Just a Peek!

It's hard to capture the summertime in photos (especially at my house! ;-). Here's an attempt at it, in any case. Enjoy the pictures!

I went for a walk one of the two dirt roads that connects my house's road to the main route. It's actually rather scenic all year round, but the summer greenery and wildflowers add a lot to it.

On the way...

One of the splendid views along the way.

The road home.

A fine specimen of a butterfly

Queen Anne's lace

The little pond by the road.

In another post I will have photos of my "exploding" garden!  Let's just say we've put away enough beans (pole beans and bush beans) for... well, maybe two or three winters? :-) And with over 40 kale plants, which are all ready to be harvested, kale chips are definitely on the menu!

What's in the Garden?

I said that I would post pictures of the garden, so here they are!

The potatoes (the garlic is just past them)

The black seeded Simpson lettuce

Mesclun and more Simpson lettuce

The rather anemic-looking summer squashes (the soil needs more nitrogen in general)

Eggplant

Pole beans!

Romaine lettuce (some of which we already harvested)

Cabbage...

 

Onions and broccoli

The beets that mysteriously sprung up that I never actually planted right there...

Carrots!

Tomatoes and peppers (with radishes sprinkled in)

Pole beans (cucumbers are down at the end under the trellises)

Sad-looking sweet potato vines... :(

Snap peas

The basil bed

More onions!

More broccoli! (We have cauliflower growing, too)

And the garlic again!

We also got some strawberries from the farm, which will hopefully produce next year.

I am looking forward to raspberries! There are lots of plants growing in the woods in our backyard. I've already seen some tiny green berries.

We are being inundated with lettuce! It's nice being able to have salad for every meal, though! Some friends of ours are juicing theirs, they're getting so much. :-) We are going to attempt to make pesto out of garlic scapes and lettuce. Has anybody out there ever tried it?

Pillar of Fire

I saw this unique rainbow in the sky today. It looked even more amazing in real life!

Waiting... but not for long!

Today was just too beautiful for words, so here are some photos!

(pardon the black spot in the upper right-hand corner of these photos... our poor little camera has suffered a lot of abuse! I suppose you could consider it a watermark... :-)

Here's the garden, waiting to be tilled and planted planted. Kale, Swiss chard, broccoli, bell peppers, onions, green beans, snap peas, carrots, potatoes, cabbage, zucchini and squash are some of the things we want to plant, in addition to the garlic, which took up residence last October. We already have peppers, onions and tomatoes started in little pots.

Here's the bonfire, waiting to be lit! Most of this brush came from the woods where Dad wants to put in another garden plot. The spot we have our current garden gets a bit wet, since it's in a lower elevation. We'll still use it this year, but we're hoping to have the other garden up and running next year.

Speaking of which, here is the site of garden 2.0.12! It doesn't look like much yet, but with a little (lot) of work, hopefully it will work out well for another garden spot.

Here's part of our lawn, waiting to be mowed! It's so refreshing looking out of the window and seeing GREEN instead of WHITE on the ground. Though I'm sure when summer comes I'll wish we had a little of that white stuff. :-)

Here's the recently-pruned lilac bush, waiting for flowers!

Here's the trusty weather station that never needs to wait for weather!

You can actually view the data from it here!

Here's one of the first few flowers in our flowerbeds, waiting for company.

They do say that two is company...

Speaking of which, Tucker kept me company on my photo expedition around the yard.

But he really doesn't like the sound the camera makes when you click the "shudder" button! :-)

So, there you have it! Spring at Green Gambrels.

Ice-coated Winter Wonderland

What I saw out of my bedroom windows this morning immediately made me think of the term "winter wonderland". Why's that? Well, what I beheld made me wonder: Can winter get any prettier than this?

Two days ago it rained//sleeted and the temperature got above freezing. Yesterday, in the morning it warmed up a tad and rained a little bit, and then towards evening the temperature got colder and it snowed some. Today, the sky is cloudless, and the icy coating on all the trees makes them sparkle like diamonds when the sun shines on them. When the wind blows on the trees the ice crackles on the branches! Here are a few photos.

 

 

Mom's artificial flowers remind me of all the color that I hope to see outside soon...

Can you tell I'm already looking forward to spring? :-)

Ice is nice, and it makes everything outside look very pretty, but I am looking forward to the kind of weather where I don't have to put on ice grippers on my boots when go out. Mud season will be here before y'know it. :-)

I think our cats are also looking forward to the warmer weather...

...especially the temperatures where the water is liquid again!

Sorry it's been so long since my last post! Not many new things have been happening at Green Gambrels during the last month. I've started getting into running (more like jogging right now!), and icy roads are not very conducive for that. Oh well. Over the last year or so I've working on getting in shape, reforming my eating habits and learning more about fitness and healthy food. There are foods that I eat now that I hadn't even heard of a year ago, or if I had heard of them I thought they were "weird". But as I learn more, I'm amazed to see how God made so many different kinds of foods that are incredibly beneficial to the health of the body. Anyways, maybe in a future post I'll write more about my favorite "weird" foods. :-)

I've been involved with several Bible studies that we have going on during the week. On Tuesday night I attend a young peoples' Bible study hosted by a friend of ours from church. We've been  studying the book of John, and it's refreshing to go through it again and see different facets of the same gems that have been in there all along. On Wednesdays I and a few other church friends go to a nursing home and visit the folks there. We sing, have a Bible lesson and sometime I do some fiddling for them, too. On Friday nights we have a Bible study there as well, and more and more people are interested in coming to hear the Bible read and the gospel preached. It's really exciting! We also have a Bible study at another friend's house on Sunday nights. We've been studying Romans. With every study I feel like I'm understanding a little bit more of God's grace, wisdom, power and plan, and more of my own position as a believer in Jesus Christ as my own personal savior from my sins. On Wednesday afternoons, after the nursing home visiting time I'm involved in study of the book of Revelation with my Mom and two other ladies. It's quite an interesting book, with lots of things in it that I don't understand! However, there are things that I can take away from it that are practical lessons/reminders for everyday life. For example, in chapter 22 Christ reminds us that He is coming quickly! I'm really looking forward to that day. The beauty that I see in the ice on the trees in winter time will be nothing compared to His glory!