Deer Trouble?

July 22, 2008 - So the other day we were noticing how beautiful all of our butternut squash is -

And then one morning we came home to this -

Say what? It's a little late in the season to just begin having a deer problem isn't it? I mean, we're not 100% sure it's a deer, but the plant was chewed off pretty high and only on the outside of the fence. Soooo, we bought some more fencing and fenced in the already fenced in area so that the plants climbing on the fencing will be safe.

There's lots of other fun stuff going on in the garden too -

This is our first melon! These were planted between the zucchini and winter squash so I almost thought they were being drowned out, but then this showed up!

And a pumpkin! These are the suckers that make us have to come over every day to water. They like A LOT of water and it's kinda hard to keep up with them.

And green beans. I had absolutely no idea that we had greenbeans. Turns out, they sort of grow on the inside of the plant, so you have to get in there and look. And we have tons. So far we've just been eating these raw cuz they taste so good.

When we were planting our gardens, we found some sort of squash plant growing in our compost. Joe decided to take a few and plant them in the garden. Here's what we got from them - acorn squash!

And... tomatoes are ripening!!!!! We ate our first two yellow cherry tomatoes the other day. Soo exciting.

Here's the pretty red cabbage -

And finally, we're close to having some corn.

We've been harvesting cucumbers and zucchini like crazy. I have tried many different recipes to try to use these things up. Waste not, want not, right? Cucumber sandwiches are a regular thing these days, which is delicious, but I sure can't wait til I can add some tomatoes to them. And then zucchini goes with most dinners. They actually make a lovely topping for hotdogs when cooked with onions.

The camping is still going quite well. We haven't done much work on the house recently, as we've had a lot of different family functions to attend. Plus we've decided to start making more time for fun and relaxation. It is summer afterall, and we came here because we love the Hudson Valley. So we best enjoy it a bit right? And there may be a little beach vacation for us in the near future too...

Just for fun, here's Uncle Joe entertaining the little ones at the Kipp family barbecue last weekend.

And Lorelai looking for a video to watch. :)

New Features

July 13, 2008 - I went home last night to discover all the cool stuff that Joe had done while I was gone. First of all, we have a kitchen! The sink came from our old house and he found this neat little stove and oven at a yardsale yesterday morning.

Then, he added a motion sensor spotlight and floodlight to light the walkway up to the campsite.

And here's him working on the electricity, which he is now an expert on.

So this morning I decided to use this new kitchen of ours to make eggs, hooray!

Although I guess I wasn't fully prepared, because I hadn't taken out any papertowels or dishtowels or anything to wipe my hands with. This is still a work in progress, as you can see. (Also notice my rubber boots - this is standard attire for me in the evenings and mornings so that no snakes or other creepy crawly things can crawl over my feet or up my pants - key to my happiness in the woods).

Then we got to work. I spent the morning clearing a spot in the woods for campfires. We're totally excited to have people over, cook a campfire dinner, roast marshmallows, play music, and tell stories. So after I cleared a spot, Joe built a stool out of an old tree stump and I built a fire ring.

And then we had some fun with the camera.

Wanna come over for a campfire?

Then, since I haven't shown you before - here's our port-a-potty, which is working quite well.

And our refrigerator, which is currently on what used to be the deck by the house.

We haven't managed to move it up to the campsite yet, since we need a few extra hands for that. But yes, it has food in it right where it is. Corona?

Family Time

July 12, 2008 - Today, although Joe is working diligently on creating a more comfortable home for us, I took the day off to hang with the family. As I do need to get back to my husband eventually, I am going to make this quick with mostly just pictures. A brief summary of the day - my sister and I hung out with the babies this morning while Elizabeth took Axel for the dress rehearsal of his play (the last day of his summer theater camp). Then we went and saw Axel's play which was fantastic - he's quite the little actor. Then Axel took us out to icecream to celebrate, and then we hung out around the house. A great day. And now for the pics -

Can I just say that I love being an aunt? :)

Living in the Woods

July 11, 2008 - It's been two nights of tent living and... so far, so good. Here's our humble dwelling -

It's a two room tent, the first room is standing height and it's where we're keeping all our stuff. The back room is shorter, as it's the bedroom. We are borrowing this killer air mattress from my sister and her husband, so our bed actually does feel like a bed -

The whole thing is pretty big. I bought it at Sam's Club for $100. It's probably the cheapest tent of it's kind that I could have found. So far it hasn't leaked, and so far there have been no bugs in it. This makes us happy.

Then here's our screen tent, which we share with the daddy long legs.

There are certainly a few things that I can already tell are going to be annoying about living in a tent for 6 weeks.

1. Going to the bathroom in the night. This is so far the only thing about our living situation that has made me cry. It's truly terrifying to walk down the path to the port-a-potty at night by yourself, especially when your neighbors told you last week that they saw a bear a few weeks ago. Fortunately for me, since I'm the only one with this problem, Joe has plans for a big spotlighted walkway in the near future.

2. Having to unzip and rezip the tent everytime you need to get something. This makes you really appreciate doors. They're just so much easier to operate, ya know? We're being VERY careful about the zipping because we want NO bugs, but it gets irritating.

3. Trying not to get the inside of the tent dirty with your shoes. Especially when it's raining outside. Not easy. I bought some 'door' mats today to try to help with this problem.

4. Washing dishes. As of right now, it's a hike down to the water, and it's COLD water.

On a positive note - there are nice things about camping. The sound of the birds, experiencing the cool morning and night air, sitting in our screen tent watching the deer pass through, and of course, being alone for a change. And at the end of this, going back to my mother's house will feel like a dream come true.

Now for a garden update -

Our tomato plants are out of control. We are definitely not going to know what to do with them all when they start ripening. Here's the jungle - you can see that we planted them far too close together, because there's pretty much no way to harvest them without being swallowed alive -

And here's what's popping up all over the place -

Same with the zucchini - every day we go out there, we find a ton more that are ripe and ready to be eaten.

And now it's cucumber time. I just went outside and picked a bunch of these. I never knew that they were so prickly straight from the garden. Ouch.

These are ground cherries. I've never really seen them anywhere, but my dad used to grow them when I was a kid. They have these papery husks around them and they're these little delicious berries inside.

And then here's the corn, and the cabbage and beans.

Today Joe worked and I was off, so I used the day to do all my errands. I bought some solar showers so that we can hopefully start showering on the property. Even if we shower someplace else during the day, we often do work at night and wish we could have one before bed. Plus it will be cool to shower in the woods.

Also picked blueberries today with Axel, his friend, Elizabeth and Lorelai. Gotta love berry season. I don't think blueberries last very long, so you should go pick some too!

Big Changes

July 8, 2008 - So it's been forever and I apologize. My time is limited lately and my computer time is even more limited, as we are officially out of my mother's house. But here's what we've been up to lately -

Let's start with the bad news. Our rooster may be dead. We can't really be sure, as we have not actually seen a body anywhere, but here's what was left in our neighbors yard the other day - it's a bag of feathers. White ones.

Combine that with no sightings of a rooster in days and it doesn't take much detective work to come to a conclusion. It's pretty sad actually. And I have to say that I'm disappointed that because we were too 'chicken' to eat our own chicken, some other creature in the woods got to enjoy the bird that we spent our time and money growing to good chow size. Ah well. Live and learn. Fortunately, his female companion was just fine (it would have been a true tragedy if anything had happened to her, since she never did anything wrong), so we brought her back to the house and put her back with all her other female friends.

Our gardens are just exploding with vegetables. We harvested all the first broccoli heads and ate them in the hopes that more side shoots will come out now.

And we are already almost drowning in zucchini. I cooked these two for dinner last night

Currently we are harvesting lettuces, beets, collard greens, peas, zucchini, broccoli, many herbs including basil, and we had our first cucumber today as well. It's so satisfying to grocery shop in the backyard.

The biggest change around here is that Elizabeth, Lorelai, and Axel have arrived for the summer. They moved into mom's house last Tuesday and Joe and I moved out. We have been housesitting for several days, but as of tomorrow we start camping. It's been quite a transition for everybody, but so far things are going well. Last week we celebrated Lorelai's first birthday (her 4th birthday party). She enjoyed her cake, her presents, and of course, the tissue paper.

Things have been happening over at our property too. The rest of the house was disassembled. I have to admit that three days in a row of demolition last weekend did not sit well with me. The ridiculous humidity that makes you want to quit before you begin, the insulation flying and sticking to your skin causing all of your exposed body parts to break out in an itchy disgusting rash five minutes into starting, and the occasional wish that you could just be a normal couple going to the movies on a Sunday afternoon, can sometimes make things seem a little bit bleak. But Joe finished up the project early last week, bless the mans heart, so that I did not have to go back for a fourth day. And then a few days later the dumpster was taken away. Here's what's left of the house at the moment, and the deck will soon be gone as well.

I spent a lot of time this past weekend stacking all our wood off to the side. Here's what we managed to save from the house.

And then the rest of our time this week was spent getting our camping site ready. First, Joe had to get the water hooked back up. This entailed wiring it up to our temporary electric pole, and replumbing it so that it didn't go under the house anymore. We now have water.

Next we worked on shelter. We are going to have two tents set up, but Joe wanted to set up something a little more permanent to serve as a kitchen and house our refrigerator. He got it started and then I got to finish the roof. It kind of makes me feel like we're living on a desert island. :)

Finally, we have to set up the electricity to our campsite (today's task). Our site is on the other side of our private road than the electric box, so Joe's plan is to run the wire through some black plastic pipe under the road, and then up the hill to our site. He's already attached a small box in our 'kitchen' which has two plugs. This way we can also hook up other things we might need.

While he's working on that, I will be working on moving us into the woods. Elizabeth will help me put up our tent, set up our air mattress, and bring all of our camping equipment over. Our port-a-potty was delivered yesterday, so we should be all set by tomorrow evening to begin our camping adventure. Keep your fingers crossed for a sunny weekend with little to no precipitation. It will be nice to not have torrential downpours for our first week. :)

K, time to get to work...