from his wife. We have started to give them away any chance we have. Phil commented on a garden at one neihbor's house this past week, noting his ONE zucchini plant. The neighbor exclaimed "Yeah, we used to have two, many many years ago." I can see why...


It is hard to picture our enormous pumpkin plants, but I just had to put a shot of them up here. All those vines are only TWO pumpkin plants. Each plant has vines sprawling about 16 feet. We already have a pumpkin that is about the size of a quart canning jar. We read that if you plant them inbetween your corn, the raccoons won't climb and eat your ears.

All of the corn in the patch got taken up and eaten by little ground squirrels, but the gigantic pumpkin plants remain healthy as ever.

We have been eating peas for awhile now, and just in these past few days they have started putting on really well. I think I might actually get enough to freeze. Peas don't do too well here, but there is nothing better than a snow pea right from the garden! Not too many make it to the salads...














We didn't really expect these visitors, but are thankful for them! We have seen two toads in our garden now - this one is pretty small- about the size of Ryan's fist. We saw one about twice his size last week. We also saw a tiny tree frog pasted on our upstairs bedroom window last night.

I'm just fine with them eating as many bugs as they would like...And dad, don't mention anything about eating frog legs OK- these aren't those kind of frogs. (Are any frogs really that kind? I think not.)



that we didn't really expect from Iowa



Ryan is doing wonderfully - no more fever and back to being himself. Man that kid gets to running around, and definitely keeps me on my toes!