Sunday, August 7, 2016

Sunday Afternoon

We have had sick kids recently. Madison has been running a fever and had a cough.  I told Tyler she couldn't go to primary coughing on people. He was going to stay home (I heard him calling a counselor asking them to teach Elders Quorum for him) while Clark and I went to church. However, this morning Clark was running a fever, so I ended up staying home.  Here are some practice pictures of playing around with the white balance.

Too blue (did nothing)







  Took me a while to figure out, but I customized the white balance. A big difference in color, but still off.  Too warm now.



 

Changed white balance twice below with florescent and halogen lighting. The latter ones were more accurate, just not in focus too much.






(Love this one of them)















Beach

Tyler took the morning off for us to go to the beach.  I had gone with the kids before, but Tyler wanted it come.  It was nice having another set of hands there.  Both kids really like the water.  After a few hours Clark and Madison were wiped out from the sun. While I don't like Madison napping, I let her sleep anyways.  Essentially that just meant she was up way too late that night and terribly cranky the next day...like screaming in Home Depot the whole time while everyone turned and gave me dirty looks.  Too bad I don't care if your going to give me dirty looks.  None-the-less, I love this photo. Can you tell they are siblings?


Iron Chef Date Night--Chocolate

One of our more recent date nights was a chocolate iron chef.  I made a molten lava cake with ice cream and strawberries and Tyler made an ice cream cake.  I only made one...good thing too because it was pretty rich.  I was suppose to have so many grams of chocoate, which I didn't have a way to measure that...anyways...I tried working around that and it still turned out.  The ice cream cake was also good, but better the next day when it could really refreeze and be harder. 



Slide Rides



Orioles Game

Clark won a raffle at the library for their summer reading program.  I had to choose between some tug boat bathtub toys and baseball tickets.  I picked the tickets since we are missing out on Mormon night at the Orioles this year (we will be in Idaho).  The weather was perfect and Madison (and Tyler) had a great time.  I enjoyed it also.  Clark just wanted to climb all those concrete stairs inside the stadium.














Apparently something really interesting has caught Madison and Clark's attention.



Fresh Food

Out garden has had some struggles this year.  All of our vine plants were attacked by pest. 

First we have the vine borer:

http://www.extension.umn.edu/garden/insects/find/squash-vine-borers/
Often the first symptom of a borer attack is wilting of affected plants.  Wilting may occur only in strong sun at first (fig. 3), but if the problem is left unchecked, the plants eventually collapse and die. Closer observation of a wilting plant often reveals holes near the base of the plant filled with moist greenish or orange sawdust-like material called frass (fig. 4). Over time, the base may become mushy or rot away altogether. Several borer larvae may attack a single plant.

Squash Bugs

http://www.extension.umn.edu/garden/insects/find/squash-bugs/
Squash bugs have piercing-sucking mouthparts that they use to suck the sap out of leaves. Their feeding causes yellow spots that eventually turn brown (fig. 6). The feeding also disrupts the flow of water and nutrients, which can cause wilting. However, unlike cucumber beetles, squash bugs do not vector diseases. Young plants are much more susceptible to damage and may die from extensive feeding. Larger, more vigorous plants are more tolerant of feeding damage, although they can also be injured or killed if they severely attacked.Early detection of nymphs is important, as adult squash bugs are difficult to kill.

Cucumber Bettles

I just thought these were weird looking lady bugs.
http://www.almanac.com/pest/cucumber-beetles
If you find that the stems of your seedlings are being eaten off, leaves are yellowing and wilting, and holes are appearing, you may have a striped or spotted cucumber beetle. Cucumber beetles are found throughout the US and cause much of the same damage as flea beetles do. They are attracted to cucurbit vegetables, namely cucumbers, squash, pumpkins, and beans.
Often, the beetles leave their hibernating sites early in the season, and feed on seedlings right as they are emerging, often killing them. The larvae feed on the roots of the host plants. Adults will also feed on the leaves, vines, and fruit of plants that survive, often making deep marks in the rind.
They hold another threat too: They can carry bacterial diseases and viruses from plant to plant, such as bacterial wilt and mosaic virus.


We ended up having to pull up all our vine plants--cucumbers, watermelons, pumpkins, and spaghetti squash.  We did get two spaghetti squash.  I did kill two vine borers in one of the squash.  Then I had to pull our best tomato plant because it was wilting, probably from a bacteria or fungus.  I'm hoping it doesn't spread to the other tomato plants.  Good thing we have 6-7 tomato plants.  Too bad it was the yellow pear one, which was the one I was most excited about.  There were about 30 tomatoes growing on it.  Our corn tastes a bit startcy, so boo to that.  Everything else seems to be doing okay.  It's been tons of fun to grow carrots, my basil is awesome, and we still have other tomato plants.  We are even getting some bell peppers growing.  Next year more carrots and sweet potatoes again.



Fort Building

Storyville had some new toys a few weeks ago.  We built a fort out of these waffle blocks.  All the kids walking by wanted to sit inside my popular creation.  We didn't make it to any other part of the library this day.  

 
 



The New Car Seat

Clark upgraded his car seat.  Naturally, when Madison saw it she wanted it for herself.  She told me she could take the new  one and Clark could have her old one.  Sorry Madison, but this one is for Clark. She like to get into it and buckle herself up...it's a real pain getting her into her seat sometimes.




Pushing her away.