Summer on a Dirt Road.

Hmm… I have been really bad about posting this summer, eh? You’d think that with no school and all this free time I would have time to post, but nope. I just am too busy being on summer break to think about posting. 😀

So I shall try to catch you up on all the news of Summer on a Dirt Road. In reverse order. 😉

We started from seeds some giant sunflowers. They took FOREVER to grow. And then they kept growing and growing.  But they never had flowers. 😦 Well, finally this week they bloomed.

Giant Sunflowers

But you really can’t get an idea of how tall they are. So I asked my daughter to help. She just had all 4 of her wisdom teeth out and was such a good sport to go stand in the garden for me. Can you see her way down there???

Sarah and the Sunflowers

We figure the sunflowers are about 15 feet tall!!! In front of Sarah you can see our 4 spaghetti squash plants that have over run our garden. We do have a lot of squash and we aren’t quite sure when they are ready to pick. We had one last night and it wasn’t very flavorful. So I think we need to wait longer.

My family came out to visit us. My Nanny, Mom and Quilty Auntie.  I really wanted to finish this rocking chair by the time they got here. Alas, I finished it 3 weeks after they left. LOL. There is a little story to the chair. Do you have a minute?

I love shopping for “Deals”. Salvation Army is a great place to do that. I get Fine Bone China tea cups. Silver plated flatware. All for dirt cheap. Well, one day I was shopping for deals and I saw this rocking chair. It was so sturdy and wonderful. I sat in it and it was so comfy! And it was a great price. So I bought it.

When I brought it home, after my husband rolled his eyes at me asking if we needed ANOTHER rocking chair, he notified me that it smelled so much like smoke it had to go on the porch. So on the porch it went for a couple of weeks. Sitting outside on our porch one day he told me it still smelled really bad and he had to move to the other end of the porch. 😦 This wouldn’t do. I decided to strip the varnish off and refinish it. Brilliant!

I have learned a lot from this process. #1 I hate stripping varnish. It is hard to get all the spindles clean. So I got frustrated and quit. Then Hubby said, “Let me power wash the strip goo off!” He tried that and ended up splintering some of the wood off. 😦 Shall we try to sand it? I hate sanding too I have found. Hows about if we paint it? Sounds good. 🙂 But first you have to sand some more. Waaaa. By this time over a year has gone by and my Hubby was threatening to charge me rent to keep my unfinished product in his garage. I finally got my rear in gear.

So after stripping, power washing, sanding, sanding some more, painting with an odor killing primer , sanding again and THEN painting (many many coats) with some outdoor enamel my wonderful (non smelly) rocking chair is finished!! TA DA.

My Blue Rocking Chair

While my family was here we were in the end preparation for my youngest daughters 1st musical play “Disney’s Beauty and the Beast”. Daily rehearsals and all that. Here is a photo  after the performance. She was a Napkin and a Villager. She did marvelous.

Family Photo after Beauty and the Beast (The one with the flowers was in the play)

This summer we also went to the 4-H County Fair. The girls entered jewelry and won ribbons. I judged in the craft area. We went to see the animals and the Demolition Derby.

Funky Chicken

Piggie Nose

Demolition Derby

We had a gas line installed so we could switch from propane to natural gas.

Gas Line installed

My wonderful Hubby built a bridge so we could continue to create a trail in our back woods.

Wonderfully handy Hubby built a bridge. 🙂

The garden was growing…

Cherry Tomatoes waiting to ripen

And in the beginning of summer our strawberry patch grew some amazing baby bunnies.

There was a lot more to our summer. But you get the idea. 🙂 I was lucky enough to spend 3 days at a quilt show…but that is another post.

Back to today. It is 73 degrees out with 80% humidity this morning. High will be in the upper 80’s. It feels like a tropical rainforest outside. School starts next week. We have just a few more days to sleep in, spend the day reading books for fun. Eating too much sugar and watching too many movies.  Summer on a dirt road was a blast.  I am a little sad to see it end.