This week in the garden things are looking very green!  I'm starting to see tomatoes.  I'm impatient this year for them to ripen, which is funny.  I don't like tomatoes.  I've got plans for them though.  Salsa, peach salsa, tomato sauce and just plain ole tomatoes canned.

The lemon cucumbers are exploding.  Or rather the plants are.  The cucumbers themselves are very tiny.  Which means they are all going to be ready at the same time.
The seeds I used for the lemon cucumbers were 6 years old.  I wasn't sure how many of them were viable so I planted a lot of seed.  You can tell by the viney mess I have here that I did not thin the many seeds that actually made a plant!  My thinking was that since we really, really like cucumbers, we should have lots of them.  I think my  neighbors will be grateful!

This has been the weekly garden update.  Joining Val at mental-chew.

This week in the garden we have picked one zucchini and sauteed it for dinner!  Our first summer crop!    We ate lots of radishes and lettuce, but those are all done here in this hot, hot weather.
Warning: cucumbers in picture appear larger than they actually are.  I'm excited to have fresh cucumbers.  During the summer that is a staple in our house.
The kale runneth over!  There is so much kale.  I've been putting kale in Corrine's lunch smoothies.  And I've been making kale chips.  It is so easy and we've been inhaling them.  Tear the kale into bite size pieces (removing the touch center rib), spray with olive oil, salt and pepper.  Bake at 350 for 7-10 minutes.  I think this depends on oven temps and how big the pieces are.  Most of the chips I've made bake about 8 minutes.  Dee-lish.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I had replanted  the pickling cucumbers again because the second planting got covered by a pile of woods chips.  Well that pile of chips has been spread and low and behold cucumbers are coming up!  I'll have pickling cucumbers coming out of my ears.  Can't wait!

There are 54 14'ers in Colorado.  A 14'er is a mountain peak that is 14,000 feet or higher.  Last Thursday we set out to hike LaPlata Peak.  LaPlata is the 5th highest peak and is 14,336 feet.  One of the most important rules when climbing a 14'er is to start early, summit and be off the peak by noonish.  It's a good rule of thumb.  Generally thunderstorms build over the Rockies in the early afternoon.  The last place you want to be in a thunderstorm is above treeline.  You know what they say about lightening striking the highest point...above treeline a person IS the highest point.
We did not get an early start.  We were on the trail by 8:30.  Our plan was to be there by 7:30.  We keep forgetting it is so much harder to get anywhere with a kid.  Then I misread the trailhead directions and instead of taking us to the FWD parking, I directed us to the lower parking area.  That added an extra mile in each direction.  We were finally on the trail at 9:30.  It was a beautiful hike.
This is in the valley floor about 12,000 feet, looking up at the climb we are about to do.
A close up view of what we just hiked.  This part of the hike was full of loose gravely rock and dirt.  It made for a very difficult climb to the ridge.  We made it the top of this climb and saw clouds forming to the west.  We made the difficult (and adult) decision to turn around at this point.  Bryan wanted to take his time on the descent because he was carrying the kiddo.  And if weather was coming in, we didn't want to hurry.  I was very bummed about turning around.  It wasn't the first time we've been turned around before the summit and it won't be the last either.  You can see how dark the clouds were by the time we got back to the base of the climb.
This is the view from the ridge line.  Beautiful little valley floor.
Mama carried Corrine on the flat part of the trail.  She was a trooper.  We haven't done that long of a hike (7 miles) since she was about six months old.  She wasn't walking yet, she weighed less and she slept more then.  I was a bit concerned that she would be bored and impatient in her backpack, but she only fussed a couple of times so we stopped and let her out.  We also took the dogs with us.  It may be the last long, high altitude hike for Henley (the Newf).  He was worked and he doesn't recover as fast.  He did enjoy the cooler weather.  But we can't take Buffett if we don't take Henley, so for long hikes like that the boys will stay home.  That is very disappointing.

Even though we didn't summit it was a very good day.

It's time once again for the weekly Yarn Along.  Books and knitting are two of my favorite things!  With summer in full swing, I don't really have time for either.  I worked on both the log cabin blanket and my random 5x5x5 blanket (That is 5K, 5P for 5 rows of color).  Didn't get much done so I didn't post a picture.  I just want to say that I am working on both of them.  I think the weekly Yarn Along keeps me plugging away!
I finished the James Patterson book I was reading last week.  A friend gave me the second and third books of the Fifty Shades trilogy.  I"m reading book two, Fifty Shade Darker.   The writing isn't any better in this book than it was in the first book.  But sadly, I'm hooked in and I want/need to know how it finishes.

I also read parts of Colorado's Fourteeners.  We are hiking one this week and I wanted to find one that is easy enough for us to take the dogs and Corrine on.  More on that in a later post.

Happy Yarn Along Wednesay!

It's time once again to join Ginny and others for the weekly Yarn Along.  Books and knitting!  Two of my favorite things.  I just finished Barbara Taylor Bradford's book A Letter From a Stranger.  It was OK.  I expected more of a suspense novel, but this wasn't it.  It was a good escape, but not a spectacular book.
I worked some more on the Log Cabin blanket.  It is now too big to take in my suitcase so I'll be working on it while we sit in the basement watching the Tour de France.  It's chilly down there, but it's where the big TV is.  I worked a little bit on this blanket.   Of course it is all randomly put together, but  I am really liking the colors that I've put together so far.

I picked up this James Patterson book at the Library last week.  I'm not a huge James Patterson fan, but I do like his "Women's Murder Club" books.  It is a quick read.  Each chapter is at most 3 pages long so it makes for a good read at night before I fall asleep.

Happy Yarn Along Wednesday!

A cold front moved through Denver starting last Friday.   The temperatures dropped.  The highs were in the 70's!  It stormed Friday night.  It stormed again on Saturday.  And again on Sunday.  I left town Friday morning.  I came home Sunday afternoon.  So I missed the whole thing.  Kind of.  I'm loving the cooler weather.  We have our windows open and can feel the breeze and hear the rain.  I woke up Monday to a very nice rain storm.  I'm not sure how much rain we've gotten.  There is a lot of standing water on roadways and some huge mud puddles down the street from us.

My garden is loving it!  Every thing looks greener and bigger.  I'm sure things have shot up and inch or two since last week!
 These are my pickling cucumbers.  I've had to replant them three times already.  The first time I planted them, it got really hot and the poor little spouts got heat burned.  The second time I planted I planted them they got buried in a pile of wood chips.  This is the third time and I'm hoping it's a charm!

We have had a lazy day.  We went to a wedding last night.  Corrine was flower girl and she was a party animal.  We had a late night. 

Our plan was to get up before it got hot and go hiking in Boulder with friends.  We still went hiking, but we were slow going this AM.  Due to our lateness we started much later than we wanted.  It got hotter faster than we anticipated.  We took the dogs and Henley (the Newf) got over heated.  He has since spent the rest of the day in the house in front of the AC vent.
There are no fireworks tonight.  Since pretty much the whole state of Colorado is on fire and it has been so hot and dry and there is no rain in our future, there has been a state wide ban on fireworks.  It will be pretty weird not to see them.  I have worked the last couple of 4th and the one time I'm off...

Happy 4th my peeps.

Corrine and I went to the mall yesterday.  I was on a mission.  Buy a wedding present and shoes for Corrine to wear with her flower girl dress.  Did I mention the wedding is today?  The wedding present was the easy part.  Baby shoes (white sandals that she can wear for the rest of the summer) not so much.  Even shoes for mama to wear to the wedding was pretty easy.  But now mama's not so sure she needs the shoes...I mean, isn't there a pair in my closet that would work?  I guess it depends on which dress I wear.

While wandering around the store, I found a nice pair of sunglasses.  They were really, really expensive.  But they fit.  I have a very hard time finding sunglasses that fit.  The arms of the glasses are usually too long and wrap too far around my head.  I have been looking for a new pair of sunglasses for months.  Ever since I dropped them in the grocery store and Bryan stepped on them.  He straightened them the best he could without breaking them.  The lenses are scratched, the arms are cattywampus.    So I was excited that I found a pair.  But I was so hesitant to buy them because they were pricey.  After buying shoes and a present I went back to the sunglass stand and I bought them.

Now I wonder if I really should have bought the sunglasses?  I mean I'm sure there are a gazillion things I could be doing with that money.  We are going on vacation in September, Corrine is growing and will soon need fall & winter clothes, I should pay some bills.  My list could go on and on.  On the flip side, they fit and I take really good care of my sunglasses and they will last me for years (the stepped on pair I bought six or seven years ago).

Oh.  The decisions.  I'll keep the receipt just in case.