We Had Such Hopes: May 2021

I need to learn to drive the big tractor! Luke and Joel come home each year to plow and till for Mom and I.  It's a good excuse to get them to come for a visit, though.  ;)  I should mention that they bear no blame for the most discouraging gardening year of my adult lifetime. We had the worst harvest in 20 years, so I guess this year HAS to be an improvement, right?

Joel plows the upper garden.

Joel plows the lower garden.

Marshmallow break. (The five oldest were gone, so the five youngest and I had a party.)

A week or so later, Luke tills the upper garden. WATCH OUT, MOPSY! (That lady just can't abide standing still.)

Luke tills the lower garden. WATCH OUT, MOPSY! Rock-picking is dangerous business.

 

Ramp It Up: Hunting Wild Leeks-- May 2021

We gathered leeks a couple of times last spring and harvested some for freezing for the first time ever, due to needing leeks for Piper's birthday party in July. 

Everybody came along for a solid adventure in the Big Woods.

Cadence in the mayapples.

For these Big Woods trips, I usually pack a picnic lunch of sorts. This time, it took the form of a five-pound bag of gummy bears that Grandma Owen had shipped to us. FIVE POUNDS OF GUMMY BEARS! IN THE WOODS! Perfection.

Reading breaks in the Camel Tree-- always.

(taken by Millie)

Tadpole hunting is always a necessity.

Pictures like this are also a Big Woods tradition, only there are more children lined up now than there ever were in the past (lucky us!).

A telling picture-- Susannah in the foreground; Mildred laboring the the background.

And then the buggy walk homeward, through glades and fields.

Only a couple of more months until we do it all over again. (I cannot wait. Spring!)

 

Home Sweet Home: Mud Gauntlet 2021

                                

                               

Annika will sorely miss climbing/swinging/running/leaping here as much this year, as she's still waiting on the thrice-denied MRI for her severe shoulder injury from last October, but these pictures need a place on shotsnaps, if only because of how happy she becomes every time she sees this picture of her and Jarry together.

Thanks to Millie for the pictures of this happy girl and one of her favorite people.

 

Puppies- Part Deux-- May 2021

 

Puppies grow even faster than babies do.

We welcomed 8 little puppies on Cinco de Mayo, 2021, and Millie promptly gave them all Spanish names. John Wayne was the (proud?) papa this time around, and we kept one of the pups to remember him by. He is not yet gone from this earth, never fear, but he's 12 years old now, so we know the goodbye is coming. 

I'll introduce Marigold when I finally time-travel to the present, but here are the puppies as they were last May. (My mother helped coax the runt back to life after we'd given him up for dead-- Lazarus was renamed Jax, but I still call him Lazarus in my head.)

Just a couple of weeks later, they filled more than half the puppy box, all flopped over and drunk on milk.  Look at Lazarus (Jax)! He's half the size of the other puppies here, but now he's tall, long, and lean, and built like a greyhound. 

Deborah and the children came over a couple of times to meet the puppies. Marnie was the only one to have no concerns regarding the ferocious beasties.

She and Ransom wore their matching outfits from Aunt Sarah J., and they enjoyed meeting each other again. Babies are always wonderful, but I love to watch them experience the conscious wonder of recognizing another baby, like them but different.

(Half the puppy pictures were taken by Millie, but I don't remember which half. Just assume from here on out that most pictures are taken by Millie, Susannah, or Piper, because they used my camera more than I did in 2021. M and S both have their own cameras for 2022, though, and now I'M borrowing THEIRS. What goes around...)