Pumpkin contest

Alena and Nora each entered a pumpkin in the annual Erskine Elementry Pumpkin Decorating Contest.  Nora designed a "patriotic" pumpkin and Alena entered hers into the "most natural" category.  The stars aligned and both Nora and Alena won their respective categories by popular vote!

Daddy Builds a Kiln

It took something like a decade (plus), but Daddy and his friend Jeff finally got around to building a wood kiln of their own.  They worked on and off from May until October and had a lot of help from Cousin Alan, some girls, and Paul (very minor).  We'll have to see how it fires!?!

Alan digs a hole to fill with 3' of packed gravel as under-structure for the chimney and a more shallow are under the body of the klin.

Nora hard-packs the gravel.

Alena packs block sand on top of the gravel to fine-tune the surface for brick-work.

Yes....this small section of the kiln was actually level.  The rest of the kiln, who knows.

Hey Paul, now we can get to the hard work!

Last few layers of the chimney.

DONE! 

Wet at Wapsie

Fall camp at Wapsie was a bit on the wet side, but it did not stop our fun!  We still did creature catch and ate tons of sugar - the two most important activities for these girls.

NINE!

Alena Mae turned nine years old this year, oh my!  She got to have a big birthday party with friends, including Maya, Harper, and Alliyah, with a Harry Potter theme and they made clay "goblets of fire"!  From Mom and Dad, Alena got a pair of cowgirl boots!

Tamales

Ben and Melissa took a 4-hour class at the New Bo Kitchen, taught through Kirkwood Continuing Ed, on how to make authentic tamales.  They slow-roasted pork, simmered chiles, seasoned their cornmeal, and wrapped about 3 1/2 dozen in corn husks to freeze for later.  And they were delicious!!!

Leaf pile FUN!

What do you do when you have a tree that drops its leaves in September?  Rake them and find some energetic girls to play in it, of course!

Paw paws

Melissa's new obsession is the paw paw fruit.  She first tried it from the ISU research farm that Myron woks at and then she and Grandpa Ed went out on a hunt and found that there are a few wild groves of them growing around SE Iowa.  The fruit is sweeter the more "rotten" the fruit looks.  It is really a lot of seed with some edible fruit surrounding it, but Melissa and Ed claim to enjoy eating it....they both do enjoy harvesting the seeds.

Melissa plans to stratify these seeds over the winter and plant them in the spring.  The paw paw trees grow slowly but should grow fine in Iowa.

Alena has climbed into this paw paw tree to harvest some fruit.  It has quite the tropical look for an Iowa tree.

August 2017 Highlights!

Here's a selection of the most exciting events from August....

Trampoline park!

Big Air Nora!

Edith sitting, mostly naked, on the table and eating.

Edith's favorite place, all summer long, this is where you will find her.

Taking a sip of water out of the sprinkler.

Merry-go-round at Adventureland!

Same table eating, same little nudist.

On the table again.  With clothes, unique concept.

Alena in a tree.  This was not her first tree-ing this summer and it certainly won't be her last.

Alena with a chicken.  Like being in a tree, Alena often has a chicken in her arms.