My sweet Husband!

Please keep Michael in your prayers this next week. June 8th he went to have a routine colonoscopy and they found a mass that was malignant. He is going to have surgery Monday to remove 8" of his colon. He will be in the hospital 5-7 days. We will know three days after the surgery if the colon mass is intact and not spread to lymph nodes or elsewhere. We are praying that it was caught early and he will be fine.

He's had a lot on his plate this summer while he is out of school and so we've reprioritized what he could do before surgery. He is in great health otherwise and has worked hard outside all spring so hopefully he will recover quickly.

Again, keep him in your prayers.

New Steps

Michael has been busy this week with a lot of jobs and one of them was to build steps to go down the hill into the greenhouse. I didn't know how we would do it, but he had a plan and went to work.

Here's the finished product. The top step isn't slanted, but he put some extra wood and dirt in their to hopefully redirect the rainwater. We eventually want to build a swell to direct the water but in the meantime we were able to get some bales of hay and played them down the hill to help in the meantime.


Here is a picture of the new part of the garden. We probably have about 10 cantaloupe almost ready. I'm very disappointed in our corn as it just hasn't set many ears. In fact, I'm a little worried. Most years there have been a lot of bees around and I have hardly seen any and I think that is a factor. Our tomatoes started out setting fruit and after several days of rain the end of May, they are not setting fruit much even though the plants look beautiful. I may have to start hand pollinating them!

Hydrangeas

We finally have some beautiful hydrangeas just filled with blooms! One year I accidentally pruned them back too much and another year we had a late freeze but this year they are in their beautiful glory! I love the purple ones. The pictures don't do it justice but they are almost velvety looking.
The blue ones are a great color as well.

All of the cousins!

Kevin had a canoe trip last week so Bonnie bravely drove up for a visit and a canning frenzy! I hope she got a little rest!
It was so much fun to see little Katie and how much she has grown. She loved being around people and was just so cute. She stands and is almost ready to walk. She screamed with delight as she chased the cats around.

Ethan lost a tooth while he was here, his second front tooth!
Here's all of my precious girls! They had a blast together. They got to try out the new water slide park up the street.
We had to put up a gate for Katie but the kids loved playing downstairs. The week flew by.

A Garden Harvest this week!

This was the harvest from our garden last Tuesday. The little pink berries are pink raspberries and boy are they sweet. We've picked about 5 gallons of blackberries so far and probably a bushel of green beans. I think we will pick our first tomato tomorrow! We're having a heat wave (101 today) so I hope it doesn't ruin our garden production. We are trying to keep the water to everything!

A duck in the garage?

We have had a lot of rain lately, but I always thought ducks liked to be in the rain. I went out to the garage this afternoon and there in the garage was a duck, looking out the door at the rain!
The grandkids were here minus Caleb and they got excited to see the duck close up.
The duck "ducked" under the car until they went back into the house.
Finally Maggie got some bread and made a bread trail to the side of the house where he "ducked" under some bushes. I'm assuming he ended up at the pond (the cats were inside!)