Harvesting turnips!

Hope these are turnips, at least I think they are, we call them nepe in Norway. I happen to think they are delicious. But I hear that they are not very nutritious, sad cause they are a great fill in salads. Most surprising of all is they seem to grow very easily. I just planted the seeds straight into my vegie patch and thinned them out when the leaves started to crowd. I have since learned their are some flies one would want to keep at bay, so one usually puts a cloth over the leaves, but they didn`t seem to discover mine!

Dandelion field

Guess what work I am still doing in my garden?.... I am still pulling up dandelions, groan can you believe it. I even stooped so low as to use a chemical, which we now later realised killed off a lot of the stinging nettle (Yay!) but alas the dandelion is huger and stronger than ever. ie it will take me over a year to get them under control.

I do not believe in the total instinction of the flower, they are rather nice too and have many health values, although I must admit I am not wild about the taste. They are tiring things to pull up as one musyt always endeavour to get as much of the tap root up as possible. I do have one of the long weed puller upper things it helps. At this stage (in photo) the kids were told they would earn a hundred bucks filling a bucket with just the flowers, but that didn`t work totally I think they felt very rich at the beginning of their holidays! So now I almost long for the snow to come early to hide these tiring things that keep me so busy, like I have nothing else to do!

Nature is beautiful, just ask my son

Here is one of those funny photo´s that pop out of the "crowd" of holiday pictures. I have a little giggle every time I look at it and decided to share.

Not every creature has beauty, but it´s own special kind of charm maybe ;)

This is wolffish, very delicious fish. It is able to crush large shellfish with it`s jaw so it can eat the delicacies inside

My harvest, sweet garden peas

Yippi, what fun to pick away at ones own garden peas, Pisum Sativa. Being such a novice this is our first vegetable that we have grown and it was dead easy ie we did nothing to deserve such a sweet snap! It has rained a lot this summer obviously being our saving grace. Garden peas don´t seem to have many enemies either!

Reaching for the sky, to such a degree it shaded out a whole lot of sun for my paprika (which was not such a success but will teach me to plan better in future!)

Growing vegies in a box like this was such a success no hassles and no weeds! Just a whole lot of cow manure! (French Estragon next to it with yellow flowers was amazing too.)

Well, we never even got to cook them, they were just soooo good to go pick and nibble on that they never got further, little bowls like this just dissappeared? ;)

Hopefully next year the excitement of it all will have cooled and I actually can use them in my cooking or even freeze? Will have to see if it is a good idea though.

Swimming pool?

I just have to admit I am spoilt! I grew up with a concrete pool on the edge of a cliff, what fun! and later just a normal suburban pool. So when my husband came home with a round plastic pool and a wire fence, I took to ridiculing the pool with all sorts of ugly names. Who would wade in 1m and call it a swimming pool?! haha. 

But what a joy it brought the kids they were in it every single day, if the temp was over 20 (take after their parents in regard to swimming in cold water). Even I had a few dips after a few humid days at work. So after all it saved us a lot of trips to the lake, babysitting by the waters edge and entertained them for hours :)

Old love

I have just been in a 120 year birthday party, hold your hat on it was two people each celebrating 60! They are an old couple who we have known for a while, the kind of lovely people that you just consider yourself lucky to know. I thought about how many years work those two have put down together. Then since we know them from church I thought about some of the invisible stuff like how much love they have shown others! How much encouragement and comfort they have spread around to others. And how much they have loved each other.

Couples who have fallen in love and manage to stay in love, what a gift, and how rare. I am probably in this corner as I have just celebrated my 21st year married!

Hage forkle / Gardening apron

Dette har jeg ønsket å lage såååå lenge, ihvertfal i hele sommer ;) men jeg fikk det ikke til før nå, i ferien. Jeg synes den er så fin å ha på seg! Ikke noe svett som jeg var redd for siden jeg brukte voks stoff! Så praktisk å bare kunne tørke den av! Det er plass til mobilen ( jeg får alltid kjeft for å ikke ha den i nærheten) og lommen er dyp, så mobin ramler ikke ut. Og ikke minst plass til løvtannstikkeren, det er et av mine mest brukte redskaper! Vel man kan jo igrunn lage den akkurat så det passer deg, eller kjøpe en hos meg på Epla ;) Jeg kan selvfølgelig ta bestillinger og!

Oh dear and I said it all in Norgwegian, that was definitely tonights mindset, will translate in comments sometime,....for now good night :)