Saturday is a special day

It's the day we slave away in the garden for nine hours yet still not

finish! I have some more corn and my melon and giant pumpkin plants

are ready to go in but waited so long to do it the weeds had come back

since David last tilled. Much gratitude goes to Bro. Ferrin, who

hardly knows me, but enthusiastically retilled it, calling the hour of

physical labor on a Saturday "better than Prosac." I'd have to agree.

Physical work outside has been a bastion against the crazy for three

gardening seasons now.

I had read that you can plant radishes with carrot and beet seeds 
because they ripen so fast that when you pull them it spaces the other 
root veggies as they start to get going.  I won't be trying this again 
because 1. Really, who can eat the six buckets of radishes that 
result?  I used six in a salad last night and not even the chickens 
could finish off the rest. 2. By the time I finally got out there to 
rescue the patches from the speedy weeds, some of the radishes were 
gigantic mutants. 3.  Pulling up the weeds and radishes stressed the 
carrots and beets and half couldn't  stay up without all that radish/
weed support. So here are some monsters.

Potato flowers. Supposedly they are ready to start eating when they 
flower. To store or get the nice hard skin, you leave them a few weeks 
after the plants die. Looking forward to digging me up a treat.

Mayflower pole beans. This variety was actually on the boat!

Inca rainbow corn from Bakers Creek Rare Seeds.

I love getting back in the dirt. Joblessness is sweet!  Thanks Dave!  
(And Happy Fathers Day!  I adore you!)

Fathers' Day

Because yesterday was Fathers' Day, in our house that means I have to do whatever David wants, so last night that meant watching Dark Shadows with him and not blogging.

Saturday should have involved more weeding than it did, but definitely some gardening was done, and I have many mosquito bites to prove how late it was when I finally had to go in from lack of light.

I'll take some pics of the plants and chickens soon--they are both growing like crazy. Now it is finally heating up I think they'll grow faster. The potatoes are defintely the biggest, although the Yukon Golds are not so prolific as the red and russet.

I learned the "grape" vines I found and put on the rameumptom, as well as others I thought may be grapes around our fence are all creeping virginia--that look like grape vines when dormant, and do set berries (for use by the birds). It looks like it will be very pretty in fall. We have tons of some kind of mint, which I suspected was catnip and was right, I so wish it was spearmint!

I'm planting a lot of corn, and with all the flooding in the midwest, I'm glad about it. However, my first planting several weeks ago I thought I was smarter than the instructions. I hate thinning, it feels like such a waste, so I just planted one every foot, like they are supposed to end up. Well, I later read that corn has a low germination rate, plus I think some robins got to them just after planting, so I ended up with 10 plants in my 10 x 4 area in the West garden. This is bad for pollination, which I'll have to do by hand now. I very carefully transplanted them into a group (they were spread over the patch) and replanted more, 4-6" apart this time as instructed, and as I did in the big garden. I need to quit thinking I know better in things.

For Fathers' Day, I'd spent the week doing a very homey cross-stitch pillow for David's present. I'll have to take a picture, but it was a reference to an inside joke between us about the Book of Mormon story of the great missionary Ammon in Alma 18-19, where King Lamoni is converted and collapses, overwhelmed by the Spirit and what he's heard.

1 And it came to pass that after two days and two nights they were about to take his body and lay it in a sepulchre, which they had made for the purpose of burying their dead.

2 Now the queen having heard of the fame of Ammon, therefore she sent and desired that he should come in unto her.

3 And it came to pass that Ammon did as he was commanded, and went in unto the queen, and desired to know what she would that he should do.

4 And she said unto him: The servants of my husband have made it known unto me that thou art a prophet of a holy God, and that thou hast power to do many mighty works in his name;

5 Therefore, if this is the case, I would that ye should go in and see my husband, for he has been laid upon his bed for the space of two days and two nights; and some say that he is not dead, but others say that he is dead and that he stinketh, and that he ought to be placed in the sepulchre; but as for myself, to me he doth not stink.

You can finish the story here - but David has always thought this was the sweetest love story, that everyone else thinks he stinks except his wife. He applies the scriptures to himself. The pillow says in my neatest cross stitch possible since I haven't done it since the 7th grade:

To me he doth not stink . . .

Yesterday we went up to my in-laws ward because my Paw-in-law was speaking in church and I was asked to sing "O My Father." (click for history) Earlier in the week I found out the original tune Eliza Snow had chosen was "Gentle Annie" by Stephen Foster, so I found an SATB version at Day Murray Music and sang that version--everyone seemed to really enjoy it, it has that sweet, "Shenandoah Valley" vibe to it. You can hear a clip here of what I sang, if you click the second track--this whole CD is highly recommended.

We had a BBQ with David's parents and sibs and it was all very pleasant. My Paw-in-law is my only Paw, and he's a good one.

Happy Fathers Day to my sweet man. To me he doth not stink.