Family Pictures

This spring Gavin brought home the most awful school pictures. He looked adorable, of course, but the photographer had taken the pictures in front of a blank screen, then the company supplied various backgrounds: a fake barn, a fake lake, a fake meadow. The backgrounds could not have looked less natural or more hideous. Gav was crushed that I didn't want to buy his school pictures. To pacify him, I promised that this summer we would hire a REAL photographer to take our pictures in front of a REAL barn. We have four barns right here at our house, why not take some pictures right here? We even have a meadow -- real backgrounds aplenty!

So a few weeks ago, we had a local photographer come take some family pictures at our house, and this was the result.

We're Jammin'

I love eating raspberries right off the bush.

But seriously, when there are THIS many raspberries to pick? Things get a little crazy. Lucy is a super raspberry picker, but raspberries don't keep, and we don't have much freezer space, so we have to eat them right away . . . or make jam. This year, lots and lots of jam.

Three batches of jam, from a single harvest of raspberries.

 Last Sunday, as I was making my tenth (tenth!) batch of jam. I started to panic. Lucy announced that we had ninety-five jars of jam. We don't eat a lot of jam, so we mostly give it away. But I don't know enough people to go through this much jam, and the raspberry bushes are still loaded. But my entrepreneurial daughter had a plan.

Sell jam at the Farmer's Market!

The kids have begged me and begged me to let them do a lemonade stand. I have explained and explained that we live on a dirt road and most of our traffic are runners, who don't tend to carry wallets. But the town's Tuesday afternoon farmer's market would be a perfect place for the kids to set up a little stand, and I could offload some raspberry jam in the process! They made a poster, Lucy made her famous cupcakes and Gavin mixed a double batch of brownies, and we headed off to the market with our goodies.

Now really, who could resist opening their wallets for these two salesmen? They were naturals, saying hello to everyone who passed and offering them a sample. (They made sure I was far away, watching from the other end of the market.) Lots of little old ladies went home with brownies and jars of hand-picked-raspberry jam. The kids made $50, which they split between them for spending money for our upcoming vacation. They LOVED it, which means I'm probably going to be spending more time this summer making jam. . .

Summer Projects

I realized I've been blogging about all the kids' activities this summer, so you may get the impression that Austin and I have been just sitting around twiddling our thumbs for the past two months. But actually, we've both been hard at work at work too. And even though the projects aren't completely done, I think it's about time they get a post of their own.

Farmer Austin's Horse Barn

We didn't take "before" pictures of the awful 1920-era dairy barn interior. Too depressing. So you will have to imagine the cracked and guttered concrete floor and all the sagging white-painted particle board on the walls and ceiling, not to mention the remnants of the old milking stantions and the hanging metal tracks for the manure-removal system. This barn hasn't had cows in it since the late 1960s and it was an appalling mess.

Austin started by completely gutting the barn, exposing the nice beams and rafters, generating enough garbage wood for a huge bonfire and a truckload of toxic particle board for the dump. Then he got some concrete guys to come pour a 5-inch pad (which got closer to eight inches in the rear corner, the floor was that uneven). He found some horse stall pieces for sale on craigslist, hauled them across Lake Champlain from New York, and reassembled them in the barn using repurposed hewn barn beams for the supports. He built new interior walls with salvaged boards, created a "tack wall" with a wall moved from the carriage house, and repurposed some wood fencing to create a barrier along the edge of the concrete. In the process, he acquired some nice new tools and some impressive new carpentry skills. I gave him a (gentle) hard time about the escalating expense of this project, and the necessity of creating stalls for horses that just visit in the summer, but the truth is most of the cost was in sweat equity and Austin did this largely himself, just because he really wanted to.

Now Austin has stalls for two horses and designated places for all their saddles and equipment, with plenty of room left over to store hay and all his other toys: the snowmobile, lawn tractor, canoe, kayaks, and bikes. All he needs is an easy chair and this will truly be his man-cave. Next project (I hope): the exterior, which still looks terrible.

Farmer Emily's Gardens

I love our house. I truly do. But there was a woman two owners ago with no children and nothing to do except create lavish perennial gardens and berry patches. They are gorgeous, but take a tremendous amount of upkeep, and always at an awkward time of year: that precious 6 weeks May-June in which classes at Norwich are out for the summer but the kids are still in school. Normally I use this time for research (and I did get an article revised and turned in, thankyouverymuch) but I decided to devote most of the spring to bringing the gardens under control, pruning monster bushes and re-landscaping the section destroyed by Hurricane Irene.



I went through three truckloads of mulch and five pairs of gardening gloves. So far. I still have a section in the side yard that needs work, but it may not get done until next year. I've tried a new system where newspaper or cardboard is laid down to smother any remaining weeds under the bark mulch. After tearing out so much (useless) black plastic weed barrier I'm hopeful that paper will prove a more effective and biodegradable base.



The March and May floods of last year, along with the hurricane, deposited gravel and big rocks several inches deep over all the lawn here by the ice house. We had a guy come with a tractor to scrape the rocks off. I took the opportunity to have him re-grade this little hill, which has always been impossibly weed-covered, and the area outside the back door to the guest room, which was choked with brush. We seeded new grass and I planted "carpet roses" on the hill. The rose bushes are supposed to spread horizontally so they cover the whole area. Even though the roses were in the bargain bin at the nursery, they have done really well, putting out beautiful flowers soon after we planted them that have lasted most of the summer. The grass is coming in nicely too and now we have a lawn that extends all the way back to the edge of the woods behind the house.

Can you find the Katydid?

I don't know what this insect is, it seems part honeybee
and part hummingbird. These guys love my phlox.

Sam, Heather, and Grandpa

This weekend my dad surprised me with a visit, and he brought Sam and Heather too! It was so fun to see them. July is a great month to visit Vermont and I'm glad they were able to make the trip.

The major purpose for Dad's visit was to check out the old barn and take some measurements. He's considering trying to move the slate, big beams, and wide boards to Oxford to build a cabin around. Sam is a bit skeptical about the project but Dad seems to be optimistic. We'll see what happens. After Dad was satisfied with his barn measurements, we spent the rest of the time riding the horses and playing in the river.

Austin and Heather went for a run.
The kids joined in the last 100 feet.

Heather and Beauty.

Dad and Beauty.

The water is low, but there is still enough to kayak!



Water fight!

Gavin got the camera and took some random pictures of Sam. I love this one: it reminded me of an Uncle Sam recruiting poster:

Uncle Sam (and Aunt Heather),

 WE WANT YOU

to come visit us again soon!

Lotus Lake 2012

It has become a tradition to start the summer with a couple weeks of day camp at Lotus Lake. The kids do swimming, boating, crafts, hiking, fishing, archery, and horseback riding before we pick them up at 4:00, completely exhausted from their day of outdoor adventure.

Dressed for 60's day at camp.
Gavin was psyched about his 'stache.

We were so proud of the kids this year. Both of them passed the dreaded "Raft Test" in swimming: they had to jump off the dock, swim to the raft, jump off the diving board, swim back, then tread water. After they pass the Raft Test they are allowed so swim freely all over the lake. Lucy also passed her Boating Test and received the highest certification for horsemanship.

Lucy receiving an award on the last day of camp.

Gav gets a hug from his swim teacher.

Lucy's favorite counselor, Lucy.

Lucy and her pal Lilian.

Gavin passed the Blue Level.

It occurred to me recently that my kids can ride horses and paddle kayaks like champs, but they don't know how to ride a bike. We live on a crowned dirt road with no sidewalks and have a gravel driveway -- not exactly prime territory for learning to bike. It's funny that they can do boating and horses in our yard but we have to drive them someplace to ride bikes. I think this will be our next big goal this summer.

River Days

Reid, Jenni, Magnus, and Ani Mumford came through last week and spent a few days with us (oh, how lovely it is to be on someone's way!) We introduced baby Ani to the wonders of river splashing and Magnus to the fun of paddling with friends. The river is endlessly exciting: so much swimming, boating, rock-skipping, exploring to be done. I can't believe this is in our front yard.

I can't get enough of this baby.

After everyone's completely waterlogged, we gather around the fire pit for s'mores and popcorn. Gavin's special recipe for s'mores includes grahams, chocolate, marshmallows AND popcorn. Yummy!