A House of....Styrofoam??

Hard to believe it's Friday already. This week really flew by for me. I suspect it has to do with keeping myself busy, which hasn't been difficult. The sun has finally decided to act it's seasonal self, and shine some heat down on us. It feels good to step outside into the sunshine and let it warm my shoulders. Of course there's a downside to it as well.The warm sun has been joined by the wind, and between the two of them they've done a fine job of drying out all the vegetation that had been taking advantage of the extended rainy season, resulting in some rather incredible growth spurts.

For those of us who call the country home, that means some extra work. As we've been outside toiling in the heat, cutting back the baking vegetation, Pa with his bushwhacker, me with smaller grass clippers, we are serenaded by the sounds of our neighbors doing the same thing. The Boondocks are humming with the sounds of busy humanoids doing their best to reduce the odds of their home and property being undertaken by the long fingers of red hot flames, should a spark be set off in the general vicinity.

Gardening

Of course, we're also still working the gardens. The kids' garden is doing great! Nathan's sunflowers are growing taller by the day, as is the elephant garlic. The potatoes all look healthy, and their lettuce is growing at twice the pace of mine.

Portions of my gardens are doing well too. Most of my potatoes look happy, and my peas are doing great. Of the hundreds of spinach seeds I planted, I think I have 6 healthy looking plants. At least I know they didn't go to waste. The Blue Jays and the slugs were provided with several tasty snacks. Ah well. Another month or two and hopefully (depending on what surprises Mother Nature may opt to throw at us) I'll be able to try the spinach again. My main patch of carrots and green onions were looking fine a week ago, but now most of them seem to have suffered the same fate as my spinach. Next year I guess. That's the thing about gardening, the ultimate gambling experiment. Just gotta take it as it's thrown at you, and hopefully learn from each year's experiences.

Power House

We had a busy week and weren't able to accomplish as much as we'd hoped with our science project. We did, however manage to get the house built. Initially it looked like it was going to go together quite easily, but then we noticed some unacceptable gaps in a few places that just wouldn't work in regards to future experiments. We all looked it over and tried several things to make it work, pushing and jiggling, as gently as possible since the whole thing is made of styrofoam,and we really didn't want to break it, or make any little hairline cracks that may undermine the structure ...Finally I took it all apart except for the greenhouse and one wall. I found if I placed a rather troublesome inner wall into the front wall first, then fit it into the back wall prior to placing the smallest wall in, that side worked out. Only problem at that point was the other side of the house was tilting up in the air. About this time I was thinking it was near hopeless but then I remembered how much this thing had cost us and thought I'd try placing the one remaining side wall in. That brought everything together and it all fit snuggly in place, including the all important roof. So, the house works as provided but, in our case anyway, not quite the way the instructions state. It was a fun beginning project, and even with the slight bit of frustration at times, the extra figuring was entertaining, and even provided some additional educational value. So far, so good. This weekend we'll put the doors and windows in so we'll be all ready to begin our first experiment early next week, We're going to "...capture the sun.." . Reading ahead, the biggest hurdle I can see (so far) is finding a small matchbox. Hmmm. Figures, we have a large kitchen matches box, but no small ones. Maybe we'll get lucky and find one before the need arises. Otherwise, I guess we'll just have an overabundance of kitchen matches! I suppose I can live with that ;-)

More Fun to Come

Pa is outside teaching Lindsay how to cast a fishing line. She's all excited, looking forward to her first fishing adventure. One more thing we're going to try to fit in to our schedule next week. Something about Summer time, just seems like such a busy season. Guess it's a good thing we're treated to some extra sunlight hours, which I suppose is about as close as any of us is ever going to come to more hours in the day :o)

I've got all my gardening done for the day, and need to get to my dishes before I can set myself down in the cool comfort of my humble home and get some knitting done.

Hope you're all enjoying your Summer events, and looking forward to a fantastic weekend!