AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

My posts have been few this summer as we have been very busy and have put a lot of miles on the car. From June 20th through July 4th we went to Cody, WY for four wonderful days, came home and worked for a week and then headed to Iowa to see Gary's uncle Ben. ( He will be 95 the end of the month and is in a rest home). On the way we stopped in eastern Nebraska to spend the night with my sister then headed on to Lemars, Iowa. Lemars is also the home of Blue Bunny ice cream so we took a few minutes to go through the museum and have an ice cream cone in the old fashined ice cream parlour. After we left Lemars we went up to Sioux Falls, SD for the night and the next day visited Falls Park and the Sioux Falls Zoo. It was rather hot and I thouht my legs would never want to walk again but it was enjoyable and we took in some really interesting sights. After we left Sioux Falls we drove across South Dakota on I-90 (not much to see there) and took a loop tour through the Badlands National Park (too much to see). It is pretty facsinating to have the flat lands suddenly turn into these amazing outcroppings of rock. We spent that night in Rapid City then headed home via the Black Hills. We lived in Custer many years ago and wanted to see how much it had changed. Also checked up on the progress of the Crazy Horse monument. All said and done I think we put 2100 miles + on the car in two weeks time, even with the price of gas!!! I have posted a few of the scenery pictures so you can get a feel for what we saw.

America has so many great and wonderful things to see.

CODY, WYOMING

SIOUX FALLS, SOUTH DAKOTA

SIOUX FALLS ZOO

BADLANDS NATIONAL PARK, SOUTH DAKOTA

It's been a while since I updated on the progress of the garden. In spite of the wind and late frost and having to replant some things it is growing nicely now. We have finished off the radishes and now are enjoying Kolrabi. I think everything will be a few weeks behind because of all the early adversity but should be able to enjoy corn, cucumbers, squash, melons and tomatoes in a few weeks. Of course there is cabbage to make saurkraut (mostly for Kara and Jaret) and cucumbers to make my "famous" jalepeno garlic dill pickles. Most of my rose bushes have bloomed in profusion and are now kind of dormant but one red one was a bit late in blooming so we still get to enjoy roses for a little longer. They will probably all bloom again later this summer or early in the fall. A few pictures follow.

The Weather Can be Tough on Gardens

Besides having winds that were sustained at about 35 to 45 mph with wind gusts above 60 mph we also received a late frost. Gary is having to replant all of his pepper plants, some of the tomatoes and the cucumbers. Most of the cantaloupe also did not make it but no one has new plants so I guess we may do without that this year. The potates look a little worse for the wear but I think they will survive as will the radishes, kolrabi, carrots and watermelon (they were still covered). The corn is iffy but it was having a hard time coming up so wasn't too far along. We shouldn't complain too much because there are many corn fields in the area that were totally destoyed and it is too late to replant. Fortunately the sugar beets survived pretty well and there aren't many beans in the ground this year.

My flowers faired pretty well and mostly show some wind burn. I did lose a couple of delicate plants that I had put in the barrels out front. Mostly I planted petunias and they are pretty hardy. The roses look pretty good in spite of it all. I am posting one picture although I actually have between 24 and 30 rose bushes. The grape vines also don't look too bad and even though they are only in their second year of growth and still pretty small there is one that has several bunches of grapes growing. If you look close at the picture you can see some of them. Brooklyn stayed with me Wednesday afternoon and I got a couple of cute shots of her playing under the dining room table. She thought it was pretty funny to peer out at Grammy. Later I took her outside to the swing on the tree. I don't think she has ever giggled so hard. Swinging sure did tickle her.