This and That Through the Unplanned Blog Break

If you follow along on Instagram, you may have seen that I ended up having my gallbladder removed almost two weeks ago.  So the feeling sick before and recovery after stopped the blogging world.  That, and kids home for the summer!  This is a post surgery selfie with my little girls. (And, I'm doing great post surgery now)

A brief Tank Garden update:

Of course this space needs some attention.  So it goes.

I found a great variety of herbs in the garden shops this year so added the three rusty buckets you see here in front of my other herb tank.  Plus, I have herbs scattered in other tanks and baskets too.  I so enjoy smelling them.  (And, using them!)  I have a jar of tea dried so far and should begin to harvest some basil.

This guy was visiting the garden last night.  He still has duck weed on his shell from the pond, that's quite a trek he made!

And, I didn't see when this visitor was in the garden, but he left me a gift.

Chamomile and annual baby's breath.  

Our little girls each wanted their own space in the garden this year and I caught this one in quite a stoic gaze as she took a break from hoeing.  (She wasn't the most effective hoer, but she tried!)

On a side note:  Those overalls were thrifted  a number of months ago for her to alter into a skirt as a 4h project.  When she put them on, she loved them and didn't want to cut them up!  So, we went back to the thrift store and found a skirt to convert to a bag. The skirt is way too big for her so no worry of her wanting to keep it, ha!

4H update:

Our club went on a tour of a small cheese factory and a produce farm.  I just loved seeing all the lush vegetables growing there.

These are cucumbers being trained up vertically and they had tomatoes being trained the same way.

Beautiful leafy lettuce.  (He said it was actually too big now and was going to be pulled out)

He sent us a head of this leafy lettuce home.  

You can see the gorgeous cabbages here I posted on Instagram.

(Our vegetable garden looks pathetic compared to this farm! Oh well, I still enjoy it.)

A shot from the cheese factory.  The smell was a bit overwhelming and one of my girls had to go out, so I didn't get the whole tour.  I think it'd be interesting to try once to make cheese at home.

You can see in this Instagram photo that we are underway with some 4h projects.

Update from the sewing room:

I played a little with some scraps.  All of it is still works in progress though.

A Family Update:

My second to the youngest turned 10 on Monday, so Sunday we went to Omaha to celebrate her birthday and Father's Day with lunch out, a movie, and then cookies and presents at a cafe.

My daughter and granddaughter came for the day yesterday and we sorted buttons!  I had just picked some up at a garage sale that morning.  When I asked my granddaughter if she remember what we did with buttons one time she was here, her face lit up and she said "lined them up!"

All the photos are from my phone.  Sometimes that's all you have time for....what a blessing to have that convenience though.

I hope you are enjoying your summer and that you don't attach too many expectations to it.  I have to work on that every summer...to let go of too many expectations. 

I hope you all are well!