Squashini? Zucchinash? Cross pollination in the garden.

Every year i grow a pretty big (relatively speaking) garden. At one time i loved to collect seeds from my plants. Since i like to grow a variety of plants and started growing open pollinated heirlooms almost exclusively, i now purchase most of my seeds to guarantee they haven't cross pollinated.   Most of this years seeds came from Baker's Creek, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and Botanical interests.

Every year, beside all the seeds i plant i end up with a few volunteers. For the last few years we've had a lot of volunteer gourds. This year i spotted this interesting fella in coming in my zucchini bed. The bottom of it looks very much like the gray zucchini i planted last year.  It had several baby squash on the plant, and they all have this yellow strip in the middle. So strange! 

This year i planted Black beauty Zucchini, Yellow crooked neck squash and a few other varieties. This volunteer looks like it could be a cross between a zucchini and a yellow crooked neck. Many of the gourds we've grown have been half green and half yellow...so i was a little worried that it had crossed with a gourd and would be completely inedible.  

i decided to slice up some zucchini, yellow squash and our mystery squash and compare them. Surprisingly, the mystery squash looks identical to the zucchini inside. i had my kids do a taste test, with their eyes closed and they could not tell the difference.  So we are calling it a Squashini. :)  

My summer squash have just started to really come in.  So far i have been harvesting Dark green zucchini, Black Beauty Zucchini, Golden Zucchini, Yellow crooked neck squash and Squashini! i'm still waiting for my patty pans to mature, and i have a ton of other volunteers that i'm watching. Most looks like gourds, but it will be fun to see what we end up with.

What is the craziest cross-pollinated vegetable you've ever grown?

Summer Travels- Sage's B-day weekend in TN

Where does the time go? My baby girl's turned 7 years old on June 21st, the first day of Summer.

 i made a very basic cake for her birthday and then realizing we didn't have candles or any kind of decorations we went outside and picked fresh flowers and berries. She helped me decorate it and was totally thrilled with it. We had a pretty big weekend planned for her birthday, and had a quick celebration in the RV and then packed up for a weekend trip to TN!

Before heading out she opened up a few presents.  i was really excited to see her open the new doll i had made for her back in May.  After losing all of those handmade dolls, making a new one was extremely important to me.  She loved her!

So our main reason we were heading to TN was for me to get together with a few of my childhood friends. The father of a girl i've been friends with since kindergarten had passed away around Easter time, and she was coming to TN to spend time with her mom. Her mom's house is only a few hours from here, so i was hoping i'd be able to see her while she was there. Then a few of our other friends arranged a road trip to come down from MI and i knew i HAD to get myself there! We are all originally from MI, but with me in VA and my other friend in MO we do not all get together very often.  i haven't been to MI in about 6 years, and it has been even longer since i've seen my friend in MO.

Since the road trip was planned for Sage's b-day weekend, we decided to make a family trip out of it. Kenan would drop me off with my friends Fri-Sat, take the kids somewhere fun and then we'd head up knoxville and spend Sunday at the Knoxville zoo and head home that evening. 

i lost almost all of my old photos in the fire, but found this one blowing around the yard.  This was taken in the late 80's. ha ha, can you tell?  i have known these girls since kindergarten. 

Here we are about 25 years later. i think we all still look pretty good. :)  My friend with the hat isn't in the picture above. We were uncertain if she took the other picture, or if it was taken by another friend who didn't make the trip. 

 We picked up cupcakes for Sage's b-day, sang happy birthday and had my girl blow out her candle.  Then Kenan and the kids took off for Johnston city to get hotel and explore the Hands on Museum.  

i had a wonderful time visiting with my friends at this beautiful place.  This land has been in her family for many years. We walked through the home of her great-grandparents. No one lives there now, but it is still furnished and i really enjoyed see the old pictures still on the walls. Her grandparents home is right across the road and her niece is living there now.  We stayed at her parents house, which was up on the hill.  It was amazing to see everyone and hang out again. We stayed up too late and drank a bit too much, but we had a great time.  Despite the time and distance, it was as if a day hadn't gone by.

We took a stroll through downtown Elizabethon and checked out the covered bridge festival.  

While i was hanging out with my friends in Elizabethon, Kenan took the kids to the Hands on Museum in  Johnson city.  The museum membership pass we'd picked up at Greensboro Science center gave them free admission to this science center. 

After exploring the Hands on Museum, they headed back to Elizabethon to check out the covered bridge festival. We actually just missed them by about 1/2 hour.  The kids had lots of fun on these bungee cord trampolines. They also splurged on some fair food and face painting.  Then they headed back to my friends house, we said our good byes and continued on to Knoxville.

Years ago, we used to vend at bead shows.  One of them was in knoxville, across the parking lot from the zoo.  So while Kenan was working the bead show i would take the boy to the zoo. We really like this zoo, and although we no longer do the bead show we still come back to knoxville every few years to visit the zoo.

They have these mist stations everywhere. So although it can be hot walking around a zoo, they are a nice way to cool off and the kids love them.

If it gets too hot outside, there is an indoor kids area called Wee play (i think).  It's really neat,they have a pizza shop, grocery store, veterinarian clinic and farm yard all set up for imaginary play.  They have lots of Melissa and Doug toys, and even a few real animals in the farm yard. The kids had fun pretending to work in a pizza shop. 

We enjoyed seeing the animals too. 

Our original plans were to go downtown Knoxville to play in the splash pad at the World's fair park.  We were surprised to see that the zoo now has a splash pad! So we ended up not going downtown at all, and just hanging out at the zoo for the rest of the day.  The kids had a blast, and we headed home early evening and were able to get back to the RV before dark.

We really had an amazing trip, and it was great seeing my old friends! We are hoping to make this an annual get together every year! 

We have really been trying to make this a memorable summer for the kids. Having an exciting new trip each weekend really helps to keep everyone's spirits up.  Although it's nice being back on our property, it is bitter sweet as well. So we really enjoy these outings to take our mind away from other things.

i'm still trying to play catch up with my blog, so you can expect lots of back posting. i have another giveaway to post, and i may start posting a few sponsored posts as well. So don't be too surprised if you see some different postings from me.  My life has been turned upside down, and i no longer have the luxury of sitting around crafting with my kids all day. i've started looking for a job outside the home, or exploring different ways to bring in an income from home. Unfortunately, i don't actually make any money with the bendy dolls, so i need to look for some other options.

Tropical Traditions Raw honey sale and Free shipping (orders over $16)!

Hey folks! Remember that review i did on the Organic Raw honey from tropical Traditions?? If not you can read about it here. The honey is on sale right now for $10.49 and TODAY ONLY they have free shipping on orders over $16 with code 13722.   It's a really good deal, and totally worth it! We have almost finished the jar of honey, so i just picked up another one. i also grabbed a bag of whole wheat flour (cause i was out) and some organic heirloom seeds for my fall garden. We live pretty far from store, so with gas prices so high free shipping deals are hard to pass up! 

You can read about and order their Organic Raw honey here.  If it is your first time order, please use my referral link! You'll receive a free booklet "Virgin Coconut Oil: How it has changed people's lives and how it can change yours!" and i'll receive a credit to the store. 

Remember the free shipping deal is TODAY only, so if you've ever thought of ordering from them, today is a good day to order!  The free shipping code is 13722, and you add it to your card during checkout.   Happy Shopping! 

***the honey is now $13.99 not sure why the price changed. i purchased it for $10.49 just a few hours ago.

Garden Update- July.

It's been a while since i posted a garden update, in fact i'm not even sure i've posted one this year.  If you've been following my blog at all, you know that this entire year has been a bit of  crazy, wild ride.  We were not able to move back to our property until June 1st, so my entire garden got a really late start this year. Then  it pretty much rained all of June and so far most of July...so the garden has had a rather slow start.

Now, half way through July and it is really just starting to fill in and produce. So here is a brief update on this years garden.

i only put in a dozen broccoli plants this year.  One of them bolted while the plant was still small, but the others did well.  After harvesting the heads, w are still harvesting occasional side shoots from the plants. 

By the middle of June we were harvesting tons of lettuce, garlic scapes, asparagus and strawberries.  i planted tons of lettuce, and plant it about every three weeks so we are still harvesting a bunch.  Our strawberries never do that well, but we did manage to pick a few handfuls. 

 By the end of June we were still harvesting plenty of lettuce and garlic scapes. We were also getting sugar snap peas, berries and day lily buds. We were just beginning to get some beans.  i love summer meals like this that are entirely grown at home.

 i always plant a ton of cold crops, and so i've been getting lots of kale and rainbow swiss chard. Swiss chard has become a new favorite this year, and i'm wishing i had planted more! i will be sure and plant a bunch this fall.

By the beginning of July the berries really started producing!  This has been our best year for blueberries.   i think it was all the rain. We have a deep freezer set up at Kenan's shop, so i have been able to freeze a ton.  The kids are outside daily eating unlimited blueberries and raspberries.  i even made a couple mini batches of jam. 

So that brings us to the middle of July. i really can not believe it is July.  :(  i planted a ton of beans this year.  The rain washed away a bunch of my seeds, and so i ended up planting beans in all those empty garden spots just to fill it in a bit.  Now they are all really starting to come in. i'm harvesting purple pole beans now, and have christmas lima, yellow wax, scarlet runners, and purple bush beans in bloom.  My potatoes were put in late, but i dug around a couple plants to harvest some new potatoes and was pleased to see they are doing well. i have red, white and purple potatoes planted this year. :) 

 We are just starting to enter blackberry season!!  We are still getting a ton of blueberries, although the red raspberries have tapered off a bit. They are every bearing though, so we should get another harvest this fall.  My squash are a bit behind, but they are loaded with bloom and baby squash so we should be picking them in the next week or so.

My tomatoes had a very rough start, i had to pull about 8 plants that were diseased and may of the others were showing sign of distress from the constant rain and cooler temps.  However, we have actually seen the sun a bit this week and my tomatoes seem to be making a come back.   i'm really hoping to be picking some soon. My peppers and sweet potatoes are doing fantastic and i planted a few rows of corn that seem to be doing okay. i've never had much luck with corn, but plant a couple small rows every year anyway.

So, i knew my garden wasn't going to be perfect this year and am actually a bit surprised i was able to plant it at all.  We have a lot on our plate this year, with just trying to get back to the property and now trying to plan to build a new house.  We are slowly making progress and i will post details eventually.

We are enjoying our time back 'home', although it has rained almost every day that we have been ehre. We are trying to make the summer as fun as we can with lots of weekend road trips. i am super behind with my posts, but will share our adventures soon.

This has definitely been the year for change for us, in more ways than i can possibly express.



All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.  ~Anatole France

Summer Travels-Bottom Creek Gorge

i really have no idea how we have lived here for 13 years, and yet had never heard of Bottom Creek Gorge.  Bottom Creek Gorge has the second highest waterfall in Virginia and is just a  few miles outside of Floyd county, in Montgomery county, VA.  

i only happened upon it when someone posted photos on facebook. i clicked on them to see where it was, and was super surprised that it was so close to us.  We have always spent our summers checking out local hiking areas, nature preserves, places along the new river trail and blue ridge parkway. So i really have no idea how it took us so long to find this place.

At the beginning of the trail head they have a kiosk with info, map and a warning that the trail is very strenuous 'proceed at your own risk'.  i was a little concerned about the kids on the trail if it was extremely strenuous. The falls viewing is at the end of the red trail, so we took that one down. All along the trails are the remnants of old homesteads.  They are all labeled on the map legend. There are not many to see on the red trail, so we decided to take the blue trail back after seeing the falls. The blue trail is much less steep and an easier hike.

 i did not feel like it was especially strenuous, although it was a bit steep. The kids had no trouble walking it, and there are steps down the steeper parts.  It was a beautiful trail, with old fence posts and wineberries everywhere.

The blue trail had a bunch of old homesteads.  We saw many old log cabins, stones  piles where chimneys used to be and even an old cemetery with an iron gate.  Since our hike here, i've been searching online for some kind of history of the families that lived here but haven't found a whole lot.

The only info i could find said that  Bottom Creek Gorge was settled in the late 18th century, reaching a peak population of over 20 families in the mid 20th century. Settlers called the gorge “the roughs” because of the rocky, almost impassible terrain. Scattered about the gorge are old house sites, farmsteads, graveyards, stone dwellings built by Civil War deserters, and the remains of an abandoned scout camp, Camp Kiwanniana. 

The Nature Conservatory began planning Bottom Creek Gorge Preserve in 1978 when the Virginia Chapter and forerunner of Virginia’s state Natural Heritage Program reorganized the outstanding variety of fishes found in the creek. Since 1988, the Conservatory has acquired 1,657 acres here. While most of the land has been purchased, the 74-acre tract containing the waterfall itself was donated in 1992 by Appalachian Power Company.

We had a great time on the hike. The kids collected sticks that turned into wizard staffs, magical wands and bow and arrows.  There were lots of big rocks to climb on and a few open areas where we saw wildflowers and butterflies.  It was really a beautiful hike.

The falls viewing area is quite small, so if there are other folks on the trail it can get rather crowded and you may find yourself having to wait.  There were several cars there when we arrived, but we only saw two other people on the trails.  The actual waterfall, Bent Mountain Falls,  is quite far away on the other side of the gorge. There is no way to access it so you can not get anywhere near the actual falls, but you can see it through the trees.   It is huge (200 feet), but not nearly as spectacular as the cascades.

We really enjoyed the hike, seeing all the old homesteads and look forward to coming back to walk it again.
We love these summer day trips, and are always excited to visit some place new. i still can't believe we had never heard of this before, but am glad that we found it!

Our summer already feels like it going way too fast!  We are in the process of coming up with our house plans and will soon begin to rebuild.  i'll post all about that when we finally know excatly what we are going to do. We are definitely getting closer.   These weekend getaways are so needed to help us clear our minds, and focus on family and just enjoying our time together.