Hi, everyone!
When we got back from visiting Uncle David’s family, I was eager to see what had happened on the boathouse project while we were away! Grandpa took the new rails for the marine railway out to the bay, but Grandma and I stayed in town. We had some other projects to do!
Thomas was out of goat cheese biscuits again, so Grandma and I invited him to come bake more. Thomas was in a silly mood! When Grandma told him the first step was to weigh the flour, he went out and got an impatiens blossom to put on the scale! After that, he helped with cutting the butter and goat cheese into the dry ingredients, mixing in the buttermilk and cutting the biscuits.
He had another yummy batch to take home after they were baked! While he was waiting for Aunt Kara to pick him up, he managed some stand-up rides on Uncle David’s skateboard!
On Saturday morning, Grandma and Uncle Steven’s family took me to a children’s concert held at an outside stage! Five members of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra showed how they got sounds out of their wind instruments and played some short pieces together.
After lunch, we all went out to the bay! I got my first look at the concrete that was poured the day we went to Uncle David’s. It was all stamped, stained and sealed! The armor stone for the north and south ends of the deck was there, too. Grandpa and Grandma aren’t sure the stone work is completely finished.
Grandpa and Uncle Steven had launched the power boat and the jet skis, too! Uncle Steven took the stand-up ski out for a ride, but he wasn’t happy with the way the Waveblaster was running. While he was trying to figure out what was wrong, I spent some time with James. Thomas made two private spaces for himself and James in the loft, then he helped Grandma and me shuck the corn for dinner.
On Sunday, we had our usual waffle breakfast on the porch. After on-line church, Grandma and Thomas went kayaking. Thomas liked exploring the reeds along Grass Point!
Uncle Steven’s family went back to town after dinner on Sunday, but Grandma and Grandpa and I stayed until Monday. Grandma and Thomas hadn’t seen any rose mallows blooming at Grass Point, so Grandma wanted to check out the patches on Clark Creek. There was a Great Blue Heron standing at the mouth of the creek! Grandma did find some rose mallows blossoms, but most of them were past bloom. There were purple loosestrife and white water lilies, too. Grandma expected to find all those flowers, but there were two new ones! Arrowhead and pickerel weed don’t usually grow so close to the channel near the beaver dam because they like shallower water. This year, the water level was lower than usual in the spring and lots of them came up!
There were actually some ripe wild blackberries to harvest that hadn’t already been eaten! I helped Grandma harvest the second cutting of basil. When we got back to town, I helped make more pesto!
On Wednesday, Grandma was in the mood to make homemade pizza. She usually makes one for Thomas (sauce, mozzarella, pepperoni and black olives) and James (nothing but cheese) and one for everybody else (our fresh pesto, Alfredo sauce, balsamic vinegar splashes, mozzarella and mild Italian sausage crumbles.) They were yummy!
On Thursday, Grandma took me to visit Moose-san and Tilly! On her way there last week, she noticed that the sunflower field on Calkins Road was in bloom. We stopped there for photos on the way to our visit. That’s a very popular place to visit for photo ops!
Friday, Grandma and Grandpa and I went back to the bay. Grandpa is reframing the front walls of the boathouse where the contractor cut them away to make room for the Bobcat. I helped make sure everything was level and secure!
When Uncle Steven’s family came out on Saturday, Uncle Steven really wanted to get the Waveblaster running well enough to give Thomas a high-speed ride. He did it! After his ride, Thomas did some swimming and jumping off the dock.
It’s peach season, so Grandma and I made our traditional peach cobbler on Sunday morning. The peaches weren’t quite ripe enough to peel easily, so Grandma showed me the trick of scalding them in boiling water. That made it really easy to get the peels off!
On Sunday afternoon, Uncle Steven took his family for a power boat ride. While I was waiting for them to come back from the ride, I enjoyed sitting on the dock in the fresh air and sunshine! I was glad James got a chance to do something on the water that didn’t get his cast wet! After Uncle Steven’s family went back to town after dinner, there was a pretty sunset at Sodus Point.
Monday morning, Grandma checked the nearest patch of lily pads and discovered a lot of water chestnuts that needed to be weeded out! I couldn’t help because there’s no place in the kayak that stays dry and clean when Grandma is weeding! Grandma brought one batch of water chestnut plants home to dry out on our new armor stone. All of the corms on the underside of the plants turn into new plants if they drop in the water. One corm in the fall can turn into 100 corms by the next fall!
Today was sunny and dry and not too hot. Grandma decided it was a good day to take me to the Sunflower Festival at Wickham Farms. We didn’t go last year, and the year before, a lot of the sunflowers had already been harvested by the time we went. This year, the farmers planted their fields over several weeks, so that they could spread the festival and peak bloom across a longer period. I was surprised to see rows of other varieties of flowers, too!
I made lots of sunflower friends! There were short ones, tall ones, pale yellow ones, bronze and burgundy ones and some with more than one color!
I thought some of the sunflowers looked like me!
Happy sunflower season, everyone!
Love,
Lion-san
I like the sunflowers, the yellow ones look like you, but not the red ones. It’s nice that Thomas appreciates the biscuits. It’s nice that the power boat, jet skis, and kayaks are back in the water. Moose-san was looking longingly at the water chestnuts that grandma harvested.
Happy Sunflower season!!!!!!!!!!!!!