26-31 May, 2012 Planting time, Lots of pictures....

We've been plagued with rainy weather which would be a good thing except I still have garden area to plant.  We did get some finished though.

The first thing we planted was peas.  I put the first row in using a string and hoe.  The string marks the rows to keep them straight.  I used to use mason's string but now I just get one of my fishing rods out and use the line on it.

One row was enough of that.  I dug through the storage shed and found one of my Garden Way push planters and the box of seed plates.

I used it to plant another row about six inches from the first row then planted another double row and one single row.  There's about 24 inches between them.  I'll put some wire between each double row for the pea vines to climb.  That holds the vines up and makes it easier to pick the peas when they're ripe.  At the end of the season I'll roll the wire up with the old vines still entwined then set it on fire.  The dry vines burn fast leaving the wire clean and ready for next year.

I also put in a few rows of spuds.  I had a little fun mixing red and white potatoes.  Should be interesting come harvest time.  I used the seed planter to mark rows.  It's much faster than any other method.

One of our two apple trees in full bloom.  A rabbit got in the garden a couple of years ago and girdled all but this apple tree.  We lost several trees right before they began bearing fruit so we have this "old" one and one "new" tree we planted last year.

These are bunching onions that come back every year.  They develop seed heads which fall to the ground and start new plants without our help.  Some people call them green onions because they never get large bulbs. 

One of our rhubarb plants.  Rhubarb does well in our climate.

The hen hatched out three eggs then abandoned the rest of the eggs so we have three baby chickens.  I moved the other hens and rooster into the dog kennel so that the hen would have a safe place to raise her young'uns.  I had to shovel out almost all of the straw because she kept scratching around and covering up the feeder and waterer. 

Wash day!  We moved our wash tubs and wringer indoors last fall.  Now we can wash clothes even when it's raining outside.

 

Huckleberry pancakes.  I used up the last of the huckleberries in this jar so I dumped the juice from the jar into the pancake mix which turned it purple.  They make purple pancakes with a great huckleberry flavor.

"Better lay off the donuts there big boy!  You're starting to look like me (grandpa)."

"Ha, grandpa! I bet you can't do this with your tummy!"

We took the Cherokee out for a cruise to do some exploring.  These are some of the rock formations we saw.

Same place, opposite side of the road.

Stillwater River.  It's up a little due to spring run-off.

The Indian Paintbrushes were all in full bloom.

An old beaver dam and swamp we passed on our travels.

We stopped for sandwiches and chocolate cake when we got the the Upper Stillwater Lake.  Scott really enjoyed his chocolate cupcake.

Upper Stillwater Lake (taken from the east side).

Susan picking Arnica beside the lake.

Upper Stillwater Lake

Near the south end of the Upper Stillwater Lake.  There's a large beaver lodge in the water near the left bank.

We'd been in the car for a couple of hours so we let Scott out to stretch his legs a bit.

We got a good look at a Burlington Northern freight train as it rolled by below us.

This is Dog Lake (south end).

North end of Dog Lake.  The day was overcast with light rain on occasion.

We saw a fair sized fish swim away from shore so we got out our rods and tried to catch a few.  No luck today though!

This is just some nameless swamp filled in behind an old beaver dam.  It had a nice camping area though and I saw a few gophers running around saying "shoot me" and there are probably fish in the water.  There were several old roads that looked like good places to explore on bikes so we'll probably make this our goal next time we take the camper out.