A Night on the River

My husband I took the riverboat out tonight. I was going to link to a picture of the boat but discovered I never posted one. So here is a picture from last summer.















We always head upriver first (so we can float back if there is any trouble) and the first bridge we come to is the historic Van Zile bridge. Until I saw the photo, I didn't realize the trees are no longer the lush green of early summer.



















We turned around a few bends after the next bridge and headed back into the sunset reflected by some swirly clouds which were reflected in the river.



















Then a low "smoke" cloud entered the scene.




















Before we landed, the moon rose. It is impossible to hold the camera still on a riverboat to take a night photo, but you can tell how awesome a moonrise is on a river. Perhaps I may even have broke into my rendition of Moon River at this point.

Living things in my garden

This PM decided to take up residence on a Coronation Gold yarrow for the summer. He has doubled in size since I first spotted him and has changed from all green to green and brown. Normally I deadhead the yarrow, but not this year.















I didn't post often this spring but here's a picture of a snapping turtle looking for a place to lay eggs. Steve took this picture into his 4th grade classroom since they were studying reptiles at the time.

Quick, cut the corn

This morning, my brother John brought over 12 dozen ears of corn, his turkey fryer and a corn cutter (the simple one). A few hours later, there were 19 bags of corn in my freezer. John said his focus was speed. We started on the back deck, with the turkey fryer filled with water. While the water came to a boil, we shucked the corn. The fryer cooked 25 ears at one time. I had two of my large canning pans filled with cold water to cool the corn. We then moved inside where John had arranged an assembly line. He cut the corn from the cob while I bagged it. I tested the speed of his corn cutter against my trusty knife and it was four cobs to one. Now maybe he can figure out how to speed up making grape jelly (the grapes are just starting to turn purple), tomato sauce (the Roma tomatoes are just starting to turn red), and pickles (the cucumbers are starting to accumulate in the fridge.)

Glad Grasshopper

I found this fella snuggled between two glad blooms. I think it would be a delightful place to hang out.

Penstemon/Pennisetum

When purchasing plants from a design drafted by someone else, it is always good to put on your reading glasses.

Two wonderful women with a real design knack gifted a design for the landscaping of the sign for our church's new community center building. When we (I won't embarrass my fellow gardener but her last name is a synonym for boast) went to the nursery to purchase the plants, we both read penstemon. We couldn't find the cultivar named and couldn't picture how a penstemon would look in the design.

Then we put on our reading glasses and saw it was a pennisetum. We found this beautiful plant and even though it wasn't the named cultivar, we decided it would be just the thing. As we were planting it, we noticed it was an annual and not hardy in our zone. I ended up with it in a smallish planter by my sidewalk. It is magnificent! I want to try to overwinter it inside but a large praying mantis has been in it for about a month and I suspect has laid eggs on it.

Oh, and my fellow gardener and I are both Advanced Master Gardeners with close to 100 years of gardening experience between us.

What are you doing this weekend?

Come to the Gene Stratton-Porter State Historic site to celebrate her birthday on Saturday and Sunday. There will be free cake, soapmaking demonstration and I will be in the garden from 1 to 5 for informal tours.

And I am very excited about a fund-raiser for Vincent House, Roots and Rhythm at the Headwaters, Saturday from 2 to 11. Check out the bands! This is my type of music. There will be children's activities from 2 to 8. This is festival seating so bring a blanket. And the best part? It benefits Vincent Village, which serves homeless families in Fort Wayne. It is the only shelter in Allen County that serves two-parent families and single male-headed families.

So here's your agenda. Attend Roots and Rhythm on Saturday and then come up to Sylvan Lake on Sunday for a garden tour.

Brothers (who don't shave on the weekends)

"Hey, Mom, why don't you take our picture?' So I snap it and Ricky is making some kind of weird hand and face gestures.















So I take another picture.




















And another















And another
















And another
















And end up with this.

World's Ugliest Cucumber

If Carol can declare that she has grown the World's Ugliest Tomato, I am declaring that I have grown the World's Ugliest Cucumber.

















Here's another view to show what happened. My bush cucumber vine decided to grow up the fence and this cucumber grew through the fence. I haven't harvested it yet. I'm not quite sure how.

If you don't like to sand, don't build a canoe

Steve laid fiberglass cloth on the outside of the canoe and then covered it with three layers of epoxy. He sanded the final layer in preparation for a varnish finish. Since these pictures were taken, he has turned the canoe over, knocked out the forms, sanded the hull, and laid fiberglass and two coats of epoxy on the inside. Today he selected some cherry for the thwarts and seats. He will put in the seat after he uses the canoe to make sure the seat is in the right spot for him.

Harvest Season

Why wait until fall? Let's celebrate the harvest season now. Locally grown produce is highlighted in the following account of my harvest to date.

Already harvested
I can't keep up with the green beans. I am filling the freezer with parboiled tender beans but I had a lot of big tough beans. Yesterday I decided to make soup stock with the beans. I added the squash clubs, tomatoes and cabbage given to me by my father-in-law, some aging celery and carrots from the fridge, an onion, and garlic. Steve suggested I throw in some beef so in went two neck bones from the beef we purchased last winter. I ended up having to use two large soup pots. I cooked it down overnight and this morning removed the solids and am now boiling down the stock to freeze for soup base next winter.

Last week, my son, his girlfriend and I picked 15 pounds of blueberries. I flash froze them and now they are in the freezer waiting for me to make blueberry pancakes, blueberry cobbler and add to my breakfast yogurt.

My father-in-law gave me 6 green peppers from his garden. We don't eat a lot of green peppers, except as flavoring. So these have been chopped, flash frozen and put in little baggies for future use.

My squash and zucchini plants didn't make it. They just withered away. But don't fear, I have a bounty of zucchini from family and friends. They are piled up in the fridge and I suppose I will make zucchini bread, which my husband likes so much.

Going back to the spring crops, I have enough chopped rhubarb frozen for two pies and several bags of spinach.

Soon to be harvested
Early this spring, there was a garden blogger challenge to plant something new in our vegetable gardens. I didn't respond, but it did give me the courage to plant five 12-foot rows of sweet corn. The silks are turning brown and soon I will be awash in fresh corn.

For some reason, I planted 12 Roma tomato plants. Oh, I remember, I was going to make sauce. Other green tomatoes waiting to be harvested in include pink brandywine, volunteer cherry tomatoes and a heirloom green striped tomato. The last tomato was from seeds I saved last year, another first for this new vegetable gardener.

I have 6 cucumber vines and have harvested four cukes already. When these start coming on fast, I want to make bread-and-butter pickles again. My family loved them last year.

I'm hoping the red peppers mature with the Roma tomatoes so I can add them to the sauce.

I have six red potato plants in tubs. I'm adding soil and waiting for new potatoes. Aren't they suppose to ripen with green beans so I can make my mother's German potato salad?

The blackberries are starting to ripen and within the week I should either freeze them or make jam. I'm also checking on the grapes. There are large clumps but still a solid shade of green. I planted red raspberries this spring and one is forming berries. I suspect all that I will harvest will be eaten as they are picked.

I think that is it. I should be busy this next month or so, but will enjoy the fruits (literally) of my labor all winter long.

Canoe in progress

I'm not documenting this canoe building very well, but here are the pictures after all the strips were laid and the staples removed. Since these pictures, Steve did a lot of detailed work on the stems and laid the outer stems. I think sanding, sanding and more sanding is next. He will be doing most of that by hand.

This shows the "swoop" of the stern. The bow is more pronounced.



















The "football keel" has been integrated.



















Here he is sanding the end of the strips level with the inner stem. End grain is tough and no one will ever see it, but it has to be perfectly aligned so the outer stem will fit flush.

Graduation Time

Ricky is graduating this summer. He was three credits short, but wanted so bad to graduate with his class and HAVE A PARTY. So he took three classes this summer, because we refused to have a graduation party without, you know, him actually graduating. He finished his English class a few weeks ago and finished his health class tonight. That just leaves Economics, which should be done tomorrow night.




















The party is August 2 and he just asked me, "Mom, you'll make me a scrapbook, right?" Yikes! I've tried scrapping and even attended a scrapbook night at church once. Five hours later, the other women had completed numerous pages and I completed just one. I dinked around with the design and then had to write a narrative, while they just slapped the pictures on the page with one or two words. To complicate matters, I've printed very few pictures the last two years. I think I'll put the recent pictures into a digital frame and then make posters of the major events and perhaps make a few scrapbook pages. Probably in desperation I will just throw the rest of the pictures in an album.














His cousin, who graduated in the same class, took these pictures of Ricky for me.

Projects

Since I created a new tag called Projects for the bridge and canoe projects, I had to share some of my projects. No, not the apron. It's still uncut, but not forgotten. My great niece has an apron in a similar style which I plan to use to resize the Grandma's pattern.

One project was arranging the planting of over 100 trees at The Third Place this spring. It was an intergenerational event. They posted pictures on the church website and I especially like the one of the girls right in the hole they dug. These same girls, not 30 minutes earlier, said they didn't want to get dirty. We've had lots of rain this summer, which is a good thing since there is no way we can water the trees on the far end of 30 acres.

With Steve teaching and not "studenting," we've added another dimension to our wardrobe, necessitating giving up part of our bedroom for a larger closet. Steve's portion of this project is almost complete and now I need to start painting. We are painting the bedroom four different colors. I hope it works. I have also been hunting for new curtains, without any luck.

Of course, there are always numerous garden projects in various stages. Ron dug out some overgrown shrubs by the back deck and now I need to decide what to plant there. I've planted an even bigger veggie garden and this is the first year I've grown corn. I created a new bed in my front yard and planted it. But these are all normal garden activities for me. My project involves my growing interest in native plants.

We have always let our pond edges grow naturally, resulting in volunteers of cattails, sedges, Queen Anne's Lace, milkweed, black-eyed susans, and even Joe Pye Weed. We did plant blue flags many years ago and they have claimed a large portion of the north end of the pond. Last year I planted three starts of yellow flags. However, the shallow end of the pond is sawgrass and cattails. It is also the first thing you see after crossing the stone bridge. Last fall I collected seeds from swamp hibiscus, pink turtlehead and cardinal flowers, all plants that love their feed wet. At the encouragement of Kylee, I winter sowed the seeds and they grew! So I've been hacking away at the growth to plant them on the shallow end of the pond. Let me tell you, removing turf and amending clay soil is easy compared to sinking in muck and getting scratched by the grasses to battle swamp weeds. In addition to the plants I started from seed, I planted Queen of the Prairie. If this works out, it will be breathtakingly beautiful.

A sassafras strip canoe

My brother is not the only craftsman at work around my home. My husband has started his second strip canoe. I gave him the plans and forms for a Voyager canoe for Christmas. He decided to make his own strips from sassafras, a traditional wood for canoes. He started by cutting the planks into strips, planing and sanding them and then he put beads and coves on every strip.

The next step was to set up the forms on the strongback and then mold the inner and outer stems.














Here he is applying the first strip to the form. He staples the strips to the form and glues between the strips.
















After laying about four strips on each side, he laid the "football" on the keel. This makes the keel stronger; otherwise, he would have numerous strips ending at the keel line due to the shape of the canoe.




















The next strips on the side will have a walnut inlay and he cut the design into the next three strips.















Then comes a tricky part. He had to add tapered strips to each end. You can see one of the tapers in this photo, the second strip down. I think of these as reverse darts. He's out in the shop now laying on more strips and more tapers.

Building Bridges

The third tier of rocks have been lain. This is the north wall of the bridge.















And this is the south wall. My brother John is wrestling a large rock in place. He placed flat rocks at each end of the arched walls for seats and this seat will have a backrest.















That boy sure is strong, always was. I can't believe the way he lifts and places those large stones. Before I took this picture, I asked him if I could help and he just gave me a look. John is two years younger than me and the oldest of my three younger brothers. I remember walking to the house from the school bus and turning around to punch him as hard as I could in the belly when we were both in middle school. He just looked at me (probably the same look as he gave me today) as I rubbed my hurt hand. I clearly remember thinking, "Time to change strategies, Martha."

Bridge over Usually Not Creek

Day One
It was time to do something about the bridge over Usually Not Creek. The sides were eroding and gravel was washing out in the center of the bridge. We asked my brother John to fix the washout between the two culverts and to build wing walls to prevent the erosion along the side. John used a pick and shovel to dig out the center of the driveway and found a gaping cavern created by a large cottonwood root. The picture shows the gap between the culverts and eroded concrete from the root.






























Day Two - Digging the footers and starting the forms
John and I both came up with the idea of an arched fieldstone bridge. My husband was thinking of a simple wooden structure.


































Day Three - Finishing the forms and finding stones
Steve shrugged and let the sibs take the bridge where we wanted. The boys and I gathered all the fieldstone we had (shown below) which will only do the first row of one side of the bridge. A volunteer at work told me about several large piles of stones in her woods which I could have. Perfect! We will probably have enough to finish the bridge.




















Day Four - Pouring concrete and setting the first row
I love looking at this hint of what is to come and searching through the stone for the best specimens. We still have several truckloads of stone to pick-up. I'm using the term "we" rather loosely in this narrative.

















































































Day Five - Removing forms and filling in around the retaining walls
John is taking the next two weeks to help move his daughter and family to Colorado where her husband is doing his fellowship in pediatric neurosurgery. I'm sorry they will be so far away. John's granddaughters are both three, Sophia is three years and Victoria three months. They will likely not remember their GREAT aunt.

During the next two weeks, I will be poring over stones deciding which ones I want on top. I'm toying with the idea of embedding some other things to make this uniquely ours. My husband already has several fossils selected.

Mystery plant identified

In this post, I had a mystery plant in the woods. My sister guessed an immature pokeweed and Kylee guessed twinleaf. I found the same plant in the wildflower bed at work and the site's naturalist made the identification. It is Blue Cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides).

Princess Plants-a-Lot goes to a garden party

Twenty years ago, I was faced with empty beds after I ripped out the overgrown shrubs in my newly purchased home. So I came up with a scheme for people to give me plants, plants that grew well in this area. And so the plant exchange party began. I last hosted "my" garden party in 2004. Since then, Beth, the lovely lady in green in the picture below, opened her home for the plant exchange.

After we eat and socialize and scope out the plants, the exchange begins. This year, we moved to the garage because of the cold wind blowing across their lovely farmland. Here, our host is confessing to iris theft from the church and offering up bearded iris.
Next Vern brings out some tender bulbs. The lady selecting the bulbs flew in from Philadelphia for the party so you know how much fun we have.
Jennifer, my niece, has everyone's rapt attention as she explains the "garden in a box" that she brought. She brought coral bells for the front, hosta for the mid-section and garden phlox for the back. There may have been more but that's all I remember.

She did a good sales job, no wonder she is in marketing.

Here is one person's bounty.
Donna is getting started with the plants she brought. I've gotten to know Donna during the last year as we landscaped the church's new building and really enjoy her and respect her knowledge. Look at all the plants waiting to be given away. Donna's helper is Jennifer's daughter, Emily, my truly great niece.
Here's Emily with my tiara checking out the tub, perhaps for earthworms or maybe she is making a wish. Beth crowned me Princess Plants-a-Lot (P-Lancelot) in honor of 20 years of the plant exchange.

Beth offers up a hot item.

Here's an idea of the sheet number and variety of plants. Over the years, we've learned to limit the rampant growers, and people brought things like toad lilies, filipendula and sweet autumn clematis.
And a good time was had by all. The best thing is that you divide several plants to give away and you come home with literally hundreds of dollars of plants. This year I brought home garden phlox (I have is purple phlox and am hoping for some white and pink), rose flowered mother-of-thyme, calendula starts, centaura, hosta, and knautia. It's just unfortunate that I don't have more empty beds so I wouldn't have to show such restraint.