Falling into Fall

With our first days of torrential downpour, fall has officially arrived in the Pacific Northwest.  The push to get things done before winter is here, and I am woefully behind on all of those things I meant to do before it got soggy and muddy again, but here it is, ready or not.

October has been a delightfullly busy month for the AdventureFamily.  Early in the month we spent a wonderful long weekend on 9 Trees.  AdventureDad got a new layer of grass seed planted in the hay pasture, and we met the driller and started the well drilling process (it has turned into a bit of a saga, but I am waiting until it is all done before I divulge more... look to the next post for updates!).  This is huge for us... where we are the wells are incredibly deep, so it is an impressive investment in the farm.  It is also necessary to have the well so that we can get our building permits in the spring.  The thought that next year we will have our very own running water is awe-inspiring at this point.  Yay us!  We also took a "break" from work immediately on the property, and did some work clearing out the easement that accesses the bottom portion of our property (our acreage is almost 1/2 mile long, down a steep canyon, so an access easement comes through the neighboring lots to reach the bottom).  We hacked foliage, sawed trees, and cleared obstructions until we were exhausted, but we also got to spend a day in the woods, which the girls loved.  We also found A LOT of bear sign, re-confirming that the presence of black bears will be a part of our existence there.

After our sojourn in the farm, it was back to life on the wetter side of the state.  We went to a pumpkin patch as a field trip for Livvy's preschool, and then carved the pumpkin that evening before celebrating Livvy's 3rd birthday (AdventureDad had to leave the next day to be in the field for awhile, missing Halloween, so we did it a bit early).  My sweet baby girl is 3!  I can't believe how much life this happy, opinionated, silly, serious, loving little being brings into our lives every day.  There is no vestige of baby left in her, as she easily holds her own with her big sister and the rest of us as well.  Sad for mommy, but part of life, and it is a joy to witness her discovery of the world.

Last but not least, fall brings the close to my vegetable gardening season.  I am still hoping that a few of my heirloom tomatoes will ripen (although I did also do an early harvest and we had some DELICIOUS fried green tomatoes a few nights ago), but in general the crops are coming to a close.  The cool, wet weather invites mildew, and between that and the cool nights I am slowly losing the battle.  So, time to bring in the last few green beans, the last cuttings of broccoli raab, and the last zucchinis.  The brussels sprouts are swelling, the carrots are sweetening, and the potatoes are waiting patiently for me to dig.  I was hoping to store my parsnips in the ground a while longer (frost can mellow the flavor), but a suspicious wilting of some of the chard (as if the roots were gone), followed by a tell-tale hump in the dirt made me do a little exploratory digging, and I discovered that a busy gopher has been helping himself.  Most of my biggest parsnips fell victim, but I still harvested about 10 lbs worth... not bad for a square yard of ground!  (Parsnip is one of my very favorite winter soup ingredients, yummmm!).

Gathering Pumpkins is Serious Business

M's Pumpkin Was Easier to Subdue

The Family Lantern

Let the Drilling Commence!

As Three As Can Be!

The Parsnip Harvest

Apparently gophers don't like the skin...a perfect parsnip shell was left behind!

Sunny September

It just amazes me how fast this summer has gone.  How is it suddenly September?!  We have been keeping busy as usual, with life centering around both Gig Harbor and 300 miles away at Nine Trees.  The girls continue to be stellar travelers.  I am glad this crazy part of our life is happening when the girls are so young and take everything in stride so well. This summer the farm has been much more manageable as we are able to put some things off until next year when, things going as planned,  we should be moving into our brand new house in the fall.  After the initial hay-making flurry this spring, we are in a maintenance cycle at the moment, with the most pressing task being to keep the trees watered and alive through the heat of the summer.   Thanks to our generous neighbor's well, so far so good!  We also got the play structure finished, much to the delight of the Adventure Girls.  M has decided that it is the perfect house for her pet praying mantises (the girl doesn't have a squeamish bone in her body!) Activity will pick up a bit next month with some seeding and fertilizing, then we will be tucking the farm in for the winter.  The most exciting development is that we had a site visit from one potential builder last week, and we are talking seriously with another builder this week.  We should be making up our minds and moving forward with the initial steps toward construction before the new year starts.  I can't tell you how excited we are!
Back at the "other farm" in Gig Harbor, upon our return from a long weekend at Nine Trees, we were delighted to find that Marshmallow (our coronation sussex hen) has started laying.  We now have three laying hens, just waiting on Ava, the last one.  It is cute to see the tiny eggs that the youngsters are laying now.  I will have to show a pic one of these days!  I also discovered a nice large zucchini in the hoop house.  It has been so cool this summer, I am just not having a lot of success, but we did get our first ripe tomatoes, a couple okra, the big zuch, and a ton of green beans, so I guess I can't complain!  Time to get the fall cool weather crops in the soil too!  Just ordered the seeds, so once they get here I will have to hurry a bit to get them going.  Thankfully the hoop house should extend my growing season enough that they will do OK.
Saving the best for last, M had her first day of kindergarten yesterday.  Talk about a bittersweet moment.  How is it possible that my little baby can get on a bus, ride to school, spend all day away from me, and magically show up on the bus in the afternoon, all by herself?  Of course I couldn't make the change that quickly, so after putting her on the bus, AdventureDad and I drove to the school and met her at that end.  I am glad we did, because her class was certainly a bit crazy, and the help from me and a few other protective parents was welcome.  O missed her "sissy" all day long, but I get the feeling she was starting to see the up side to having mommy all to herself.  O starts pre-Preschool next week, 1.5 hours one day a week.  Not much, but a little start on socialization for her and a little bit of freedom for mommy.   Life just keeps changing!

Summer in Full Swing

I feel horrible complaining about our prolonged cool spring, given the sweltering heat in the rest of the country, but IT IS ABOUT TIME we had weather above 80 degrees for more than a single day at a time!  Yes, sunshine and temps above 80 for the WHOLE WEEK!  Now, in mid-July, it finally feels like summer.
So what have we been up to?  Well, after putting up hay on Nine Trees, which I think I mentioned last blog, the spring work was done on the farm.  We went out there again last weekend and set up a drip watering system in the orchard that is gravity fed from a cistern that our neighbor generously lets us fill from his well (until we get a well drilled next year).  The trees should benefit from the more efficient use of water, and I have hopes that the wind-break hedge that I planted this spring might actually survive and grow.
 Despite the hours in the car (six each way), the killer gas bills, the "roughing it" in the camper, and the consumption of half of our weekends during the summer, every visit we make to Nine Trees is like a balm for my soul.  It is such a fresh, beautiful, free place, and we are all in our element. I love that our girls are happy as clams playing out in the weather, the most thrilling things being a tiny spring with frogs in it and of course the gravel pile by the barn.  I love that we go to bed when it gets dark and wake up when it gets light, that we fall asleep listening to the crickets and owls.  I even love working on the land in the sweltering heat or the gusting wind. It is impossible not to stop and smell the roses.  It is also impossible not to dream.  This is where we are going to settle down for good! I love so much of what the military has given us... the friends, the overseas experiences, the perspective on life, but I will be SO happy to be able to stop saying "goodbye".   I will be able to plant a garden and watch the plants mature, make friends and watch our friendship mature, watch our family mature without the stop-hitches caused by deployments.  I will enjoy our last few years in the military, but I will enjoy it even more when we are done and living on Nine Trees!
OK, enough pontificating on my part.  The last thought of the day... thank you to my dear husband for putting the second planter box in my hoop house this year.  With the cool spring nothing would be growing yet, and here I am harvesting.  We have been eating lettuce and turnips for weeks, the peas are in fine form, and we had one of my favorites... stuffed squash blossoms... for dinner last night.   I love fresh produce!  Combined with the fresh eggs from our chickens, I can feed our family 1/4 of what we eat in a week right from our garden.  Enjoy the pics!

Beautiful Spring

Oh, Thank God for Nine Trees!  This last weekend we escaped the perpetual rain and sog on this side of the state for a gorgeous spring weekend on Nine Trees Farm.  Granted, it was our usual rush to get way too much work done in too short a time, but we sure did enjoy it.  We feel downright pampered in our new camper, and it makes our late-night arrivals so much easier when we don't have to set up the tent camper in the dark.  So, after an after-dark arrival on Fri night, we woke up to the calls of meadowlarks, warm sunshine, a slight breeze, and rolling hills covered in green grass.  Talk about good for the soul!  Unfortunately duty called, and we spent most of Saturday in the car, but for an exciting purpose.  We drove a little over an hour to the Tri-Cities (a conglomeration formed by Richland, Pasco, and Kennewick, WA) to interview/tour a company that is the top candidate for building our house next summer.  We liked what we saw, and we're about ready  to step off the ledge and get the whole process moving.  Exciting and terrifying all rolled into one!
After returning home, we went out to dinner with our only nearby neighbors and their visiting kids (they live about 1/4 mile away... the next closest neighbor is almost a mile down the road), and collapsed into bed exhausted once again.
Sunday morning was another gorgeous day, and AdventureDad hopped onto the tractor to begin a day of weed spraying in the hay field while I took the girls to the orchard to do some fence repair.  I got a section of fence that had blown over re-set, while M flew her kite and L pretended to be a baby deer in the tall grass.  Did I mention we have two of the most tolerant, toughest, most wonderful little girls on the planet?  Despite 6 hours in the car either way, they LOVE our trips out to the farm, and their enjoyment makes it that much more fun for AdventureDad and I.  We feel obligated to put up a play set for them at some point this summer, and that will certainly be a labor of love.  I won't complain about a little less playing on the dirt/gravel piles either.  The camper is awesome, but we still only have the water in our tanks to wash up with!
Luckily we were able to finish up and drive home Sunday night to arrive home at a fairly decent hour.  Hopefully that trend continues.  I long for the day when we make our final move out there and this craziness can stop!
Here are the pics from our little slice of heaven.  Enjoy!

Our Little Princess

This is just a quick post to put up the latest picture of our biggest AdventureGirl. She just started pre-ballet classes at the YMCA, and of course is thrilled with the whole proceeding. I on the other hand feel like a duck out of water. Not known for my physical grace, not a dancer myself, and having never taken a dance class (thank goodness for my own kinder-gymnastic experiences at the Y or I would be completely hopeless!), I was shocked at how seriously most of the moms are taking this class. The age range is 3-5 people! Come on!!! Luckily M is oblivious to it, and we are meeting our goal of her learning a little more "mind over matter" when it comes to coordination :-) We'll see where it goes from there, but it certainly isn't worth an ulcer.

Not much else has happened of late. We all got hit with a double dose of the crud, and are slowly ridding the household of it. We also learned an unfortunate lesson about Dora (the dog, not the cartoon) and chickens, so now I am in the chicken-nursing business and Glenda is missing a lot of skin off of her back. No eggs for now, and I will be surprised if she recovers, but stranger things have happened. Luckily Cheep, Peep, and Banana are doing well, so there is hope of more eggs in the late fall.

AdventureDad also started putting together the second raised bed for the hoop house, and I am chomping at the bit to start my spring planting. We got a crop of turnips and greens over the winter, so I have high expectations for the summer !

Big Red

So, the AdventureFamily has recently acquired two red things that will have an impact on our lives. The first is Glenda (the good chicken), named of course by AdventureDad. Glenda is a Rhode Island red who was an excess hen on a friend's farm. She has since moved in here, and is faithfully laying us a delicious brown egg every day. Of course we couldn't stop there, and we also have 3 chicks in the basement that are rapidly growing. Cheep is a Wellsummer chicken, Peep is a silver-laced Wyandotte, and Pep is a light Sussex. Talk about a mixed flock, and if they all turn out to be hens (there is a 50/50 shot on both Cheep and Pep), we will be drowning in eggs. Doesn't sound too horrible to me!
The other item is "Big Red", the "new" tractor. Several decades newer than Jimmy's antique, it is a bit more powerful, more reliable, and has a bucket on the front, all of which should make our life on Nine Trees a little easier.
We made our first trip out to the farm last month, and succeeded in getting the truck firmly stuck in the mud (yes, it was me). Thankfully our neighbor Rod is a lifesaver who happens to have an astounding collection of equipment, and he quickly rolled up in his bulldozer and pulled us out like it was nothing.
Since then, AdventureDad has had surgery on his elbow. He had an old injury from his first deployment that has slowly been worsening, and finally had to go in to have a collection of bone fragments removed from the joint and the nerve re-routed to a spot where it will get pinched less. I'll post the gory pictures later, but the poor guy had a purple arm from shoulder to fingertips. He's healing well now, although very frustrated at the slow progress (we're coming up on the 3 week anniversary), but it should pay off in the end.
We are now in the "pre-hay" season, starting to plan our trips out to the farm and figure out a timeline for getting the weeds sprayed, the hay cut and baled, and the seeds and fertilizer put down for next year. On top of it all, we are starting to tease ourselves with the idea of starting construction on our house this summer. A bit earlier than the original plan, but we are hoping it will give us time to do a bit more of the work ourselves. We shall see!

AdventureGirl's B-day

Well, it has happened, another year has passed, and AdventureGirl is growing up. Simultaneously bittersweet and wonderful, this birthday really brought home to me how fast life can go by, and I feel thankful that I have two sweet and wonderful little girls to bring love and challenge into my life on a daily basis. This year we have actually been in one place long enough for M to have made friends, so we went all-out and had a rain-proof indoor party at a local place called Jump! that the girls both love. (Fortuitous since it rained all day!) Picture a giant room full of inflatable slides and bouncy castles and you pretty much have it. Nothing like non-stop jumping, sliding, and running to make a group of kids happy and cooperative! Needless to say they had a blast, and the parents got a nice chance to visit too. My daughter, a girl after my own heart, requested (without even a hint from me) a lemon cake with strawberry frosting, and I was more than happy to oblige.
Enjoy the pics!