The Gleeners

The house next to us is empty and the owners has given us full reign over the fruit trees on the property. Which is fortunate because we have had terrible luck with fruit trees at our house (another lemon tree is looking in sad shape). We picked a pile of plums, thinned the pear tree and then walked down the street and cleaned the blackberry brambles. I wish we could somehow transplant their fruit trees and divert their natural spring to our house. We can only hope that the house doesn't sell too quickly.

Speaking of houses selling, we met our soon to be new neighbors across the street. They are a couple about our age, have a daughter that's two in the fall and are attendees of the Waldorf sing-a-long. Just another example of what a small town we live in. We are relieved that they don't seem the type to let their pit bulls run loose and remove the mufflers from their cars.

To continue our day of collecting food from the community, we drove up to collect some fertilized eggs that we put a posting for on freecycle. We pulled up to this house way up a gravel road and a pack of dogs greeted us. Brian opened the door and a little dog immediately jumped in the car and proceeded to urinate all over. Lucky for us (yes there is luck in this story) the dog managed to pee entirely in the cup holder, avoiding all upholstery. Unlucky for us, Eason was very thirsty but not thirsty enough to be tempted by a water bottle tainted with dog pee. We received five fertile eggs and then proceeded to our next stop for some Diestels Compost to juice up our beds for fall plantings, all the while I held the eggs between my legs to keep them warm.

Why the fertile eggs? We've got a VERY broody hen and since they don't lay if they are broody (news to us) we decided to slip some eggs under her, make her happy, relieve my guilt of pushing her off them every day and see what happens. We may, just may be ready to thin our flock a bit in time to have a nice roast chicken in the fall.

In other news. Eliot is on about week two of potty training. Yes, our 15 month old has decided he is ready to be like his big brother and is well on his way to being potty trained. The other day I asked Eason to use the bathroom before we left to do errands and Eliot went tottering into the bathroom, sat down on the toilet, peed and said "bye". Wow. Can it really be this easy?

And lastly, the first photo is my newest favorite item in the house. Last year when Brian and my mom were insulating the attic we found this old wall paper, which looks like it's from when the house was built in 1951 (I need to do a bit more research). We've been talking about framing it, but it's been sitting in the corner for ages. We finally took it in and the framing shop had the PERFECT frame for the paper. He said it's an old antique maternity frame. I was delighted. If we hadn't of procrastinated we never would have found this frame.

Okay, sorry for the long post.