Picking Strawberries

Sara took the gang to pick strawberries while Doug painted the old shed. Doug learned that letting the gang go strawberry picking unsupervised was not a good idea ... 

Too much?

Why, you ask, is Julia not wearing shoes? Well, because she got in the car and didn't realize she wasn't wearing shoes until arriving at the farm.

Cicada Stories

May 16: 2021

The pesky bugs arrived in full force this weekend. So far the inconvenience has been much less than the gnats in the back yard. Doug has been busy picking them up and throwing them off the apple and cheery trees. 

The maple tree seems to be the most popular place - the ground around the tree has not been disturbed in 17 years. 

Cicadas on maple tree trunk

May 19: 2021

The pile of exoskeletons and dead carcasses at the base of the maple tree is attracting flies and starting to smell. Gross.

The hard plastic wrapping at the base of the peach tree has prevented all the bugs from climbing up! There are 2-3 that have flown onto the tree, but for the most part the hard plastic stopped them.

Fuel Shortage

Due to the Colonial pipeline shutdown, gas became a bit difficult to come by. Fortunately this did not interrupt Doug's bi-weekly bike commute from McLean to Reston. However, the mini-van got a bit low on fuel.

Planting Grandad's Garden

 The tiller guys did a great job preparing the garden, so "all" that needed to be done was to plant. With plenty of laborers, we were able to knock the job out quickly.

Garden planted!

Gardening Highlights

Everybody helped ... so we were done in 3 hours.

• RJ dug holes for the plants, tied up all the tomato cages, hoed the rows, moved stakes, organized soaker hoses, helped with the cucumber fencing, and cleared sticks.
• Julia planted a beans, lima beans, cleaned and helped spread the weed paper, and inserted plant identifying labels into the poles.
• Sara wore winter clothes ... the kids wore shorts.

The casualties included 2 broken trowels and a few remaining weeds.

There were a couple empty spots at the end. We plan to fill the space with butternut squash and with a couple of our cherry tomato plants that don't have enough space in our garden.

Tadpole Lake at Whitetail

One of the lakes at Whitetail seems to be the breeding ground for frogs. There are 7 connected lakes, but only 1 seems to have a ridiculously high-density of tadpoles.

There had to be close to 100,000 tadpoles lining the shallow shore of "Tadpole Lake." So, we took the opportunity to catch some. At this stage the tadpoles were too small to use for bait, so it was a catch and release day.

RJ perfected the put your hand in the water and wait for tadpoles to swim into your hand technique.

Garden Planting 2021

We planted before Mother's Day. Why? Because the pre-started seeds were already trees and needed to get moved outside. 

Sara and helpers plant the 2021 garden

To be consistent with past years ... there was a garden plan ... and then we planted 40% more plants than was in the plan. If everything goes well, we should have a jungle in a couple of months.

We are already eating some delicious lettuce and raddishes.