Apricots, Apricots

Turns out that birds also like eating my apricots.

And so do squirrels!

(Yeah, we have all kinds of critters 'round these parts)

We did salvage two 5-gallon buckets full of apricots though.

So~ what's a gal to do with two buckets full of very ripe apricots???

 Well...

Jam, of course!

 11 Pints of Freezer Jam

5 Pints of cooked Jam (pain in the patootie to make!)

4 Quarts Nectar (or Chewy Juice as Rick's family calls it)

See anything unusual in this picture?

(Besides the really dry, hope-it doesn't-burn field?)

Here's a little bit closer look.

She was in the garden, by the apricot tree. She startled Shane, or he startled her...Or both.

He ran in the house, she ran to the back yard; for her photo shoot.

Shane thought it was a really big buck, but he turned out to be a she...with big ears!  



Well Then...

Birds hate me.

No, really...

It's a proven fact.

First, there were the Robins that started chirping. The chirping started every day, as soon as there was even a hint of light in the sky, and ended never every evening when the sun went down.

It was incessant, and nearly enough to drive me insane!

Now, I normally enjoy birds.

But this was a little much.

5 AM is not a good time for me!

Add to that the latest insult:

We have a cherry tree. A little over a week ago, it was loaded with sweet, juicy, nearly-ripened cherries. We had eaten a few handfuls of cherries and were anxiously awaiting them to be fully ripened.

Saturday evening, things were looking good...

Tree still loaded with fruit.

Monday evening, I walked over to check the fruit trees...

My jaw literally dropped to the ground and I gasped!

The cherry tree was picked clean.

Every. Single. Cherry.

I was so mad!

Those stinkin' birds!!!

I knew we'd lose some cherries to the birds~ but had no clue they would eat every single cherry!!!

I guess I should have been tipped off when I saw the Starling hopping around on the the back lawn with a cherry in his mouth. I'm sure he was taunting me.

I think every bird in the county was perched in our tree, having a sweet little feast. There was quite a variety of birds, which at any other time would have been awesome...

But this time, I was just too mad!

The apricots and peaches are still looking good, but I'm sure the squirrels will probably get to them.

I'm not sure there's even any point to growing my own fruit.

I guess at least the birds won't go hungry.



Summer Wrap Up 2010

I'm a little behind with blogging...can you get behind with blogging??? 

Here are a few pics from our summer vacay.  Just Rick and me and the 2 younger boys. 
Originally, we were headed down to Boulder Mountain, near Capitol Reef NP, but a last minute change of plans landed us at Strawberry Reservoir instead. 

We camped, we fished, we relaxed and just had a great time!

Shane, with one of his magnificent catches of the week. We actually ate fish for dinner a couple of nights! 

Spencer and Shane learning the art of Dutch Oven Cooking. 

Our campsite. Thank goodness for self contained trailers! 
The boys would get up early every morning and head out for some fishing.  I would stay behind and sleep in!!!  I also spent a lot of time reading. Yay!  Finally read the last book in the Percy Jackson series (by Rick Riordan) and the last book in the Twilight Series.  Liked them both. 

Beautiful scenery at one of the fishing spots.  The weather was a bit on the cool side, so we had a lot of success with the fishing.  I even caught 3 myself.

Most of the week was stormy.  The first night, the whole sky looked like it was on fire.  It was beautiful!
We also spent one night sitting out by the water until it was dark, then we spent a while star gazing and picking out different constellations.  It was just as the meteor shower was starting, so we saw a few shooting stars as well as the beautiful Milky Way.

Obviously, Fall is in full swing now, but in August there were just little hints of the beauty to come. 

 Because of the rain, we ended up packing it in a couple of days early.  We came home, locked the doors, unplugged the phones & pretended that we were still on vacation.
Emily joined us & we spent a few more days playing lots of games and just having fun!
A few favorite games from this summer were: Egyptian Ratscrew (Spencer learned this on his Scout trip the week before), Hand & Foot, Hit the Deck & Monopoly Deal (this was probably the favorite, and everyone likes it even better than regular Monopoly). 

Farewell, Summer of 2010.