We have a little robot to draw on eggs. I know its just a smiley face, but IT WAS DRAWN BY OUR ROBOT. It’s an Egg-Bot that we got from my dad for Christmas. David built it yesterday, we did some minimal fiddling today and now we can print on our eggs. Because really, everyone needs an egg printer!
And, a warning to the family – it also will print on a lightbulb, so don’t shake your birthday presents from us too hard ;)
We just pulled the peanuts and it appears they might have actually worked. Like they know how to grow themselves or something. Crazy!
They’re drying on the porch now and should be ready in about 2 weeks.
Peanuts + Wheelbarrow full of squash = good autumn eating
P.S. Those big light greenish/gray ones are Hubbard squash and they are awesome. Crazy hard to cut open but well worth it.
Hello! We have power again after 4 days without it. Hurricane Irene swept through on Saturday and we lost power from about 9pm on Saturday night to 9pm on Wednesday night. The real problem with that is that we’re on a well, so if there’s no power, there’s no water and let me tell you folks, 6 people with no water is no fun. But that was then and this is now so here are some pictures to catch you up!
Irene knocked the sunflowers down, but they got up again! (yes, I’m continuing the song lyric theme here. Lame, but its been a long 4 days.) And then I cut them and put them in a vase. I’m loving their woolly little faces.
Katie turned two years old! We had her party at Grammy’s house since they have a generator. Her cake was a tart covered in fruit. True to form, she ignored everything in order to eat as many of the berries as possible. That girl loves her fruit!
I made this sweet little doll for Katie for her birthday and we’ve named her Irene (original!). I’ve been wanting to make a Waldorf style doll for a long time and I have to say, I am hooked. It’s neat how you can start with wool, fabric and yarn and end up with a doll.
She was so fun to make, though I’m worried that I did start talking to her while hand sewing her overalls (did I mention the power was out?) I got the pattern from the book Growing Up Sew Liberated
Zoe had her first day of first grade and is loving it. It was a bit crazy because her first day of school was also the day the earthquake hit here. Exciting times, exciting times.
And Danny continues to be cute.
We planted hardy kiwi*, hops and table grapes this year and all three grow, shockingly, like vines. These are permanent installations so we went ahead and started our “vine”-yard which means we need trellises. Which means we need big timbers to be the supports and since David’s chainsaw is the answer to most problems around here, instead of buying them, he went out back to the windfall cherry tree in our back yard and machined the timbers out of the fallen log.
Not to brag, but he made them quite straight and square for only using his chainsaw. He doesn’t have an Alaska mill at this point but I’m starting to think that he might be able to do some pretty nice work if we could work it into the budget.
*And yes, we can grow kiwi here! One of the delightful things I’ve learned lately. They are not the same variety as the kiwis you find in the grocery store with the brown fuzzy skin. These will be smooth skinned and green all over. You eat the whole fruit without peeling, kind of like a grape. They are apparently very prolific and grow strong, heavy vines. I’m very excited. We got ours at the Edible Landscaping nursery near Charlottesville, VA which is a totally neat place if you garden anywhere in the Mid-Atlantic. They have a lot of plants and they focus on food plants that grow well in this area.
** Notice the nice haze on my pictures? That’s my fancy new lens called a “crazy hot humidity” lens. You probably haven’t heard of it because its so fancy and I’m so cool.
Just had to update you – the cantaloupes and watermelons are ripe and we are loving it!
