There are approximately four weeks until school starts.
I'll let that soak in for a minute.
On another note, it's been seven weeks since I've written a blog post.
Time is just a vapor, right?
I feel like we have been unbelievably lazy this summer -- not a lot of plans, not a lot of projects. There's been a lot of staying up late and sleeping in late for the three children at home; transitioning to a school schedule is going to be a jolt to all of our systems!
We have done a few out-of-the-ordinary/fun things. In June, I spent a couple of days in Indiana with two of my sisters. The three of us visited relatives and shopped and relaxed and laughed and caught up on each other's lives. We also took a little mini family vacation over the fourth of July. We packed up our bikes, and got a motel for three nights in a town an hour away, and enjoyed time with our three youngest children.
Marietta, Ohio has a lovely bike trail that we thoroughly enjoyed. We took a ride down the river on a Sternwheeler, played several rounds of mini golf, played games, went and picked raspberries at a u-pick patch, and just generally had a good time.
My gardening ambitions have not gone as planned this summer. I don't have space for a garden, but I can never quite give up on trying to have a few fresh veggies. I bought tomato, cucumber and squash plants to tuck in flowerbeds, and planted some green beans in my tiny little "garden" spot. My green beans have lots of tiny little beans on them, but the rest of my plants did not fare so well. The tomatoe, cucumber, and squash plants finally look about the size they should have a month ago and I don't know if there's enough time left in the growing season for them to produce anything or not!
I tried all the tricks to fend off the critters, but finally we declared war. In the space of five nights, we Chris caught (and disposed of) six pesky raccoons! There's not many things that make me downright mad, but those coons sure were one of them. The stinkers were so cute, sitting there in the cage, that you couldn't help but feel a little sorry for them. A few minutes thinking about all of their digging shenanigans was all it took to harden my heart very quickly, though. I wish I had actually counted how many times I replanted those plants; you cannot even imagine! I'm feeling the anger just thinking about it...
Thankfully, the coons did not ruin the lives of every growing thing. The wild raspberries along the edge of our woods had more berries than usual, and Jennifer braved the weeds and the brambles to pick them. We enjoyed several pans of crumb cake and discovered that raspberries in place of blueberries in our muffin recipe are phenomenal.
The coons also didn't bother the flowers that Jasmine has slowly gathered from the neighbor lady, other friends, and our "yard". The deer tried to take care of them, but I deterred them with liquid fence, and they had the good sense to stop their nightly visits.
There's still approximately four more weeks of summer. In them, Isaac will come home from Faith Builder's and Jasmine will come home from Boston. We'll probably have a corn day and can some green beans and tomatoes and enjoy fresh peaches. There will be more late nights and more sleeping in and more enjoying the slow pace of no schedule. There may or may not be more blog posts.