Summer bounty

Happy Sunday!  We've had a really nice weekend after a fairly relaxed week at home.  As we quickly move toward the end of  August and the days get shorter, I'm really trying to soak in as much of the Summer as I can with the girls. 

Monday night we drove out to the Dewitt area for a quick geocaching adventure  With the sky looking dark gray, I was sure we were going to get a storm and that we wouldn't get in much of a walk, but we found a lovely little cemetery and, surprisingly, the rain held off so we had a nice walk with views of a beautiful August corn field.  It was a quiet place for a walk and perfect for some training time.

Tuesday evening was a beautiful night for a walk around the MSU Horticultural gardens.  I love the rose garden and enjoyed a slow walk through the garden enjoying all of the wonderful roses.  Of course I took some time to smell a few along the way.  We even sat down for a bit to really enjoy them.

There were a lot more people out on campus than I had expected, with lots of family photo and senior photo sessions happening.  But lucky for us, the crowds of people didn't keep us from doing a little geocaching.  Mina even found one of the caches all on her own.  Of course Peaches had to join in to find out what was so interesting.

We enjoyed a nice long walk around the annual and perennial gardens and found several caches, including this one which I thought was pretty cute.

Despite a busy day out in the yard and playing with Peaches all day in addition to our nice walk and geocaching adventure,  Mina refused to settle down for the night after we got home.  I found myself out in the backyard with her at 9pm watching as she zoomed around with the occasional pounce as she got close to a lightning bug.  I was sure that after we spent 10 -15 minutes outside, she'd finally come inside and relax for the night, but I was wrong.  And I found myself out in the driveway doing some loose leash training at 10pm, but that finally did the trick and she put herself to bed for the night.  

Wednesday night we had our final puppy class.  It was interesting at the end of six weeks to see how much the puppies had grown and learned.  Mina was a superstar during class and was most happy with the reward at the end-playtime with the other puppies.  I think she'd have loved it if they could have played for the whole hour!  I was really proud of my puppy school graduate.  

Once again on Wednesday night, even after class and puppy playtime, Mina came home ready to play more.  Thankfully, Peaches was ready to play too.  What I realized that night is that my puppy is getting older, and with that age, she is getting to the point where she can handle more exercise than she's been getting.  She has grown enough that she will settle nicely during the day while I'm working and spends some time in the crate daily too, so our evenings need to include more training for mental stimulation and more exercise.  

With that in mind, when I heard that the annual Farmer's Market on the Capitol grounds was happening on Thursday, I made plans to take the girls downtown on my lunch.  I decided to head downtown for an early lunch, thinking that it would be a little quieter then, but boy was I wrong!  We arrived downtown shortly after 11am and I couldn't believe how many people were there.  While the crowds and all of the new and exciting smells made for a difficult start to our walk, it was an excellent training opportunity for both girls.  They met lots of new people, learned to settle in the middle of all of the craziness, and even had a few pretty exciting squirrel sightings.  I headed home with two pooped pups.  After eating their lunch, they settled in for a quiet afternoon.  

The weekend forecast called for showers and thunderstorms most of  Saturday afternoon into the evening and most of the day Sunday, so I spent Friday evening mowing and doing yard work.  Mina enjoyed zooming around the yard and trying very hard to avoid the lawnmower or wrestling with Peaches.  It was a busy evening and by the time we headed inside for the evening, I was exhausted.  Luckily the girls settled down well for the night too

I knew that I had work to do in the garden Saturday morning so we were up and outside early so I could finish before the rain arrived.  I picked the last of the green beans of the season and pulled the plants, trimmed the tomato plants and picked several tomatoes, picked broccoli, celery, basil, and zucchini, and pulled the carrots and put in a second planting which should be ready in mid October.  I also spent some time fixing the fence around the garden to try to keep Mina out of it.  She really is fascinated with the garden and sneaks in whenever she can.  We're working on that!

Despite the forecast calling for rain, we got lucky and had a beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon.  After working hard all week and doing so much work in the yard and garden, I decided to enjoy the afternoon.  I got the hose out to fill the pool and discovered that Mina loves the hose!  We had so much fun playing together.  By the end of the afternoon, I had a very wet and happy puppy.

We had a fun and relaxing Saturday afternoon at home and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I've forgotten how much fun it can be just staying home and playing with your dogs in the backyard.  I look forward to doing more of it.

The plan for Sunday was to clean and prep veggies and maybe even do some baking.  Since I expected a rainy day, I thought it would be the perfect day for working in the kitchen.  We ran some errands in the morning and then came home to get started.  

Since the weather was nice we headed outside again, trying to take advantage of as much time as we could outside before the ran moved in for the afternoon.  I  dehusked tomatillos, trimmed green beans, and cleaned carrots while the girls sniffed, played, and sunned themselves.   We even got in a second round of bobbing for apples for the weekend.  The rain held off until the evening and we once again had a wonderful day.

In addition to all of the veggies from my garden, earlier this week I headed out to my favorite local farm for some of my favorite Michigan fruits.  I came home with 10 pounds of blueberries, a peck of peaches, a quart of sweet cherries, and a giant watermelon.  While I buy this fresh fruit because I love to eat it fresh, I can never eat it all and always have to freeze some.  But this year I have an even more important purpose for some of these fruits and my veggies.  

My little Fiona turned four months old on Friday and she is just starting to eat some fruits and veggies  So I did the most grandmotherly thing I could think to do-I made homemade baby food.  I can't think about my grandmothers without thinking about the ways they showed their love for me through food.  It is the way that I show my love too.  The timing couldn't have been more perfect with the garden veggies being ready now.  So today I started some of the purees and will freeze them into baby-sized portions in ice cube trays and then pop them into freezer bags.  I don't have enough ice cube trays or freezer space to do all of the purees at once, so I plan to continue to make a few others this week.  By the end of the week I hope to have peach, carrot, green bean, blueberry, broccoli, and zucchini purees ready.  

It is a lot of work, but I look forward to her first taste of zucchini being the zucchini puree made with love from the zucchini I grew in my little garden.   It just warms my hear to think about that.