Strawberry Festival (AKA Guess Who Fell into the River????!)

 

Today was the yearly strawberry festival at one or our local organic farms.

 

We did hayrides.

 

Visited the greenhouse

 

And had strawberry shortcake with organic cream. Heavenly!

 

One of the highlights was listening to our favorite story teller, Simon Brooks. My children love listening to his stories.

 

Where most of the kids and parents were sitting on benches and at picnic tables, my kids found an even better location from which to enjoy the stories...

 

 

 

I wondered whether there would be any strawberries left for picking after the hours of story telling, but that worry was totally unnecessary. We found quite some strawberries. The sun was shining brightly and we had fun meandering through the patch and filling our containers.

 

 

Erik quickly got tired of strawberry picking and decided to enjoy the river from this dock. I can't say I blame him, since the strawberry patch was right in a Very Sunny Spot. Funny how they always do that!

 

 

After a while his sisters joined him and they were having a great time.

 

Until...

Guess who fell into the water???!!!

Oh well, at least it was a hot day anyway.

 

"Never boring" I call it.

 

 

Charlie on Vacation

 

I am having fun with my new camera. This is a chipmunk I saw when I was hiking last week. It was pretty far away but my camera caught it anyway.

 

I have a friend who has many chipmunks living in her yard, and she has been calling them all Charlie. I liked that idea so much that I find myself doing the same. In this case it was clear that Charlie was on vacation, because he was not at home in her yard.

 

He was not particularly happy about humans invading his vacation domain and chirped at me using some choice chipmunk insults (Your mother is a hamster and your father smells like elderberries!). I took pictures anyway, and pretended not to understand him.

RAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After a long heat wave, and carrying many buckets of water to my new plants and flowers, we finally got some rain!

 

As in nice refreshing thunder storm with tons of rain in a short period of time. My plants will be so happy! And hopefully the crazy heat will be over and it will be normal summer weather instead of 'OMG did we move to the tropics????!!!' kind of heat.

Vacation!!!!!!!!!!

 

Finally, it is SUMMER VACATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Now if only we would stop melting... The temps have been crazily high for the last week.

 

Luckily the pool is open. I am so happy it's vacation and I can drive in different circles all day than during the school year :p

 

 

 

Girl on Rock

One of the features I love about this house is the HUGE rock in our front yard. The kids love to sit on it and observe all that is going on in our street. Which admittedly is not very much.

 

Sunday Hike

Today I met a good friend somewhere in Vermont and had a great time. On the way back, I decided that I should take my new camera hiking. Never mind that I wasn't quite dressed for hiking (since I had changed out of my gardening clothes to meet my friend). Never mind that I wasn't prepared at all for hiking.

 

I figured I would just hike up for half an hour and then turn around and come down again.

 

Going hiking was the best decision ever. Not only did I get to try out my new camera on many objects, but also I got to experience the solitude and calmness of the trail.

 

I met only two sets of hikers in the hour that I was up there, so most of the time I could just be and enjoy the sounds of the forest. I heard a woodpecker working hard on its trees. I heard a chipmunk complaining about all the hikers in the woods nowadays. I saw birds flitting through the trees.

 

The trail went up and up, so I have to admit that I didn't feel particularly sorry that I couldn't hike the whole thing today. The limited hike today was perfect for the day and the way I was dressed.

 

I bet there must have been geocaches around, but alas I didn't have a GPS with me. Will have to look up later and go back there to find them. I hope to do quite some geocaching this summer. Once I find my GPS that is :p

 

On the way back out, I found myself dragging and not really wanting the hike to be over. I kept stopping and looking at things and making pictures, just to make it last longer.

 

On the way in, for a while I still heard traffic noises and it didn't feel very remote yet because of that. They did disappear though and soon I only heard the forest sounds. On the way out the traffic noise was a clear indicator that the end was near. I wasn't quite ready for it to end and felt a pang of disappointment that I couldn't just go on and hike more.

 

I consoled myself by a visit to a farmer's market and nursery. Many plants were on sale, so I actually SAVED money, right?

 

I am proud of myself because when I came home I actually got all my new plants planted before the kids came home. I feel so organized!

 

Summary: great friend, lovely hike, terrific nursery, and abundant gardening.

 

Life is GOOD!