Apparently the rain was not missing, just sidetracked this summer.

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I got slightly overexcited about my garden this year, planning things out in advance and ordering seeds online. Elizabeth had a garden unit as part of the "school" stuff we've been doing, so we thought that it would be educational to see many different sizes of seeds actually growing into plants.

 

One thing led to another. We needed a grow light so the tomato seedlings wouldn't be so spindly and sickly looking. Then I decided I needed pretty raised beds and new dirt. Eventually I did get things planted in the garden and not much later than you are "supposed" to around here because the tomato plants growing too big for their starting pots gave me the extra sense of urgency I apparently need.

 

I planted peas, onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, beans, basil, peppermint, sweet peppers, hot peppers, pumpkin and maybe sixteen tomato plants (I couldn't bear to throw any of the seedlings away!). We also planted flowers - marigolds, begonias, geraniums, celosia, sunflowers, summer icicles and a few other flowers from seed that sprouted and were promptly gobbled up by some spoilsport who didn't wait to see how beautiful they looked.

 

It was a hot, dry summer, so the peas were not very successful. Our lawn died (it's partly recovered but we need to buy new grass seed that wasn't cooked!) I didn't know about planting the onions in loose soil, so they grew from tiny into barely big enough to be worth peeling. I suspect the potatoes and sweet potatoes are on the small side for the same reason, but haven't actually harvested them yet - so we'll have to wait and see. The pumpkins produced dozens of flowers and no pumpkins. The hot peppers produced many many green peppers and two ripe ones. I'm not sure if the season will be long enough to let them ripen, but then again we don't really eat THAT many hot peppers! The cucumbers started out wildly successful and we did get quite a lot of them to eat. But sadly for my hopes of pickles we were invaded by nasty cucumber bugs and that was the end of the cucumbers and the vines. Next year I'm going to try protecting the cucumbers with radish plants. It's supposed to help...

 

Does that sound like garden disaster? It wasn't really. That pile of tomatoes on the counter? One day's worth. I filled at least four buckets full, then canned more than 18 pints (I think about a 1/3 of my jars were quarts). We had bags of beans too. Elizabeth is old enough to help pick beans, though she does have a tendency to eat them rather than putting them into the pot. She's also old enough to help with the canning. Her favourite part was peeling the skins.

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We finally got around to celebrating Uncle Dave's birthday. Elizabeth was super excited because Xander has a paddling pool in his backyard. So she asked nicely if she could bring her swimsuit and Uncle Dave even warmed up the water for her.

 

Xander went swimming too. Then Uncle Dave and later Erika and Maria. Elizabeth had said she was only going for a short swim but she ended up staying in the water longer than anyone for once! I don't think there's any photographic evidence, but Grandma J and Auntie Janice were there - Chris and Yukiko had a concert in Gananoque so they missed out on the lovely supper. Sausages, ribs, corn, chocolate marshmallow peanut butter squares that I really need the recipe for and Dave's traditional "Death by Chocolate" birthday cake. Elizabeth was very relieved to see there were sufficient candles - it's apparently not a real party unless someone is blowing some candles out!

 

The girls decided they should play with Xander by pretending they were all babies too. They played follow the leader on all fours, with Xander being the leader, of course!

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So, our shampoo, corn starch and food colouring window paint comes off easily even after being left for several months to bake in more than 30C heat.

 

Good to know...

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Elizabeth has taken to climbing on just about everything and taking any and all opportunities to contort herself into the strangest positions.  She seems to be in constant motion.  Even when standing on the spot she is actually moving around and shifting position constantly.  She loves jumping on one foot and spends a fair amount of time falling down as a result of trying new things.  This is usually followed by "oh bother" which is cute beyond belief.  She has taken to trying every combination of foot movements in order to maximize her speed on her bike and is now also working on mastering the scooter and a tricycle (borrowed from Erika who has outgrown it anyway in order to learn how to peddle so that she can move up to a big girl bike).  Daddy is sure that all of this squirminess and general lack of interest in the laws of physics are from Mommy's side...

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