Summer fun….pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins

One of the great things about living in Ellensburg, is how close we are to Seattle.  A quick and easy 2 hour drive and we’re there.  One of the great thing about moving out of Southern California, is that we still think a 2 hour drive can be defined as ‘quick and easy’.  As we declared Sunday a ‘clean’ day, we went to the Seattle Mariners game.  We used the drive over as a lesson in all things baseball and attempted to teach the English teen all the words to “Take Me Out To The Ball Game”, interspersed with a round of “Rule Britannia”.  The game held a host of firsts for us, my first deep-fried Twinkie (and as disgusting as it sounds, I have to admit that it was kind of good), the English teen’s first baseball game AND first taste of Cracker Jack, the first time to Safeco field and their specialty… garlic fries.   Being allergic to garlic, it would seem that I was the only one present who didn’t partake it the juicy mess.  I’d have to say, it was truly the stinkiest crowd I’ve ever been with, good thing they were fun.

My true summer favorite though is to be out on the farm in the evening.  Especially after dinner, when everybody and every animal is fed, the breeze is blowing and the sky is beautiful.  Tonight we were moving the horses to a ‘greener’ pasture.  (I’m quickly learning where a lot of these age-old sayings originated).  We took the mares out of the pond pasture, and since we look out at the pond, go through this area for just about everything, I thought it would be ‘nice’ if it wasn’t all dotted with large piles of horse manure.   My goal was to at least spread it around a bit.  I decided to use my ride on mower, known affectionately as John D. to help me with the job of spreading the manure by ‘mowing’ it.  I am not sure why, but things have a habit of breaking when I use them.  A few days ago, my loving spouse ran John D. over a whole roll of wire and bogged it up, but it kept on mowing.  I run over a bit of horse poop and the darn machine gives out.

Well, I may have a poor track record with breaking farm tools, but I am excelling in Pumpkin Patch 101.  With all the chain saw gardening we were doing, planting pumpkins sounded like fun.  Yes, that is really me inside the pumpkin patch, where the plants are higher than my knees.  The vines are starting to really take off and go just about everywhere they can.  I have been known to check on them multiple times a day, water them, attempt to count them (odds on now at over 100 pumpkins) and press all visitors into viewing them.  I have even figured out the female and male pumpkin flowers.  We have a patch of male flowers, that I call ‘Fraternity row’.  Our friend the farmer wondered what my plan was when I planted them.  Ummmm, my plan?  For fun, and so far, they are.