One of the most amazing toys in the world are bubbles. They float, dance, reflect colors, and just encapsulate childhood perfectly. The boys have spent a lot of time with bubbles and I think one of my very favorite memories was once, on the Trask, when we blew a gazillion bubbles and there was a carpet of bubbles on the grass that they ran through! We used Bubbles at rest stops to get car wiggles out and have tried to get the cats to chase them (the cats prefer laser lights..). Here, in EO, bubbles don't do as well. It is very dry here and the grass is sharper. And in our small town, I learned that the WATER has a great deal to do with bubbles. We had purchased a huge bubble wand thing for the summer reading program at the library and it wasn't working. As I did research, I learned that hard water is bad for bubbles! You need twice as much soap to make them work well! Professor Bubbles has a lot of GREAT bubble information on his site. One day this summer we had some kids visit for a day and part of it was spent trying to photograph the biggest bubble! What a very fun project!
After the bubbles and some popsicles, the kids were pretty sticky, so one of them opted to play in the water. She eventually decided to be a sprinkler and watered the garden as she sang, "I'm a Little Teapot'. Much more entertaining than the silly tractor that only goes one way or the other!
One of the best things about summer are gardens. One of my friends from College Place gave me some green beans from his and OOOO, were they YUMMY! We have mostly taters in our garden. The tomatoes are crowded out by volunteer sunflowers and I have not the heart to 'pick' them yet. (the sunflowers) We do have some sort of scab on our taters, but so far they have not inhibited the flavor! We have gold ones, white ones, red ones, and blues. Also learned that when you boil red, white, and blue taters together..for some reason you get GREEN water!!
One day while digging taters we found these 'seeds'. I have looked, but cannot find information on potato seeds that look like this! Pretty odd, huh? At first, I thought one of the tomato plants had escaped to another spot, but they are from the potato vines!
This last picture has a background of hops. We got this baby hops plant from Elgin in early 2008 and it FINALLY took off. Literally. It goes from the ground, across the trellis and anywhere else it can! It is sort of a pest! I am glad I planted it in a deep pot!
Am reading Generation Warriors by A. MacCaffrey and E. Moon. Am excited to finish it again because I found a NEW Grandma Dowdel book by R. Peck!!!! Jon hopes that she isn't watered down as that can happen with characters who keep showing up. He is right, but I have faith that Grandma will continue to blast her shotgun when necessary and put the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) in their place!
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