The River Week

We can officially check off "A Week at the River" from the summer bucket list! We got back last night and we are all well rested and just a tad sun kissed. This particular week during the summer seems to be our family reconnect trip. With very limited modern day resources like cable TV (we watch off of an antenna and no one really watches anyway) and no internet for McKinley to beg to watch any kind of video on You Tube Kids, we find ourselves doing what they used to do during the "old days", hang out together! The horror!

So what is it that we do when we're down there? We played board games everyday, some days several times a day, and I wished that I had packed more than just Sorry!, Babar, and Uno. McKinley played trucks galore, farming, hauling, and a few trucking games he has loaded on his Kindle which was the only screen time available. And there were Fla-Vor-Ice pops every afternoon!

My mom and I took to cleaning out the fridge, to make room for all the new groceries we brought with us, and found a solid yet gelatin like substance in the fridge door. According to my dad, my mom and I always seem to concoct something new and we realized it was the liquid to last years homemade Popsicles. This year, I made homemade pop-tarts! I have my own summer bucket list, which is really just a life bucket list, and on it are things I want to bake. Pop-tarts were one. I used store bought pie shells this go round, but will definitely make my own in the future. They went over well, but I know I need to make some tweaks to my recipe. 

In addition to homemade pop-tarts, McKinley made his own pizza and I made my own mosquito repellent! The week at the river is the best time for me to experiment, with McKinley being completely occupied by just about everything, giving me time to myself which doesn't happen much at home!

The river was where most of the action took place and it was the summer of firsts for McKinley. He learned to bait his own hook and reeled in a fish! Not his first fish, but the first of the trip! I missed the whole thing, because I had gone back to the car, so no photo was captured! As a result, McKinley can give you a tall-tell of how big the fish was and you can imagine just how small it was! It's the age old fisherman tale, right? In addition to learning to bait his own hook, he learned to catch crawdads on his own. At first he used a rock to scoop it into a red Solo cup. By Friday, he was picking them up from the tail to avoid being pinched. Big Johnny was the largest crawdad of the week and came back to the house every afternoon in my dad's crawdad bucket. McKinley finally released him Saturday afternoon and I'm sure he was happy to back among his family and friends. According to McKinley, he would really miss Big Johnny.

Did you know that Wimbledon was on this weekend? Well who needed ESPN? We had our own version of championship play with a little family badminton. Even Meme got in on the action. It was doubles play for about five minutes before she grew weary, and hot, and left me to fend off the boys by myself. No worries, I was victorious in my own right! We have decided a new badminton set is in our future and games will played in my parents backyard! 

 

McKinley loves to "drive" Dodgie every chance he can get. Dodgie is a 1984 Dodge Ram that he has loved since about the age of three. He's been driving it just as long. He's convinced that this poor old truck will last another eight years, allowing him the chance to drive him at the age of 16. He has big plans! Dodgie will come to KC via a flatbed truck where he and Granddaddy will restore him back to his former glory. He will then drive this truck for the rest of his teen years. Unfortunately for McKinley, this truck can barely turn over as is, so the likely hood of old Dodgie making it to KC are slim to none. At least the memory of him can live on in McKinley's heart.

Lastly, my mom and I pass the time with scratchers! I walked away $7 richer too! We sip champagne, scratch our earnings, and discuss what we will do when we really win the big money! Joel is holding out for the cool million so we can buy our lottery dream home! 

The river week is one for memories. Memories that I hope McKinley holds dear for years. I hope he recounts this time to his friends as he gets older as some of the coolest days of his youth. I hope he tells his children about all the adventures he took when he was their age, like my dad does with his own stories, and calls them best times of his life. I hope the river memories always flow.

XO,

Andrea

Planting a Garden

My great grandparents were farmers, much like their parents and their parents before them. We would visit on weekends and my great grandfather, Papaw, would take me to see the pigs and cows, carrying me over the cow patties so I never ruined my shoes. He had a large vegetable garden across the road from their house, where he would plow the garden with horse and plow before using a tractor in his later years. This garden spanned acres and brought all the food they would eat throughout the year. My great grandmother, Mamaw, would can beans and tomatoes and they kept the canned goods in the dairy along with potatoes and onions to stay cool and dry. Milk came from their cows. Meat from the livestock which also included chickens. It was literally farm to table before it was chic to dine this way in restaurants.

Because I come from a long line of farmers, I've decided I must be one at heart. Or at least a gardener. So in the spring of 2013, I decided we needed raised beds in our backyard. We had an area with the ugliest ground cover I've ever seen so we ripped it out! We purchased two cedar beds, after much digging, leveling, and building up the area with cinder blocks, and began planting. That first year we grew lettuce and tomatoes because nothing else really grew. It was an experiment, after all, so I wasn't really sure what would come up. Over the years, we've continued to grow lettuce and tomatoes, but we've added cucumbers. But the raised bed weren't enough. Big enough, really, so I took over a small patch of yard off of our patio and started a larger garden. That year we grew corn and green beans. Two years ago we grew one pumpkin! I was in heaven. 

 

 Last year the rains came and it flooded out most of the things I planted. Joel joked that we needed crop insurance. I was sad. This year, we decided to add a border around the larger garden to keep the water from rushing in. We added cedar posts two high around the perimeter of the garden and actually increased the size a bit. This year, we've got carrots, radishes, green beans, cauliflower, corn, potatoes, watermelon, cantaloupe, and lettuce! We still have the raised beds and are currently growing several different salad lettuces and two rows of cucumbers. And, I added pumpkins seeds along a portion of the back patio that doesn't grow grass, and we have four orange pumpkins and two blue currently working their magic. I'm keeping my finger crossed that all of this becomes bountiful! Not to sustain us for the year, but to give us some fresh veggies to munch on during the summer.

One of the main reason I started a garden was to teach McKinley the importance of taking care of Mother Earth. I want him to know that what we put into the ground can grow into the things we eat, so we have to take good care of the surface of the earth in order for things to continue to grow. And, I was hoping it would help him eat the things he doesn't currently like because he grew it and harvested it. It hasn't worked yet. And I like know that there are zero chemicals in a few of the things we eat during the summer. Freshness at it's best! 

 have to say, even tending to a backyard garden isn't easy. There is work that has to be done. Weeding is the most important and a constant! I water every day, especially in the heat of the summer. I have to try and keep the critters from eating my crops so I'm always adding mesh "fencing" around the ones they love the most. And even this morning, I've been out digging up mounds of dirt to add to the base of the corn stalks to keep them from leaning and breaking against their own weight. Clearly it's not the work of your average farmer, I realize that, but I love doing it. And I love watching McKinley help me pick the tomatoes off the vine and the beans off the stem all summer long!

If you're following along with the Summer Bucket list, you know that I suggested growing a garden. It can be on any scale. Just get out there and plant! Do I have the farming gene? Probably not. Is it that I have a green thumb? Possibly. Is it just sheer luck? More than likely. Whatever it is, it's tons of fun to do!

XO,

Andrea