From Russia with Love!

Svetlana sent Ryan a package that also included some gifts for us. It's been fun for us to Skype with her a few times and get to know her as well. She speaks pretty good English which is getting better and she has a beautiful laugh. This morning, while we were skyping her, we opened the box with our gifts. She was so sweet to think of us and send things. It took about six weeks to arrive.

She got Ryan and Michael new ties! She's really good a picking them out. They are beautiful ties!

She sent us some coasters with cute pictures on them. Right now I put them on display on our bookcase!


The background for these pictures is a beautiful shawl made from goat hair. It's so soft. I'm amazed at it! She sent me this cute Matroyshka doll. . .

That had ten dolls inside, the littlest the size of a pea.

She lives in Vogagrad and sent some refrigerator magnets with some monuments from her City. These are some huge statues honoring the battles from World War II. One is 170 feet tall called the Motherland Calls. It has 200 steps honoring the 200 days of the Battle of Salingrad (which is what Volvagrad use to be named!

Butterfly Bushes

We have two huge butterfly bushes. I cut them back in the winters but they just keep coming back!

They have been full of beautiful butterflies of various types all summer.

Moving into the Greenhouse

I took a short video of the new tables we built for the greenhouse and our plants all moved in. We have several tomato plants that have some fruit set already. I also have eggplant (more plants than we wanted but they all came up) that have fruit on them). Unfortunately, we only had one pepper plant that survived. The others were eaten by grasshoppers. They were terrible this year! I also have a lot of lettuce, broccoli and cauliflower coming up that we plan to set into a hydroponic system soon!

Ward Tailgate party!

Our stake has a new outdoor pavilion and game field so our ward used it this weekend. Kelly had the great idea of making this a tailgate party and for everyone to decorate their cars and wear their favorite team's clothing! The car decoration wasn't real impressive but the food and visiting and games were great! Here are some pictures.

War with the Beavers!

Our ordeal with the beavers is far from over. We bought some spray that was supposed to be a deterent and it worked for a little while. . . but they are determined.

They have taken all five peach trees, two plum and now our Nectarine.

Here's the nectarine. This is the first time that they actually cut the tree down and left it there. It stayed there for three days but last night they came back and finished taking it to their home.

I have researched what to do. I found some things on line that sounded like a solution only to order it and have it never delivered! Thanks to Paypal we got our money back. I have heard the best thing to do it to make a fence around the trees. Today we finished fencing up what is left. I hope this works. We've ordered some more trees but we have to make sure we can keep the beavers off! Anyone got other ideas except shooting them?

Fall Garden update

The weather has been amazing lately. We've lost the humidity and the days are milder and it's been beautiful (even though a bit dry). I thought I'd take a stroll out in the garden for an update.

Believe it or not, this is our asparagus. Some of it is now two years old so I expect a good cutting in the spring. Once established, Asparagus will live for 25 years or more!

The three beds on the left are broccoli and cauliflower. We also have planted onions, carrots and beets in here as well as a few heads of cabbage. Our okra and peppers are still producing and in fact having a comeback since it's cooled a little.

Here's our green beans that are just blooming. The plants look so green and lucious. Our fall tomatoes are on the right and just starting to produce.

These containers hold about six tomatoes and four eggplant and a pepper plant that will soon go into the greenhouse with drip irrigation.

We put the greenhouse floor in last week and are working this weekend on some tables and plumbing for our hydroponics.

Our three year old princess

Our little Haily turned three yesterday. It's hard to image. Last month some members in the ward were moving and asked me if anyone would like this little bike and I knew just the girl who loves pink and wanted one!

Her Grandma Fuller made her a princess dress and she got matching "glass" slippers! She was in heaven.

Tracy made her a cookie cake!

Sure Water Storage Tank

I've been worried about having adequate water storage that we could easily use in an emergency, even for an extended period of time. We had a 55 gallon drum but it's not easy to empty and refill. We had talked about putting in a well but the expense is out of reach. I think found these sure water tank. It has two spigots that you can use to get water out and a big lid opening in the top for easy fill. This tank holds 525 gallons of water! We decided to order this and used Labor Day to fill it up! It took about 1 1/2 hours but we now have good drinkable water and can use it to water the garden in the summer and refill it yearly.

We are looking into similar tanks to harvest some water off of our roof for water gardening and other water uses in an emergency. Hopefully this plan will work instead of a well for usable water!