Don't tell mom

More on camp...

Briggs had to go with me, and miss one of only four of his soccer camp sessions. It was a sacrifice he ultimately was very pleased to have made.

It rained Tuesday afternoon; poured really, for about 20 minutes. Typical summer storm. Long story short. Eli had his archery class then went to the rifle range for his free period. We met up with Eli at his archery class, then went looking for the others. When it began to rain we went back to archery because several had said they would try that for their free period. They couldn't shoot arrows in the rain (the whole having-to-go-get-them-and-get-wet thing). Archery closed and none of our troop was there. We figured the rifle range would also be closed, for similar reasons. But Briggs and I walked over anyway. By then the rain was easing and the range-master was going to re-open momentarily. We watched Eli and several other boys from another troop shoot.

And then the range master asked if Briggs would like TO TRY TO TAKE A SHOT!

Briggs hesitated for just a moment. But the range master coaxed him into glasses and ear muffs and set him up with five BB's and an air rifle. He did everything except squeeze the trigger for Briggs, seemingly. But Briggs was elated. He even actually hit the target on his last shot!

Scout Camp 2010

Eli's at Scout camp this week. They are not at our Council camp in Canton, but rather in Dysartsville, at the Meckenberg Council camp, Camp Grimes.

All the dads were encouraged to take a day and spend an overnight with the troop to share the burden of providing leadership for the troop at camp. I was there TU-WE. As luck would have it, I needed to take Briggs in order not to upset the child care apple cart completely.

At the end of each they everyone has a free period where they can check out several of the cooler merit badge sites "for free" or just for fun. It rained TU afternoon and a couple of things got washed out, including the rifle range. Eli had hoped to try it. He went and waited out the rain and was rewarded for his patience.

When Briggs and I caught up with Eli has was at the archery area. When the rain began, we went back there because it was sheltered. Briggs didn't mind the rain at all. But he really liked being near the cool archery stuff!

This is Eli at the end of his appointed archery session, plucking out his arrows. He liked it a lot, and it was a two-hour session (instead of the usual 50-minute session).

There are a lot more pictures and a slide show and a few words about camp at the Troop 50 blog.

Here are some other random pictures from my 24 hours at the camp. Click anywhere on the slideshow and go to the source and read the captions for each picture.

Easter Lilies

We all know you have to push lilies to get them to bloom at Easter. But even planting them in the ground, we've never had them bloom. Until we moved to the hills. We got this plant our first year here. It seems to enjoy its spot in the garden. Above is about two weeks ago; below is last night.

More veg update

These are the first blossoms on the cucumber plants. They are gaining some height also. We had to water Sunday evening, but this evening got a so-so shower.


The beans have really taken off, with lots of flowers. We strung line for them to grab onto, but I am worried they are going to overwhelm what we came up with. We spent a good deal of time on Sunday evening weeding.

This is one of six cabbage plants. We harvested one and enjoyed it. I grabbed the rest today. I split most of them in half and put them in bags and took them to my co-workers at the office. I kept a couple for us. The slugs got after them, but after peeling off just a few leaves, one got to nice plants. We tried putting a bowl of beer next to their row, but that didn't seem to help much (we didn't try to put beer next to each plant, which would probably have been the best methodology.) The split heads looked very nice.

I harvested blueberries off two bushes this morning. We're planning on blueberry pancakes in the morning!

Kindergarten Kommencement

Briggs made it through kindergarten. He had a commencement ceremony last Friday. He looked kind of worried as he processed in. But he got into the groove of his class song during the ceremony. Way to go Briggs! We celebrated by spending the afternoon at the Montreat park.

Fruit update

The pear tree is getting very weighed down with fruit. No color on them yet, but the tree is covered, including the broken branch that didn't completely sever from the tree.

The blueberries arrived seemingly overnight. One day there were some fruit nubs and yesterday I noticed bright blue berries. Pretty cool. The birds have not yet set on them, so I know they aren't ready to eat yet. And I know I have just a few short days to get the bushes covered with netting. I'm going to try to pick up some stakes to support the net, rather than just throw it over the bushes like last year. We'll see.

The apples are starting to show a little bit of color. They tend to grow in bunches which leads to crowding later on. I might try to thin them, but I can only reach a relatively small portion of the tree, so it seems rather a lot of work for not all that much gain. I may try it on a few branches, though, just to see what effect thinning the fruits has on their development.

Veggie update

This is the (almost) last of the lettuce. The plants have gotten very leggy, and they are trying to flower. But we had several good salads from them, including a large salad of greens,

strawberries, walnuts and blue cheese, topped off with a dressing made by my brother, Greg and my mom. We assembled it for a Memorial Day gathering of the church staff at our house. You can also see some of the nasturtiums Libby planted along the garden fence. So far no critters (other than slugs) seem to have invaded the garden. Tonight we had corned beef and cabbage, the cabbage coming from the garden. It was quite good considering that we made it authentic peasant -style, with canned meat!

Wounded (again)

This time it was Calvin. He was playing with the fire extinguisher (of course). He had pulled it off the wall rack it's mounted on. That went fine. But then he took it over to Libby to show it to her. After that I didn't see exactly what transpired. But somehow it managed to smack him, but good, on the chin. Double bruise, but no real bleeding. But plenty of screaming. He's fine, and just a little proud of his battle wound. But you can imagine the incredulous looks I get when I explain, "he got hit with a fire extinguisher." Kind of had to be there, and kind of have to know the Barker boys.

The picture is several days later at breakfast when I asked him to show me his chin.