Harvest

Let me be clear--I am no gardener! I have tried and tried, but I have a black thumb, black like The Reaper. It brings death to all green things.
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Luckily, we have many generous neighbors with beautiful gardens. We thank them for sharing their fresh produce with us, including zucchini, summer squash, tomatoes, corn, green beans, sugar snap peas, cucumbers, lettuce, and broccoli.

Today my boys, Jacob and Dylan, and Dylan's friend Eric, did some shucking and snapping. Eric had never shucked corn before, but he thought it was fun, even if he was a little freaked out by the worms inside. Straight-from-the-garden corn is very different from what you buy at the store! Next we introduced him to the art of snapping beans, and he and Dylan got through a bag of green beans in record time!

The end product is seen above, drying out before being bagged and frozen, alongside a loaf of zucchini bread. Jacob has a gift for baking, and we had a surplus of squash, so he baked 6 loaves of zucchini bread (some of which went to neighbors) and a dozen zucchini muffins. Here he is washing up the bakeware after his baking spree.

As for Dylan and Eric, they were rewarded with a slice of warm zucchini bread and then they turned their attention to more important things, like kicking each others' booties in Super Smash Brothers Brawl. At left are Dylan, Eric, and another neighborhood friend, Kenyan. If only they focused on their homework with such intensity!

Today was yet another soccer Saturday. The boys battled the same team they played several weeks ago. That game ended in a 4-4 tie, and today's game ended in a 3-3 tie. They are our greatest rivals!

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After today's game, this year's soccer pictures were handed out, so I thought I'd share. At right is our Dylan, age 11. Below is a behind-the-scenes shot I took on picture day. And below that is the official team photo of White Chaos. (Again, the kids named the team--go figure!) A great looking group of boys!