I don't ever remember another July in Idaho when the honeysuckle has bloomed in my back yard. They are usually in bloom in early June....
I have a four foot tall tomato with at least twenty buds on it.....but it has yet to set on ONE tomato......I've had salad from my yard...lettuce, dandelion, and other wild things.
Gary's corn is about six inches tall.. To say the least it is not doing well. Strange year in Idaho. I haven't been swimming yet.
I like the lakes when they are cold. Soon they will be to warm to cool me while I swim. I have broke out the old Exercycle bike. I have my cardio glyde. I've been working at them . Getting old is not for the faint heart. Being so fat is probably why I have not been in the lake....Even at sixty I'm vain..."Vanity thy name is OLD woman." I don't REALLY think that is the way that quote went. It is close enough!....
Jacob,paid us a visit with his second Daddy, last night. He tells me ."he is lucky cause he has two daddies. Most little boys only get ONE."
The child put five miles on the exercise bike. Dug a bike that belongs to Stephen or Axston. It was deep inside the shed.he really and to work for it. He rode it all over the place as fast as it's little tires would carry him.....
He also went to the park where He hung from the bars and ran over under around and through the play ground equipment while we watched it became at once, Tom Sawyers island...Treasure islands walkway...and a ship to ply the deep waters of Northi Idaho!!! He did calesthenics, he climbed the "childs mountain1"He hung from rungs and fell on his head!. He tires me out just watching him. He rode my cardioglyde machine too....He pulls the handle all the way down so it touches his forehead! In that position the back of the machine goes way up.....It's like a "do it yourself"teeter totter!......He is quite a guy, our Jacob.
I am told the elder children are going to camp this week. This means I had to go get Stephen a pair of shoes to wear to camp. He had nothing but flip flops. You know the kind we used to call thongs. His mother was going on about his shoes being left at camp on a recent camping trip with the family. I was amazed she let him go. Ace was "to grounded" to go. cause he got bad grades in school.....expletive deleted....
Camping with Grandpa and his Uncles was pretty important..I think there was much more to this than we will ever know...
At any rate his shoes, she was so upset over were found. They had holes in the soles...poor kid. I guess if you have nothing a bit of something is better than none at all. I don't understand her thoughts....but TJ was going to buy him a new pair..I bought him a couple pairs to wear now and will get him a nice pair for his birthday....in case he leaves them at church camp....Which is all together likely with this little guy. He is a normal six year old..Shoes are not a priority.
He sure liked catching crawdads with Uncle....The first thing Jacob did was pick one up wrong and it grabbed him! He was not as thrilled with Crawdad fishing as Stephen! Auntie took them rock climbing....wading and picking wild berries...they roasted wieners and marshmallows...they sang camp fire songs. There was no stress and loads of laughter....
As an aside,Stephen's other Grandmother was at the public pool in St. Maries and yelled clear across the water, at her foster daughter....Eve....what are you doing out here without your thongs..you get in that room and get your thongs on RIGHT NOW.....needless to say she garnered much attention at the public pool in St. Maries. Her daughter who is in her early teens, was not exactly thrilled! I doubt any man there was thinking of shoes.....
I remember in the fifties when those dumb things came out. They were so uncomfortable with the big chunk of rubber that came up between your big toes....They were all the rage!.....Now Thongs appear to me to be just as uncomfortable.....even if it is not your toes that is rubbed upon............
It should be time for the deep purple huckleberry to appear in our forests. Most people are not aware that the huckleberry you see is probably on a bush that is up to a hundred years old. The Native Americans used to burn off the hillside so the bush would grow less leaves and more berries...the Asians were killing off the plants by hacking the tops off the plants while they were in bloom and shipping them back to Asia to be used in flower arrangements. I hope they have made that practice illegal. I used to get mad at people who broke off the plant and took them into camp; berries and all ,to be picked in front of the camp fire.
I don't really know if either practice really hurt the plant. In light of the Native American practice of burning the bushes down every few years it probably did them little harm. Huckleberries are a natural antioxidant and are reputed to lower one's blood sugar if one is diabetic. I love the smell of the syrup and the pie cooking. I'm not to wild about the flavour.
Mom makes a wonderful huckleberry pie...The smell of them cooking will always be one of my fondest memories......Huckleberries have never been domesticated so they will grow in peoples gardens...Perhaps there are just a few things and secrets that don't belong to man......
Sarvice Berries grow abundantly in my back yard. The Native American used them in pemmican. They pounded and pounded them till they were ground fine and mixed the juice berry and all into suet from venison and other dried meats, somehow,they made patties of it. I have researched and researched them. Still I can find little or nothing about them. I am waiting for them to ripen this year. I want to run them through my juicer and make Jelly from them . I think they are probably to seedy for Jam. I've never found a recipe for them. Most people don't know what they are. I like their tart taste. I've propagated them in my yard for years and years for their early flowers, which are much like the(Idaho state flower) Syringa or the "mock orange" flower that is so abundant in Idaho. They make lovely yard flowers...I also want to make some rose hip jam..I have spread the Cherokee rose seeds all over......they have such a wonderful fragrance....they were named such, for every tear that was held so close during the "trail of tears"..we shall see how much of this I get done.......
I seem to do a lot in the day time......but it seems like so little gets done....perhaps I am just by nature......"a piddler!"
