At Home on Poplar Ridge

Sunday, July 7, 2019

July 4th Weekend

Just finished binge watching "Stranger Things" Season 3 on Netflix. Whew! It was nice having a lazy day today after working hard for the past several days. It was nice to have JP home as well! He worked 9 out of the past 12 days, and is still trying to catch up on rest, after spending his first day off mowing for 5 or more hours.

I baked Red, White and Blue Scones for breakfast on the 4th. They were pretty, but otherwise not amazing - too bad.

The blueberries have been picked again. I now have 6 gallons + frozen. I also baked 2 loaves of blueberry bread to freeze for when my whole family is here this week. I canned another 5 quarts of pie filling as well.

This is going to be a crazy week - work, appointments for the girls, family coming on Wednesday, and reunion this weekend. I'd better go get my beauty sleep while I can!

Sunday, June 30, 2019

Vacation and the Rest of June

Some how most of June passed me by without me posting regularly. We have stayed incredibly busy, which is part of the issue. There are many days that I don't manage to get anything done between getting the girls where they need to go and life in general.

We did manage to take a long weekend mid-month to visit Lost River State Park in WV. It is a beautiful mountainous and wooded park, that JP selected especially so the girls could go horseback riding.

J on "Fred"

L rides "Skipper"

The first day we rode for about 45 min to the top of a mountain. Beyond the little building, you can see about 270 degrees! The second day, we rode through the woods, up and down mountains for 2 hours. It was gorgeous, but a little scary at times - I forgot how high up one is when seated on a horse!

We stayed at a B&B nearby that was pretty nice. Unfortunately the caretakers both smoke, so we had to wash and febreeze EVERYTHING when we got home. The B&B had a nice game room, and we spent a lot of time playing Foosball and darts.

We saw a little building out back, which looked like a hobbit hole, so we checked it out. It was not populated by hobbits at the moment, but perhaps they'll be back soon?

We were actually staying very close to our college town, so we stopped in before coming home. The first thing we did was get ice cream at Kline's.

L had her second basketball camp of the summer the week after we returned, and continued the league games at the Rec Center every Monday night. Her last 2 games were this week.

J started her summer job at the Library on Monday as well. She often has fun stories to tell about patrons that she meets, or brings home movies to watch. Her job runs for 6 weeks, and she finishes up the end of July.

Meanwhile, the strawberries finished in the garden, and the peas and blueberries have started. I picked 5 gallons of blueberries this week, and spent about 4 hours weeding around all of the bushes. I finally finished taking care of all of them this weekend, and it is time to pick again, so I have recruited a couple of friends to help out tomorrow.

On Friday morning, L and I drove North to the surgery center, where she had her adenoids removed. This occurred after a year and a half of snoring accompanied by apneic episodes, and a thorough evaluation by her family doctor, the allergist, the ENT, a sleep study, and finally the ENT again. She is doing very well, but fairly uncomfortable because of the swelling and soreness in the back of her mouth.

In July, we are having a family reunion. My brother from TX and I have been calling each other about once a week in preparation, as we are in charge of the planning. My youngest brother won't be at the reunion, but his family will come here for a few days before hand to visit with everyone. I will have 8 extra people sleeping at my house, and 10 extra people for meals for a couple of days!

I'm sure the blueberries will need to be picked several times yet before they arrive!

Saturday, June 8, 2019

Re-Enactors

While we had all these kiddos together today, we thought we'd try to reproduce a couple of cute photos from the past:

Hoarders

We started off summer vacation with the annual pizza and water balloon party at our friends' house after school last Friday. They tell me that they filled 1500 water balloons!

The first Monday of vacation, the girls went through their school things. It looked like an episode of "Hoarders" in their room for a while. J actually (finally) went through all of her papers from middle school on.

Now we have already blown through the first week of vacation! Granted, it was a busy week, with L joining a summer BBall league and having practice Sunday and 2 games Monday evening. She also attended BBall camp at the University for 3 hours every day.

J attended the dance recital o f a bunch of her friends, started on her summer reading list (recommended by her Literature teacher next year), and has been trying to get as much driving practice as possible.

We attempted to get the pool opened up on Saturday, but found that we didn't have enough diatomaceous earth for the filter, so had to make a fast trip up North to the pool supply store. Once the pump was running, a hose blew out, and we had no replacements. In lieu of another hour round trip north to the pool supply store, we ordered on Amazon, and the hoses were here in 2 days. Finally we started adding the chemicals, but things are not quite where we need to be yet. JP and I vacuumed it today anyway, and hopefully it will soon warm up enough to actually get in!

The garden is coming along slooooooowly. Right now I am picking buckets full of strawberries every other day. I think they are the nicest and biggest that we've ever had.

I have most of the garden beds planted. One is broad forked, and I will plant sweet corn there in another week or two. There are 3 more that still need to be completely cultivated. To be honest, I'm not sure it's going to happen this year. The blueberries will be ripe in another week or two. I pruned them fairly heavily in Feb, but they still look loaded with berries.

I decided to put some hanging baskets with flowers on the veranda this year. I think they look very nice.

JP did some Redneck pruning in the yard today. One of the trees had a couple of limbs broken during a recent storm. He couldn't reach them with the extension pruner, so got out his trusty shotgun and blew them off!

My lovely little yellow rose is blooming again. I dug this one out of my friend's flower bed just days before they moved across the country to Washington State a couple of years ago, so I always think of her when it blooms. In fact, she sent me something even more precious this morning...

J and I left the house at 5:20 this AM and drove up to the airport to meet her daughter, who arrived at 6:30 this morning after flying all night. After a short visit over breakfast, we took her to surprise our friend, C. It was a success!

C, who has been my 3rd/part time daughter since her mother/my friend passed away 8 years ago, is having a graduation party today. She will be attending college in Seattle this Fall, and we will all miss her dearly.

Let me close with something I saw in the parking lot of the grocery store this week - someone loading groceries into the back of a hearse.

Sunday, May 19, 2019

Late Bloomer

I took a closer look at my clematis this week, and noticed that the 3rd one (which hasn't bloomed for the past 8 or 9 years) is actually blooming!

I planted most of my tomatoes out in the garden today, along with several cucumbers. I'm hoping to plant some more this weekend.

Tonight I took L to the Track & Field Banquet, where she promptly ditched me to hang out with her friends for the next 3 hours. Gee whiz.

J is at the BIG Drama Cast Party tonight - they get to watch their video of "Mama Mia."

Tomorrow we have guitar and voice lessons, the annual "Sheep and Fiber Fest", and J is going to a birthday party featuring an escape room.

Only 2 more Fridays until school is over for the summer!