Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

It's been a, well, long few months. The boys have been out of school for about 2 weeks now. Normally I do not look forward to their summer break. It just means that I have 3 months of them at home, all the time, fighting, eating, making messes whining, whatever else they can think of to drive me crazy with. But this year I was counting down the days (along with them) to the last day of school. This school year was the hardest, most exhausting, physically and emotionally draining that we have had since my oldest started pre-k. This was the first year that I seriously contemplated homeschooling. No, we didn't follow through. We stuck it out, but believe me, It's still a possibility.

I have so many posts in my brain, half done on my old dinosaur computer, I'll get to them I promise.
Most recently we have been working in the garden. Yesterday the hubs and I spent the day in the garden, harvesting the last of our sweet corn, beans and radishes. We pulled out the corn stalks tilled the soil and added a bunch more peat moss, manure and sand. (we have HORRIBLE clay-like soil here) The clay soil is good in that it is dense with nutrients but it is so heavy, it's hard to work, and many things can't grow in it, like carrots, potatoes, onions etc. That is why we add more stuff to it.
This year has been very successful. More so than last year.
This year we are doing more melons. Here is a picture I took of a honeydew melon last week:

and here it is about a week later:


Yes, the very same honeydew melon grew that much in just 1 week. We are doing nothing special. Just regular watering. (Thank goodness for my crafty husband who put together the automatic watering system)


Our peach tree finally gave us peaches this year. We got 3 off the tree before the birds got the others. They were VERY yummy.

My Roma tomatoes finally coming in. The weather, up until recently, has not been warm enough for them.
Cantaloupes. we have 6 of them now, good sized, and lots of little golf ball size ones too.
We also are growing sugar pearl sweet corn, dragon's tongue beans, green beans, soy beans, radishes (lots of different varieties) jalapeno, tobasco and habenaro chili peppers. Red bell pepper, carrots, purple potatoes, yellow & purple onions, Roma and yellow tear drop tomatoes, garlic, thompson seedless grapes and my usual suspects of herbs, oregano, thyme, tarragon, rosemary and chives.

I will post more pictures later, as it is now 8 pm. Derek and the boys went to the shooting range and they should be back soon. I have to figure out something for dinner. Tonight I am thinking takeout because I have been sick to my stomach all day and have not had the motivation or the energy to prep anything. & I need some Taco Bell anyway.
I have this thing about Taco Bell. Whenever I get sick the only thing that can bring me out of it is Taco Bell. When I was pregnant with both my boys I had terrible morning sickness. More like morning, noon and night sickness, and both times it lasted like 6 months. and through it, the only thing I could stomach was Taco Bell. My poor husband drove one night in a snow storm to get me some.
It must be a genetic thing because my mom was the same way when she was pregnant with me.
I love Taco Bell for the same reasons Anthony Bourdain loves KFC mac & cheese. It's crappy, horrible, totally bad for you, but for some reason so good!
Now I have to go call my husband and ask him in my nicest, sweetest voice to please pick me up some tacos and a Dr. pepper.