The Adventures of Stuart, Jill, (and Harvey): June 2009

An Evening with the Saunder's.

A perfect summer evening-

Our friends Chris and Susan joined us for dinner, it was so beautiful outside we hung on our deck until the wee morning hours. We filled our bellies with stuffed mozzarella, pesto, roasted red pepper grilled chicken, chocolate bonbons, and plenty of wine and beer.

The night was so perfect that after Chris and Susan left we set-up and slept in our tent on the deck. Definitely an idea influenced by the amount we drank that evening, but fun none the less.

Sodding w/ the McKennas 6.20.09

Trish and Dan moved into a great place with a yard that had been severely neglected. So we pitched in when it came time sod in a new lawn. We arrived early on a Saturday morning to find Dan and his folks already hard at work and Trish attending to baby Joe and making sure there was plenty of coffee. Jill helped with baby duties and food prep while Stu helped dig up the yard and prep for sod. The day started with a very light drizzle that made ideal, cool, easy working conditions. After a few hours of labor all the workers were wet muddy famished and ready for lunch. It rained on and off most of the day, but about half way through with the lawn, it down poured! Not wanting to loose steam, Dan & Stu pressed on after a brief photo op from Jill.

Very near the end of the work the suncame out for a bit, but then decided the new lawn needed more rain, so that's what we got. Once it was all layed out, then the sun came out for the rest of the day as everyone cleaned up and ate and drank beer feeling a great sense of accomplishment. Stu loves helping out on these kinds of jobs so he can apply any lessons learned on a future home some day.

Hansen's Deck Garden - Mid June

In our new place in Arlington we decided we had to take advantage of all the sun we now get. So this year we've decided to add a bit to our previous attempts at tomatoes & basil.

With limited space to actually plant in the ground & having two huge planters ready & waiting when we moved in, we decided to dedicate one entirely to tomatoes....

All 9 plants... It's a bit of a jungle & quite hard to see through, let alone manage.

The tomatoes (still very green) are turning out all right though. Now if they would only ripen a bit we'd be in business (eating tomatoes, not actually selling them).

(No puns about a green thumb)

The basil, although full & enormous, we can't take too much credit for. Our first batch died, rotted from being too water-logged from all of our spring rain. This is round number two and has been a very healthy second go round.

The rosemary (left) and mint (right) are not enormous, but enough for some seasoned chicken or a few mojitos now & then!

We would like to try and grow lots of different kinds of veggies besides tomatoes, saw cheap broccoli & figured 'why not, can't be too hard.' However, Virginia summers are far to hot & sunny to grow grocery store caliber broccoli. It needs to be cool & moist, so they don't grow too fast vertically as you can see is our problem. Also, then the green pods start to bud & flower, leaving us with a nice broccoli bouquet, not side dish.

In the shadow of the too-tall broccoli we decided to spare some room for a few strawberries. One of the plants hasn't produced anything because they're getting drowned under the broccoli bushes, but as you can see if they can just reach the rim of the planter, then we get a decent looking strawberry. Although with all of our rain we've gotten lately, the first few off the stem were too soft & had to be eaten right away. Oh well, still a tasty treat.

Our back deck runs right into a small hill which, when we moved in, appeared to be nothing but over grown with thorny vines & weeds. However we've cleaned it up a bit and found lots of blackberries, so whatever ripens in a day & the birds don't eat before we get home (or Jill shoos them away with a spray bottle) are left for us & Harvey (who also loves berries).

As long as we don't let them drown, even our desert plants have done well. The aloe in the middle actually sprouted new little aloes that we had to re-plant (little terra cotta on the right). If it keeps up, we may have some to give away for who ever wants one.

That's all for now, on the garden, but we'll keep you posted when we've got more tomatoes than we know what to do with!

Hiking the Shenandoah National Forest 6/7/2009

Sunday we went for a 4 hour hike off of the very popular Skyline Drive that skirts the upper ridges of the hill/mountains of Virginias Shenandoah National Forest with the famous Appalachian Trail.

A work friend of Stuart's, Scott, gathered a group of ten or so people from his and his girlfriend's work and lined us up for a good picnic lunch overlooking the valley. We were glad for the excuse to get out and use our year pass to the park under the condition that Harvey were able to join us... of course.

We hiked down hill for about two hours before having lunch on a trail that Jill and I have actually camped off of last fall with some other friends.

Notice the "Happy Family" (so Stu's co-worker Scott called us). We're happy because the decent to our look-out lunch spot was nice and easy - And a beautiful view.

After eating and taking in the scenery, we all geared up for the trek home. Lighter though it was for all the water we had drank by this point and the large lunch we had, it was still a killer workout - A mix between two straight hours of StairMaster & an inclined treadmill.

Needless to say, even Harvey needed to stop for a few breaks and a drink here and there. But, you can't blame him... When not forced onto Stu's annoying leash, he's ever compelled to lead us along the traisl through the forest... Thank goodness too or we might have been lost... Ever the Alpha.

Until we come across a rattle-snake that is, and he alerts us all to it's presence by being scared out of his wits and refusing to go a step further. He was so scared in fact, that Stu was forced to carry him to the other side of that scary rattle where he could resume his leading of the pack.