Corn for the Neighbors

Today was the harvest of the second planting of corn. It was reserved for the neighbors on whose land the mega garden is planted. Joshua and I helped them pick. We have had racoons in the garden, unfortunately. Their tracks look just like little handprints.

They break the stalks down, shred the husks to get the corn open, and then they eat it right off the cob.

Molly and Matthew and I stayed and helped them with the husking. This is my neighbor and her adult daughters.

This is Molly and Matthew and the neighbor's granddaughter.

They washed and blanched the corn on the back lawn and then brought it inside to the table to be cut off the cobs. I left after the husking, but when it was time to go, I couldn't find Matthew. I found him inside their house. He had gotten up to the table and helped himself to a snack. I couldn't blame him. It's good stuff!

Good News in the Early Morning

I was startled awake this morning at 5:43am and opened my eyes to see a face about three inches from mine. Molly whispered loudly, "Mom! I just lost my first tooth!" She fell asleep last night in her Sunday dress......

It was a relief to me to hear that about her tooth. Our kids have a habit of growing new teeth in wrong places before the old ones fall out, and then sometimes they have to go to the dentist to get them pulled. Molly is no exception. She already had a head start on the new tooth. I'm glad Molly managed to get this one out on her own!

Molly's harvest

Molly is definitely related to her dad. She loves to be out in the garden. Russ let her have a section of the garden to be her own this year, and she planted it all with mom and dad's help, and she was lucky enough to have some volunteer potatoes from last year. She had a small row of corn, which she thinned mostly by herself when it was time. (Thinning means that you plant lots of seeds for good coverage, and when they get about six inches tall, you pull some out so the plants that are left have room to grow. It has to be done on carrots, too.)

Here's Molly with her corn after it got taller than her.

Molly, Matthew, and Rusty by the corn

Today for Sunday dinner, we had Molly's corn. She and her dad picked and prepared it. Here are some pictures of Molly's harvest.

Music for Dallon

My sister, Barbara, called me last Monday morning and told me that there was an opening for a musical number in her ward this Sunday, and the topic was Bringing the World His Truth. She asked me if I could write an arrangement of "We'll Bring the World His Truth" from the Children's Songbook.

Dallon, Barbara's twenty-year-old son, is home on leave from Afghanistan, where he has been almost daily in the line of fire. We have prayed every day for his safety and the safety of his comrades. Since I couldn't be there when he arrived home, and even though Barbara asked me to write the music for her, I took it on as a gift for Dallon. It's his favorite song. He probably doesn't know how much I love him because we have never really spoken much. He's kind of a quiet sort of person, and I am easily intimidated by people that I can't read. Regardless of that, I do love him, and this music was for him.

It was a busy week with the mega garden, visitors, and the county fair going on, so I didn't take more than a few minutes to work on ideas before Friday. I prayed hard for help. It seems like I am always a last minute person when it comes to creative endeavors! It makes for a lot of stress, but the rewards are always worth it. I got a start on it Friday but actually did the majority of the work yesterday in between other things that were going on. I was judging the County Fair Idol contest, so in addition to once each day on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, I had to be at the fairgrounds in Nephi twice yesterday, at noon and again at 6:00pm. I arrived home around 1:30pm in between, before the finale of the competition, and managed to just barely finish the entire piece minus the introduction and the ending. I called Barb at around 5:20 and started bawling before she even answered the phone. I told her my heart and soul was in this, and that I had to go back to the fair, but I was emailing it to her and I would finish the beginning and end when I got home.

I started on it again at about 10:30pm, and got busy fixing mistakes and tweaking. When all was said and done, and with some email problems and doing laundry mixed in, I finished about 2:30am. Got to bed at 3:00am. I woke up again this morning at 8:00am to be at 9:00am church, but I called Barbara first thing to make sure she got the email. She did, and she said she thought she would play and have her three grown kids sing, or four if Dallon would join in.

Most of my music has come from my sister Barbara requesting things. She's a great motivator who provides a lot of encouragement for me, and I am thankful that she is always calling me with requests. Dallon is going to be home for nine more days with his family. I hope the music stays with him as a comfort when he goes back to the war zone.

Dallon's Home--Airport Video

My nephew, Dallon, came home yesterday for 15 days leave from his Army post in eastern Afghanistan. I didn't get to be there, but my niece-in-law, Brittany, took this video of the emotional greeting at the airport. Dallon has been in a heavy combat area and has had many harrowing experiences. It is so good to see him hugging his family, safe and in one piece, after all the worry and prayers! I can't watch this video without bawling every time.



Here's the link in case it won't play on the blog.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Bk1nYvr6ck

More Grasshopper Damage

This is more grasshopper damage in our garden. These are broccoli plants. The grasshoppers movd inward from the fenceline. They devestate the stuff closest to the edge of the garden first, and then they move on to the next plant. In this picture, they have eaten two, started on a third, and you can see the broccoli plants in the background that haven't been chewed up yet.

This was a head of cabbage

Here's one of the rascals on the peach tree

Peaches

Onions...my friend was surprised they would bother onions, but they ate the tops right off.

Yes, that is our rich garden soil. Even after years of adding organic material, there are still places where the rocks are extremely thick. We are in the flood plane of the creek which runs next to our house, and we think that's why there are rocks. There was a severe flood back in 1983. The neighbors to the south don't have any rocks at all in their soil. Even with our rocks, though, we still grow a pretty good garden.

Katie Loves to Read

Katie loves to read, and she carries several of her favorite books around in a bag. She is seven years old and will be eight on October 17th. She decided to participate in the Nephi Library's summer reading program, which is designed to get kids to read when school is out.

Each of the spaces on her reading card represented ten minutes of reading. She could read whatever she wanted, unlike years past where the children were required to read a certain amount of time in several categories. The rewards were a swimming pass for the local pool at the halfway mark, and a t-shirt when she finished.

She finished the last space yesterday (Sunday) by reading in the Bible, which she loves. I'm not sure why, but she says it is "just cool" and "it's one of the oldest books." Well! What parent wouldn't love her child reading the Bible?

She managed 630 minutes of reading on her own, and I thought it was a great accomplishment. Good job, Katie!