BEGINNING THE HARVEST

It doesn't seem possible that it's August already.  Didn't the summer just start?  Days are getting noticeably shorter and the blueberries are nearly done.  We picked our first green beans last night (in the dark after church).  It's been quite wet here this past month raining nearly every afternoon.

We had a wonderful 80th birthday party for my mother-in-love last weekend.  We had planned to leave Thursday after I got through with work, but there were lots of tails to wrap up before we left.  First was a transfer of our just hatched chicks to my daughters basement for them to "chick-sit" for us while we went away.

The Girls... we're keeping these.  The boys are going to auction.

Norman was very interested.  He squeezed a little too hard, so Heather held and he patted.

Then I needed to get home and pack up what clothes and food we needed.  All was ready to throw into the car, but needed to be gathered together.  We had just finished and I was going to make a little supper and Doug needed to get the chickens situated before leaving he went in to check the large chest freezer since we've had a bit of trouble with it.  Things were floating in the bottom.  We had already emptied most things out, but there were some older pieces of meat and stuff that had been in there a while, but it all was floating in the bottom and it had to be cleaned out before we left.  It was already around 10 pm and so we pulled on our big-kit pants, put everything into garbage bags and hauled it off to a "borrowed" dumpster to get rid of it so the bear wouldn't raid while we were away.  By that time we both had to take a shower and still eat a little something before we left.  Poor Brandon got put to work too and he was so patient I was way proud of him.  He wondered why all this was happening, but thought perhaps God was sparing us from some unseen danger and He certainly could have been.  We never know these things, but God has a reason for it all.  We got on the road and arrived in Maine about 3:30 am.  The camper was all ready for us and we climbed into bed and slept like rocks.  The next few days made up for all this with a great time with our family.

Mr. Ds sisters are great photographers and took some great pictures which I'll include here.

food prep

lots of visiting

lots of great healthy food

cooling off with the ice

the theme

signs are hung

more visiting

looking through old family photos

80 candles

the cousins

Much fun was had by all regardless of all the trouble getting there. We may never know why things happen the way they do, but there's an author of our days who holds the master plan.  He's a great and mighty God and He loves up beyond measure.

The pickings from last night after dark... had a flashlight.  I intend to do lots of work in the garden this weekend.  It needs weeding and has had several days of neglect.  I'll try to take a before and after picture.  We had beans for supper and a zucchini/tomato dish baked in the oven... yum!

 

I measured some of these Romano beans and they were all between 8-12 inches.  I thought they'd be tough, but not at all, they were tender with no strings.  Looks like we picked a winner.  Thank you, Lord!