purdum's, zinnas, ears, friends

i swatted about 50 flies in my kitchen this morning.

it's that time of year when, for whatever reason, the flies are 

C R A Z Y !

maybe it's because it's cold at night and hot during the day.  i'm not sure why that would affect them, but i do know that they are crazy in may and crazy right now, and that is when the weather is like that.

and when the weather is like that, it seems like the door gets left open all. of. the. time.

besides the flies, i love right now.

fruit

veggies.

harvest.

we planted some stuff.  but it alllll (most, i should say) got eaten by goats, deer, chickens, a moose named mattie (i miss her, btw!).  i guess we need a better fence. 

but the fruit trees are producing around here.  there are tons of apples, and tons of wild plums, and some pears, yay!

one day, ONE DAY, i will be good at gardening.  until then, there is always purdum's.

purdum's produce.

it's a fruit stand.

and in my opinion, it is beautiful.

they always plant a field full of flowers across the road, and sell their flowers at the stand.

the flowers are always fun to take pictures of.

this year it was zinnias.

last year it was zinnias, too.

and 2 years ago it was beautiful sunflowers (a field of sunflowers is definitely my favorite!!).

the produce is yummy, of course.

we got a bunch of stuff, including a flat of raspberries (which i wanted to make jam with, but my family downed too fast) a flat of blackberries for jam, peppers for now and for freezing, and 10 dozen ears of corn.

oh yeah, and some yummy sourdough and cinnamon bread.

my buddy, the beautiful becky (also a fellow virginian), came with me.

we love purdum's!

and for the zinnias....

becky fed jiles blackberries (or at least one blackberry), so that i could take some pictures of zoe in the zinnias.

i should say try to take pictures of zoe in the zinnias, because she really just wanted to plop herself down in the mud where the drip line was and play.  that is why she is so dirty.

i put a flower in her hand to keep her up out of the mud and tried to get her to look at me.

then it looked like she was going to rip it up.

so i thought it best that i remove her from those flowers that were not ours.

i took pictures of the truck instead. 

the next day i had the kids shuck corn me.  that's always fun. and surprising how fast our little lot can husk 120 ears.

ears.

it's so good raw.  ever tried it that way? no butter, no salt, just the way it was raised?

miss kate was way into it, the corn came alive, and she was making them talk to each other.

after a while, ezra was so    d o n e    shucking.  i put him on baby duty instead.  he was all over that.  that is much more his thing, i've noticed. 

one of my old byu hawaii roommates, miss ranie, and her family came to visit us for labor day.  so fun!  she helped me tackle the corn.  blanching, cutting, bagging, freezing.  what a saint.  it didn't take that long and was fun to talk while we cut.   

ranie and her little robinson

i started this post last week.  isn't that how it goes?  

we have some friends for a couple of days while their parents take their oldest sister to college.

sitting on the front porch typing and watching, i see

3 in a tree, 1 swinging, 1 doing homework, 1 playing with bear, 1 on the quike, and 1 wandering around (zoe).

we're about to go on a 4-wheeler ride (children asked to go at the same time i typed it).

we're waiting for the homework to be done.