Well that's it folks, summer is over. Today is the first official day of fall and in lieu of a craft post for Tuesday, I decided to celebrate the first day of fall with a look back at our summer.
We actually don't do much in summer because of our garden. Hubby needs the weekends home to work on landscape projects and of course we have a massive lawn that can't go two weekends without being mowed. I don't water my vegetable or perennial gardens unless they are newly planted and we are going through a dry spell, but I do need to water hanging baskets and pots daily so we can never be away from home longer than a night or two. We travel in the early spring or fall and try to do one weekend getaway a month in the winter.
So with all that background, here are the highlights of my summer, which is probably not as exciting as some of yours!
E-Bikeing
I got a E-Bike as my combination birthday/Christmas present and it sat in my craft room for five or six months before I was finally able to try it. I was a nervous wreck to ride it the first time, but I watched a lot of videos and read the manual from cover to cover because I was so afraid to break such an expensive bike. Eventually I got the courage to take it out, and after the initial learning experience, I fell madly in love. These bikes are game changers, especially for older people like me!
For months, I just took my E-Bike out on the country roads near my house. The roads are as beautiful as any bike trails I've ever been on and have very little car traffic. It is very hilly where I live as I reside in the Driftless Region and often with a regular bike I'd have to get off and walk the bike up a hill. Not with this E-Bike, I scoot up those steep hills no problem.
Since then, I've been able to transport the E-Bike and taken it all the way to Ohio to get on some cool bike trails there, and I've recently gotten together with a friend and we rode bikes in her hometown trails.
Gardening
Of course as I already explained, gardening takes up most of my summer. I am in the garden everyday I'm home and it doesn't rain. I have almost an acre of perennial gardens plus a large vegetable garden. Most of the flowers are naturalized wild flowers so they are not fussy like roses, it's just a constant battle of weeds, or cutting down old flower blooms, staking, and fighting off the critters that want to eat everything. Everyone always wants to know how much time I spend in the garden and that depends on the time of the year. In the spring and fall I could spend eight hours a day in the garden, but in the summer I am only in the garden in the morning. I don't like the heat plus I need my afternoons to process all those vegetables! I can, freeze, and dry my produce.
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| Perennial Garden |
Anyhow, our old wood retaining walls and staircase down to the lower yard deteriorated and needed to be replaced. This summer level two was completed and it turned out beautifully. He does do amazing work. So many of my friends, neighbors and family always want to "borrow him" and I always have to say "no, he can't even finish his own projects".
We also went to High Cliff State Park and climbed a tower which had amazing views of Lake Winnebago, and the kids enjoyed swimming in the very cold lake water.
We left Green Bay when the conference was over and came home to spend the rest of the week. One of the highlights of our week at home was to go to the Coulee Region and attend the Norskedalen Midsummer Fest. That was a fun day of wagon rides, butter churning, donkey rides and more!
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| Vegetable Garden |
He also got a good start on the lowest level which we hope will be completed next summer. This will be a stone patio seating area with pots and hanging window boxes. I'm dreaming of a little bistro set with long vines coming down from the railing above. Do you have any suggestions?
The Grandchildren Visit
My daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren come to stay with us for one week every summer. They usually come for the Fourth of July but this year they came in June because our son-in-law had a conference in the Green Bay Area. We met them in Green Bay and hung out with the kids and my daughter while our son-in-law was at his conference. The highlight of the weekend was the Green Bay Botanical Garden which had an amazing children's garden.
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| Green Bay Botanical Gardens |
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| High Cliff State Park |
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| Norskedalen's Midsummer Fest |
4th of July
For the 4th of July we were alone, which was odd as we haven't been without grandkids on the 4th for a long time. We didn't do anything special during the day, but at night we went to our town's park and enjoyed a Christian family concert and then the fireworks.
Every year after the 4th of July it isn't long until the blueberry fields are ready for picking. We have so many blueberry fields in our area, but for some reason I can't get the bushes to grow in my own backyard...go figure. So we go picking and we pick enough to last us for one full year. I freeze them and use them in smoothies and some baked goods, but mostly smoothies.
We've tried a number of different blueberry fields and we found a simple one near town that offers the best prices for one being so close to a town. There are cheaper ones, but if you have to drive an hour to get there it doesn't make financial sense.
They had the most beautiful wildflower blooming when we were there. The photos don't do it justice.
Christian Concert
Perhaps the biggest highlight for me this summer was getting to see one of my favorite Christian bands play live in Concert: For King and Country. This was a real treat, as they don't tour that much anymore (other than Christmas concerts) because they have been focusing on movie projects.
As you can tell by the photos it rained one of the days, making it a little miserable. Thankfully the rain ended before the headliner in the evening, but by then our clothes were pretty damp. We tent camped, which I thought was pretty fun, but hubby complained about being uncomfortable so if we go against next year, we have to buy some cots. We chose to camp on the festival grounds because it is an hour from home and we didn't want to drive that far late at night only to get up the next morning to drive back as it was a weekend event.
We got to the gate before they opened and waited in line. Once the gates opened hubby made a run for it and got us the best unreserved seats. I was so proud of him!
The concert was amazing! For King and Country is so theatrical; they really put on a good show!
Wisconsin/Illinois/Ohio Roadtrip
This year we took our fall vacation in August because I saw my grandchildren a month earlier than I usually do and I didn't want to wait five months to see them again. My adult son watered my plants for me so the only thing I had to deal with when I got home was pick a lot of tomatoes and oversized zucchini and cucumbers.
I am currently doing a travel series on this roadtrip and I have a new post every Wednesday, so I don't want to spend too much time talking about it here. Since the priority of this trip was to visit the grandchildren, we did a roadtrip close to their Indiana home. Our first day we went on a Lake Geneva boat ride with friends, then we hiked the dunes in Indiana Dunes National Park, the trip concluded in Ohio where we did lots of things including Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
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| Lake Geneva Boat Ride with Friends And just like that, summer was over. It always goes by so fast and ends too quickly in my opinion. Our winters drag on forever here in Wisconsin, so I really treasure the warm months. Now it is fall, and I'm picking and processing the last of the garden vegetables. We have three fall getaways planned and I'm praying for good weather as it's been raining a lot. Ya'll know I'll be blogging about those fall getaways! I might have to interrupt my current travel series to do that as I don't like sharing fall photos when it's not fall. I'm sure all of your summer adventures were much more exciting than mine, so I'd love to hear from you. How was your summer? What did you do? Have A Great Day! Amy Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE! |
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