What I did this summer

Well, today is the first day of school for kids here in Michigan and with that in mind I thought I would give a report on "What I Did This Summer" just like we used to have to in grade school. The Summer of 2008 went by entirely too fast as do most summers. While we had wanted to get away for a vacation - we didn't. The end of summer caught up to us from behind and surprised us. We are planning a vacation to the U.P. for next summer though. Don't worry, I'll let you know far in advance when we will have the gift basket store closed ;).

We started off the summer with a bumper crop of strawberries from our garden. A lot of time was spent harvesting berries and getting the rest of the garden up and going. Unfortunately, we had another dry summer here in southwest Michigan so that meant watering the garden on a daily basis. I missed watering the raspberry canes too often and we lost quite a few of the new plantings.

We took lots of walks with the kids amongst many visits to the local library. I finally took the time to take some photos from around White Pigeon. I had been wanting to do that for a long time and was always too busy or had another lame excuse. I finished up that photo walk with an excellent chocolate soda at the neat old soda fountain in the Tasty Nut Shop.

Blueberry picking was fun, eating Michigan cherries and peaches was tasty as always, and just plain having fun as a family. It seems that I mention food a lot. Well, I don't know about you, but a lot of my memories of summer seem to revolve around food. There's always barbecues, homemade ice cream, 4th of July parties, and evenings in front of a campfire.

My only regret is not getting away and heading up north. We'll remedy that next summer. Now we've apple picking to look forward too and all the pies, apple sauce, and apple crisp that goes along with it.

There I went talking about food again ;).

"An Unquiet Grave" is an exciting read

One of the top 20 books in the 2008 Michigan Notable Books list, "An Unquiet Grave" turned out to be a very good read. I couldn't hardly put it down and spent a few late nights finishing it up. A few days later my wife got around to reading it and she plowed through it in two or three days. So what's this Unquiet Grave about and what made it so intriguing to me?

Set in the very real Irish Hills, but in a not so real insane asylum at Hidden Lake there is a cemetery for the former patients. The asylum has been closed and everything is being torn down along with the cemetery. The graves are being dug up and the remains are being moved.

One such grave is dug up, but instead of a former patient - it's filled with rocks. Where did the patient go, who is the serial killer on the grounds and why are the victims left at the deserted asylum?

Louis Kincaid must travel back to Michigan and get to the bottom of this mystery at the request of his adopted father. While searching for the killer and trying to solve a mystery that seems to unravel and create more questions than answers, Louis must face some old ghosts of his own.

I love a good book, especially a good mystery. Add to that the fact that the story takes place in Michigan (and an area I'm familiar with at that) and I give "An Unquiet Grave" 4 Stars on a scale of 1 to 4 with 4 being the highest.

Find out more about the author(s) - P.J. Parrish

Listen to a song about Tiger Stadium

"The Corner" was written and sung by Ben Hassenger about his and others' memories of Tiger Stadium. He plans on heading down to The Corner from his home near Lansing to shoot a video. You can take a listen at his MySpace page or the Detroit Free Press.

I think he did a great job. It's got a nice beat to it and his lyrics paint a picture of what once was and will now only be a faded picture in our memories.

Update on my garden

When I planted pole beans this year I staggered the planting so we would have a steady flow of green beans during the summer. Our first planting began producing beans at the end of last week and we have already enjoyed two quarts of delicious and tender beans. The other plantings are catching up and should keep us in the beans through most of August.

We'll be digging up some of our red potatoes this week and I'm interested to see how those did. Our onions are ready for picking any time we need one. We've also been getting a couple of cucumbers every other day or so to add to our homemade sweet pickle brine.

Not much rain has fallen here lately (per usual during this part of the summer) so the sprinkler has been running every day. Earlier in the spring our tomatoes were looking a bit yellow and sickly so I gave them a few doses of compost tea and they not only bounced back, but they look bigger and better too.

Enjoying the strawberries from our garden

I've got to take a moment to brag on my garden a bit. I planted a 3' x 3' plot of strawberries in a raised bed four years ago and just let them spread to the rest of the raised bed and then let them spill out over the sides. The patch is approximately 10' x 6' now and filling in nicely.

Since June 10th we've been picking a quart of strawberries or better each day. It's been nice to head out there and pick strawberries to make fresh strawberry shortcake or even just to add to the morning cereal.

Quick Strawberry Recipes: Easy Strawberry Freezer Jam Strawberry Butter

In other garden news - our tomatoes, pole beans, cucumbers, and red potatoes are doing quite well. It's been a bit on the dry side the last seven days so I've been watering everything. My next project is to get my rain barrel put together and then wait for rain ;).

I'll post instructions on how to build your own rain barrel whenever I get mine completed.

Happy Gardening!