Bredford Family: It's already the end of July?

This summer is whizzing by! How is it the end of July already? At the beginning of the summer I made a list of various potential things to do and I have a feeling we're not going to be able to do many of them.

Our garden has been doing mediocre this year. I think I got my peas in too late because we didn't have that many of them. The beans are now ready for picking, but the ones I've sampled have been pretty yucky- rather mealy. We got a number of zucchini (more than I can eat on my own and Chris doesn't like them) and now we have a whole bunch of cucumbers ripening. And again I'm faced with the issue of Chris not liking them. I think I'm going to try making some pickles.

But what makes me really happy are the carrots! After years and years of trying to grow carrots and having less than stellar results, I actually have some decent carrots this year. And there are more in the ground, so hopefully they'll get even bigger. I keep meaning to plant a second crop of them, so we'll see if that happens.

On Wednesday this past week was Derby Day at Bennett's school/daycare. They had a racecar theme for the week so we asked if they wanted to have a Derby. They were game, so we bought some car kits and Chris shaped them into simple wedges. Then on Monday the kids painted them and Wednesday was the race.

Here's Bennett's car on the red lane. He was one of the slower cars. We hadn't worried about weights for any of them, but Chris had to add some weight to Bennett's car just so that he would be able to cross the finish line. Oh well. All of the kids had fun, as did the various staff members who would walk by to watch, reminisce, or in the case of the maintenance team, race cars when they had a few spare moments.

Continuing the trend (since June 22nd) of weekly trips to OSV, we went on Saturday. The weather was perfect weather. We got a chance to do some things we don't normally do- went on a riverboat ride, saw a demonstration at the sawmill, and visited the printer.

Since we don't know the names of most of the employees we've made up nicknames for some of them. We do know some names if they have been featured in the member's magazine, videos online, etc. But instead they get names like "good farm woman" (Victoria), "other good farm woman" (Ryan), "good blacksmith" (Derek), "good tinsmith" (Phil), "head animal guy" (Rhys), and "thru-hiker guy".

So of course thru-hiker guy was working at the print shop when we visited. No one else was in there so we got to chatting, asking him if there's anything at Sturbridge that he doesn't do (parson), what he likes best (working on his own farm), etc. We told him he's one of our favorites and then I told him his nickname. Turns out, he lived out of a backpack for 10 years. He also is an expert on chestnuts, works in his fields barefoot, plows his fields by hand, and gets moody when it's time to kill a chicken. I kind of feel like we've been stalking him with everything we know, but it's really just that we visit a lot and hear snippets of conversations on various visits. We also wonder if they have started to recognize us, seeing how we visit so often. And how many male toddlers are there who wear a fedora and carry Curious George on their back?

I don't think this farmer has a nickname. I think his real name is Justin.

Ram (and lambs to keep him company) separated from the rest of the flock.

Playing Shuttlecock and Battledore.

Apparently we can't get away from the pump these days.

Sawmill in action. Or as Bennett says, "sawmill goes up and down".

On Sunday we went to the Boston Children's Museum for one last visit during our membership. We got there pretty early so it started off being not very crowded, but that quickly changed. And we realized it's way too chaotic for us. Too many people, and it seems to give Bennett a bit of ADD as he quickly runs off from one thing to another.