Hi, everyone!
Since I wrote last, we’ve finished a lot of projects! The tree house is done and we’ve celebrated all the birthdays in this birthday season. Grandma even took me to a new park she’d been meaning to visit!
When I went to Uncle Steven’s to help with the tree house the first Friday in June, almost all of the big lumber piles in the garage that I helped stack in April were gone! Uncle Steven used the last of the dimension lumber to build the permanent ladder for the tree house. All but one of the special deck boards were gone because putting them in place was the project for the day! When I got to the tree house, there was a stack of Legos, too! Uncle Steven and Aunt Kara have a rule that Legos NEVER go out of the house, so I didn’t know what they were doing there!
Uncle Steven pre-drilled holes in the deck boards so he could screw them to the joists. I helped with the first board by keeping it straight while Uncle Steven fastened it down. Then I saw what the Legos were for! Uncle Steven told me that they were the perfect width for spacing each deck board from the one previously attached! As we added the boards that were cut for the tree opening on the deck, I made sure they were placed so the tree had room to grow! We got all but one board attached before it was time for Grandma and me to go home.
Friday evening, Grandma and Grandpa took me out to the bay. We had a pretty sunset! On Saturday, Grandma and I learned to use her birthday present — a feeder that could be attached to the hose to fertilize the azaleas! Now Grandma and I won’t have to fill the watering can ten times and carry it out to the azaleas! Saturday evening, we had another pretty sunset. This one was only a break in the clouds!
Sunday, we went back into town to celebrate Uncle Steven’s birthday. The tree house was finished before we got there! Thomas was the host who let me into the tree house. Between Friday and Sunday, Uncle Steven installed the balusters on the north and south ends of the railing, put a top piece all around the railing, and took down the scaffolding and the lifting beam! One big project done!
Sunday was a warm day, so James and Thomas were keeping cool in their wading pool. James figured out he could squeeze water onto his head from a Nerf football. There was a Supersoaker war, too!
Meanwhile, Uncle Steven was cooking his own birthday dinner! He made butter chicken and it was yummy! While he was busy cooking, I made sure all his presents were ready to open after dessert. Uncle Steven wanted an AWACS coffee cheesecake for his birthday, just like James. He blew out all his candles in one breath easily! Then he opened his presents. Grandma gave him lots of jars of party mix to go in the freezer. Thomas thought that was a really nice present!
After Uncle Steven’s birthday, it’s less than a week to Grandpa’s birthday. During that week, the clump dogwood bloomed, Grandma and I worked on writing my book about building the tree house, and Grandpa got a delivery of steel to make new rails for the marine railway at the bay. Moose-san and Tilly sent me fresh local strawberries that Joe-san picked!
Since the local strawberry season has started, Grandma decided to make a chiffon cake for Grandpa’s birthday to serve with strawberries and whipped cream. Chiffon cakes have to hang upside down to cool, and they don’t need to have sweet frosting to be tasty. I helped Grandma make a lemon glaze to pour over Grandpa’s cake instead of frosting. Uncle David sent very special Japanese beef steaks to Steven and Grandpa as a birthday present. To make sure they weren’t ruined by being overcooked, Grandpa prepared them in the sous vide cooker.
James played piano while Grandma finished making the birthday dinner. Then we ate on the back deck. The weather was perfect for eating outside! The steaks were yummy and very, very tender. Even so, we had to remind Thomas to cut up his pieces before he ate them!
Grandpa had two number candles, instead of a candle for each year, so it was easy for him to blow them out. Then we all enjoyed his cake and strawberries with either ice cream or whipped cream or both! After dinner, James and Thomas pulled the cushions off the sofa in the living room for jumping contests and wrestling matches.
After church on Sunday, Grandma and Grandpa took me back out to the bay. The lawn was fuzzy with cottonwood fiber when Grandpa mowed it. It’s a good thing he did it then, because overnight we had thunder storms with lots of heavy rain and lightning! The lawn was still wet Monday morning, but I helped Grandma harvest the top leaves of the basil plants. We’ve had so much hot weather that they were already starting to set blossoms! We put the sweet basil, lemon basil and cinnamon basil sprigs in the same bag. Grandma said we could recognize which was which just by looking at them when we got them home to make pesto.
It started raining again on Monday just as we got back to Fairport, so I didn’t mind being inside helping Grandma make pesto. First, we had to separate the three different kinds of basil sprigs, remove the leaves and wash and dry them in the salad spinner. We had enough basil to make two batches of pesto. Grandma put all the lemon basil and half the sweet basil in one batch with traditional ingredients. Then she put the other half of the sweet basil and all the cinnamon basil into another batch made with cinnamon and goat cheese. We portioned both batches into one-recipe serving containers to put in the freezer. I helped label them! We had one serving of cinnamon basil pesto for dinner on lobster ravioli, and it was yummy!
Yesterday was also Uncle David’s birthday. We made sure to Facetime him to sing him Happy Birthday. Now our birthday season is over until the end of October!
On Earth Day in April, the town of Pittsford dedicated a new park, the Erie Canal Nature Preserve. Grandma has been meaning to take me there on an adventure, and today the weather was perfect. On our way there, we stopped at Uncle Steven’s house to take Thomas his copy of my new book about the tree house. Guess what? Uncle Steven has put up a swing near the tree house! He got the pipe to put between the trees in the same delivery as Grandpa’s marine railway steel. There is also a bed of wood chips under the tree house, so no more mud or dust there!
The new park is tucked in a wetland between Pittsford village and the Erie canal. Grandma and I walked on the Auburn trail to get to the Frog Pond Trail.
Because of the recent rain, the wetland is very pretty and green. There’s a new boardwalk across part of it. I was happy to see a blooming catalpa tree with blossoms near the ground. The catalpa tree in our neighbor’s yard at the bay doesn’t have any blossoms lower than twenty feet above me! Grandma found some blossoms already on the ground so I could have a close look.
The trail is called the Frog Pond trail because it goes past four artificial ponds dug out of the wetland. A local science specimen supply company made them fifty years ago to breed frogs for science projects! Now wild frogs get to enjoy the nice environment. The frog pond trail ends at the Erie Canal trail. Grandma and I walked back to the car along that. A friendly passing boater waved to me, and I waved back!
I have a new groundhog friend! This one isn’t as big as the other one I’ve seen, so I think it is younger. The impatiens in the window box are starting to bloom! By the end of the week, it will officially be summer!
Love,
Lion-san