Picking strawberries!

We picked strawberries today at a BBQ/ Berry festival nearby.  The boys needed some time away from the house as we have spent the last 5 weekends working on the garden/ irrigation/ fence around garden/ making paths in the garden, etc.

First, pictures from the berry festival...

A big giant slide:

 

 

 Picking (er, mostly eating) strawberries:

 Eli was pretty excited to show me the strawberry he was chowing on!

 Waiting for the tractor to pick us back up...

The festival had a pig train (about 7 little pig cars driven by a riding lawn mower).  We asked the boys if they wanted to ride it. 
Eli: "Yeah, yeah!"
Ben: scowl and a "I don't wanna."
Eli hops right in and takes a big lap around the grounds all by himself.  When he returns, Ben says: "OK, I'll try it, too!"  So, he gets a turn.  Then they both want to do it all over again together... Hmmm.

 

And the garden with seedlings, seeds and drip sprayers!  Tomatoes, corn, carrots, peas, beans, pumpkins, cucumbers, squash, cauli, broccoli, peppers, onions, lettuces, spinach, basil, cilantro, strawberries.  We were a bit late getting stuff in, but summer is nearly here, so maybe we can catch up quickly!

 



 

5!

Ben is a 5 year old!

 Cousins at the 'kid table' enjoying their juice boxes.

 Ben let Eli help him open quite a few presents - what a nice big brother (for the moment...)

 

After cake and ice cream, we enjoyed a lot of outdoor time with Ben's new portable soccer goals and other outdoor toys. 

 

The boys moved into their new room upstairs on Sunday.  We got the bunk beds all set up and most of the furniture moved in.  It's been a chore getting them down at night, but they have slept well once they are out.

My Boys LOVE their Shark Pool!

 

 

Big Boy Toy

Work has continued on the boys room.  I think the end is in sight.  The drywall guy still needs to sand and texture the walls, and then I think we are ready for paint.  It will be nice to have our house back after the sets of scaffolding that we have been squeezing past for a week or two.

We have all been enjoying a lot of outside time with the incredible spring (more like summer) weather in Oregon.  Here are the boys with their butterfly (or as they call them 'bug') nets.








































We have been working hard on the yard over the past few weeks planning, and putting in a vegetable garden and some other planning beds and new trees.  Here are a few pictures of the progress over the past 2 weekends.

Starting with the "pre" picture as we started adding fence posts for a future deer fence.



Adding more fence posts (and we removed some of the fencing adjacent to the small shed along the fence.  The boys helped me pound all of the nails out of the boards and haul them into the shed.) 


At one point, Eli started back up the hill towards the house without saying a word, disappears into the house and comes out with his wooden hammer, and starts pounding some stakes in, again without a word.  Such the industrious kid.

This weekend, we rented a 24 inch rear tine rototiller.
Step 1.  We removed the sod from the 20 foot by 30 foot area that we wanted to plant by using a very shallow setting on the rototiller, then raked the grass off to the side of the garden area.  I spend a bunch of time trying to screen the dirt out of the grass clumps - it's only half done...

Step 2: We added some steer and chicken manures and about half of the 7.5 yards of compost (which was delivered to the street in front of our house and had to be hauled downhill - luckily we have a small trailer for our riding lawn mower), and then used the rototiller to (deeply) work it all in.  That machine is a beast!














Andy and his Big Boy Toy



We took time for snacks and shade.



Here is a smaller bed we plan to use for blueberries - and we also dug up a spot for 2 long rows of raspberries.






 
 
 
 
 











Um, this picture (below) speaks for itself.























Today, we focused on planting 6 fruit trees that we got from the Sherwood Rotary Sale for $10 a piece!  The boys loved playing in the holes.



It's hard to see, but Ben is IN another hole up the hill from Eli in the background of this picture...


















































There is still quite a bit of work to do, (put up the fence and get some fencing around the trees, etc.)but we need some time for our bodies to recover from the work this weekend (especially Andy - man, he did a LOT of work)...  :)