on our way

We're finally on our way to Yellowstone!   The long-anticipated great American road trip of the summer.  In fact, I am sitting in the quiet dining room at my cousin Les' home in Lincoln, Nebraska.  I'm never up this early, but I wanted to see her and her husband before they left for work today- a Monday in the Real World.

We began with a Friday evening trip up to my in-laws.  CD's sister's family came over for a slightly early birthday dinner for him that night.  (Must mention the gift that Bug gave his daddy:  he composed a piece of piano music "The Superdaddy Theme Song".  I have no idea how I would attach it here unfortunately.  But he worked it out at the piano, and together, with help from his piano teacher, we got it written out with music notation software.  Anyway, I'm a bit jealous; no one has ever composed music for ME.)

We gave our love and got an early start, ready to begin this huge adventure.

We made it to St. Louis in remarkable time and spent the rest of the afternoon at the arch.  The lines to ride up into the arch were long and running late, so the afternoon quickly spread into evening.  Was it worth it?  Probably not, to me, but the kids were fascinated and excited.

And it made for some lovely photos!  This is our shadow, reflected in the Mississippi river.  We were peeking out windows at the very top.

No road trip is without a few problems, so we tried to get them over with early.  We have old fashioned paper maps we've hardly consulted, a GPS named Gertrude Penelope Smith, from CD's parents, and Google maps prepared at home.  Nevertheless, we exited from our parking garage, turned the wrong way, made at least one other well-intentioned-but-poorly-chosen turn, and ended up in Illinois again.  The traffic to return to Missouri was backed up with lane closures at 2pm and now it was Saturday evening, and still backed up.  We slogged across it again and began searching for some sustenance for our starving children, arriving at our hotel in Columbia, MO after 10pm.

Sunday we detoured around the swollen and flooding Missouri river, bypassing a drive into Iowa entirely and heading into Kansas instead. This photo, taken out my window while CD drove, proves that Kansas is not, in fact, as flat as a pancake.

Today is a long drive north to Rapid City, SD, stopping in the Badlands. The kids are doing well; we're surviving the long boring stretches fine. We'll have more photos and I'll post again in a few days!

red, white and blueberries

Pook and Bug both have lovely blue eyes.  Pook's are a light blue with a darker ring around the iris.  Bug's eyes are bolder and he also got dark lashes, dark brows and hair that I thought might stay blond but didn't. Especially when still a blond toddler he got comments everywhere we went. He started giving his own answer to the question "Where did you get those blue eyes?" by answering "I put blueberries in them."


This is my segue to say that we went blueberry picking on Friday and brought home two gallons of berries.  The boys are definitely useful now.  They put more berries in the bucket than the belly.  We only picked from about six bushes, spending less than an hour to fill our container.  We were charged $20, but I had to ask her what it would have cost at the farmer's market where she sells them (and I get my CSA)-- $60.  I'd say that is worth the sweating!

Friday's recipe was a Dump Cake:
   1 cup self rising flour
   <1 cup sugar
   1 cup milk
   < 1 stick butter, melted in preheating pan
   2 cups berries
30 minutes in a 350' oven

Saturday we had sourdough pancakes with blueberries.

Sunday we finished the Dump Cake

Today we made a crisp without a recipe (really, can you go wrong?) The general ingredient list consisted of:

flour
oatmeal
brown sugar

melted butter
cinnamon
pinch salt

4 c. blueberries tossed with 1 T cornstarch and splash of lemon juice
30 minutes in a 350' oven, served with vanilla ice cream this time.


Tomorrow's plan is to make Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream.  


Happy Fourth of July everyone!

summer gardens

In addition to the sunflowers gracing my gardens this summer, and despite the drought Atlanta is experiencing (really, you should watch the radar as the huge storm clouds dissipate when they reach the city) there is much in bloom around here.

mixed bag

In the spring, under our bird feeder, I encountered this:

This is a clump of chives, with oregano showing a bit on the left lower corner and grass and weeds outside the black border on the right.  The leaves around the chives are the ones I noticed. The mulch here is almost entirely sunflower seed hulls. I pulled out most of the sprouts, but unlike most years, I decided to leave a couple to see how they'd do.

And how did they do? See for yourself:

More sprouts showed up on the other side of the house, far from any birdfeeder. Perhaps there was a nest above and seeds were spilled?  These are from my front yard woodlands, where the cut trees are offering sunshine to the area for the first time:

All are different from the others, some with yellow centers, others brown or black. A few in the front yard are six feet tall.  Two out there have multiple blooms on one stalk (and are too heavy to stand up on their own!)

Thank you, birds! (and/or squirrels)

after "nothing"

I suppose I should stop doing "nothing" and catch up here!

Kids:  Both boys are on the swim team.  They swim two mornings and two evenings a week, but it hardly cuts into our day at all. We spend a few hours at the pool most afternoons regardless.  Saturday is the first swim meet of the season, and far across town first thing in the morning.  Hopefully it will go swimmingly!

I have pulled back on my involvement in the organization of this group and it is surviving happily without me.  This is good for all of us.

Garden: The rain in the rest of the country makes me feel guilty when I complain, but last night it rained for the first time in two months.  The ground is cracking and only the hardy will survive.  I save the dishwater for the pots outside and water the rest irregularly.  There are a few tomatoes ripening on Pook's tomato plant ("Sweet Millions" cherry tomato) and many green fruits on Bug's plant ("Sungold" grape tomato).  CD's slicer tomato is becoming a huge plant but has not set flowers yet.  My cooking tomato plant looks pathetic and unloved, yet has received the same treatment as those of the boys.

Purple coneflowers, golden coneflowers, and two types of daisies are happily filling my sidewalk "summer garden" beds.  The daylilies are cheerful down by the mailbox, with feverfew beginning to intermingle in a wonderful combination.  The chrysanthemums in my "fall garden" are already opening too-- everything is a few weeks earlier than normal.  If I can keep it all alive in this August style heat it will look wonderful in the fall. 

Me:  I have been continuing physical therapy for my foot and shoulder.  The challenge, the foot, has become a wonderfully solved mystery.  The pain is a "scraping nerve" in my hip, and some simple exercises are relieving the foot of all pain and most of the problem up my leg too.  The simple problem, the shoulder, became the difficult one.  Four weeks of PT made it worse. A cortisone shot did little and several more weeks of PT made it yet worse.  An MRI on Wednesday is diagnosing it as "tendonosis" or chronic inflammation of the rotator cuff as well as some arthritis in the ball and socket.  I'm supposed to schedule an appointment for a Lidocaine shot under ultrasound for further diagnosis.  If I knew what that was all about I would explain further.

Travel:  I finally made CD help me pin down our route to Yellowstone. The grand plan includes:

1. Atlanta GA - Nashville TN
2. Nashville TN - Columbia MO via St. Louis
3. Columbia MO - Lincoln NE to see my cousin Les
4. Lincoln NE - Rapid City SD
5. Rapid City SD - Cody WY via Mt. Rushmore
6. Cody WY -West Yellowstone MT for five nights
7. West Yellowstone MT - Green River WY via Tetons
8. Green River WY - Grand Junction CO
9. Grand Junction CO - Mesa Verde CO via... Mesa Verde
10. Mesa Verde CO - Fort Worth TX
11. Fort Worth TX - Jackson MS
12. Jackson MS - Atlanta GA

Exhausting to write.  Exciting to anticipate. I hope we survive.  I don't know if I feel safe posting our photos and updates on Facebook, but I will probably try to post here.