Emily

 

Abi finally got her wish - a new guinea pig! She named her Emily after some friends she made at Jami's horse camp this year.

Suki is not impressed. In fact, he doesn't even care. I guess it's a good thing he has no prey instinct, since Abi insists that Emily join us inside. Shaun put in a lot of work fixing up a hutch that Aunt Pat and Uncle Bear found - Emily is supposed to be an outdoor pig!

Three P's

Purple-dyed roving that Aunt Pat dyed in an exhaust bath:

Peachick rescued from orphanhood, which Abi named "Peepin" (Pippin) and desperately wants to adopt for her very own:

Projects: The first picture is Sheri (Courtney) holding her first mead brewing experiment! She helped me bottle up my current batch as I walked her through starting a batch for herself.

The second project pic is tile I picked out for redoing the bath. Since the bathroom is already mostly white (and black) I just went with that color theme. The diamond below is what I would like to have running just above the tub as a row of accent tile.

Garden Update

My "Medieval" raised bed garden is coming along nicely. The peas have set and the "Sutton's Harbringer" in the far corner are ready to be harvested! The other variety I planted for snow peas for stir frying have turned out to be a little more stringy than I had hoped, so I will just let them finish maturing and harvest them as shelling peas instead. They have very pretty purple flowers, so I will definitely grow them again, even though they got a little out of control and needed some creative reining-in...

 

"Dwarf Gray Sugar" Peas

"Black Valentine" long string beans and a cucumber vine

"True Red Cranberry" shelling beans and broccoli plants in the front, with peas and a zuccini peeking from behind

 Most people regret planting zuccini because they end up not being able to handle pounds and pounds of fruit at a time. I have the opposite problem, however. We could easily deal with a dozen zuccini a week, but our little zuccinis turn yellow and fall off before they get big enough to harvest. This little guy in the picture is only 3" long... still too small :(

Peace

Router and Suki were so happy that the family was all back, they were even getting along with each other for the first couple of days...

Kitty Makes the Best of It

Suki stayed at the house for the weekend while we were at the farm. Although he enjoyed having free reign of the counter and the sun on the windowsill, he was glad when we finally came back.