Where's the time gone?!

Whew! Where to begin? The boys are back in school and our second plantings are starting to rev up. Our first planting of pretty much everything: tomatoes, zucchini, patty pans, butternut, and acorn squash has given up the ghost. No amount of watering helps at a certain point. We have even had to jump start our compost pile. We have been adding broken hay bales, yard waste, and broken down manure to the pile and it has just sat and baked, instead of break down. We soaked it with the sprinkler for a whole day and have covered it with a tarp. We'll flip it around here in a while to see if it starts composting. I never dreamed I would see the day that zucchini would be hard to grow and you had to work for compost. One thing I can say with no uncertainty: whenever we have had a need, God has met it. We have food to eat, water to drink, and when a bill comes due, the money always seem to be there.

I only have a short animal adventure story this time. We moved some hay bales out of the end of our greenhouse to make room for planting, and there was a HUGE ground hog den under the pallets. My boys solution? Left over bottle rockets that couldn't be shot because of the fire hazard!! So we let the boys shoot some rockets down in the hole, in the hopes that the critter was in there somewhere and it would scare him/them off. It must have worked, because it sits empty. Now let's just hope we don't have a cave in from the dry ground and huge den!!!

Last but not least, some recipes for Patty Pan Squash:

1) Cut them in slices to make "patties" and throw them on the grill with a little oil and salt.
2) Take the patty slices and put olive oil and Parmesan cheese on them and bake until light brown.
3) Cut in half, scoop seeds out, and fill with cooked hamburger, cheddar, and BBQ sauce and bake. You could also use sausage, mozzarella, and pasta sauce.