June 1st through 7th 2008

June 1st: Temp: 81 high/62 low: Worked on June 1st in the evening. Already hot. How do the seasons work now? I thought June was the nice temps until the hot temps came in July and August. It seems as though the months are having really strange things going on. Remember the poem: April Showers bring May Flowers? Well, this April we were getting winds like crazy (which would have been like March) and May was rain, rain, rain (like April) so then June comes around at it is like July! What ever happened to the nice weather, to sort of transition you into the summer? Well, I guess climate change is really happening. (I am going to put the temp numbers in, kind of like a running record, to see how it changes...on www.Weather.com you can see past temps up to a week before - pretty cool!)

So I worked on June 1st, we spent the day reading and having some fun, mostly in the camper. I am reading a couple of books at the same time, Sasha reads one at a time. Of course, when you see the books that I read, it is understandable that I read a couple of different ones.

June 2nd: Temp 79 hi/50 low. I got into my head how cool it would be to garden, which is why you see the two Square Foot Gardening books. If I could just do that it would be great. I cleared off the patio before work, cleaning off the stuff from the trees and really wiping everything down.

This was after I cleaned the camper (spring cleaning - better late than never!) We seem to be getting ants yet again. I found out these were sugar ants, really small and very vigilante. They just keep coming no matter how many times I clean the counters and use the bleach. But I keep trying. 

So I wiped down the counters, the window sills, the walls with a bleach solution, washed the gunk behind the kitchen sink, washed the dish rack (it does not get as red as when we were at Prince William, the water must have less particles in it.) I then washed the wet bath thoroughly including behind the toilet (ugh! how can there be dust behind the toilet - some things I just do not understand?)  We do not use the wet bath for showers, as the private campground that we are staying at has really nice bathrooms with more room. I suppose if we had a bigger bathroom we might use it.

I vacuumed the camper after dusting everywhere. We have a small vacuum, a hand held one really, as we do not have a big floor area, and then I hand wiped/mopped the floor. I then moved to the outside.

I guess it was a good thing that I cleaned this day, as it was not too hot. We had gotten a lot of stuff from the trees onto the little patio here, so I moved the picnic table, our chairs and folding table and our outdoor mat - which was still wet from the rains of May and gave the patio a good wiping off. Of course, I'm sure that the trees will still have some stuff on them, and people do come around and mow this campground, so I will continually have to wipe down the patio, but that is not too bad a thing.

I set out the outdoor mat onto the picnic table so that it could dry out - as well as the two small mats that we have to wipe our feet. I then got the metal stairs to go into the camper away from the camper so that I could clean it out. It has lots of nooks and crannies for the tree stuff to hide, so I cleaned them out as well. We also have to contend with the birds around here, and I do not want any birds nesting in our steps. I have seen birds nesting in people's 5th wheels so I am trying to keep the area around our camper clean.   

By the time I got all of that done, it was time to have lunch and then get to work.

June 3rd: Temp 83 hi/54 low - Glad I had cleaned the day before, as it is starting to get warm. Have to work this day, so I need to go berry picking before work. As Sasha has the Saturn Ion, I will need to take the truck. Since the truck has hardly any diesel in it, I need to make a stop at Flying J. I called around to some of the other places that sell diesel, but they are much higher than the Flying J, so I decided that it would be best if I went there. Diesel is OUCH - $4.58 a gallon, but that is 20¢ less than anywhere else.

So I went to Cline's Farm for pick your own berries. I did not know the "procedure" and so found a container and started picking. It seems that you have to go to the house first, get a box, and they tell you where to pick. But I did not know, and just started in one area and picked a bunch. Their prices are the same as the farm in Berryville, $1.80 a pound. I picked a few pounds worth, went up to the house and paid.

Went to the farmers market and picked up radishes and spring onions (even though it is not really spring anymore!)

Sasha got fed up with the Hard Drives not coming in (something about a back order,) so he cancelled with one place and ordered again with Buy.com and Amazon.com

June 4th: Temp 80 hi/64 low - But very freaky day, tornado watch and severe storms - put some people without power all over the DC metro region! Thankfully we did not have anything here at the campground. I did do some serious swimming, going to try to do that every day if possible, at least in the mornings when I work in the afternoons.

June 5th: Temp 88 hi/62 low - beginning the rise in temps! I had off this day, so I went in with Sasha. I went to Wegmans and Whole Foods to buy food for us for the week/two weeks. Got some fun food for Sasha and I to have at his office and for him for work. We stayed late and did not get home until around 11 pm.

June 6th: Temp 89 hi/68 low - Getting hotter. Stephanie Miles Birthday - Happy Birthday to You! Took a swim before having to go into work. This weekend is not too busy because I think, the gas prices but also it is a couple of weekends after Memorial Day weekend. Not all the kids are out of school yet so people are not traveling yet. At least that is what I think.

June 7th: Temp 97 hi/73 low WHAT IS GOING ON! OK, it is really hot out. They are saying that there is a heat wave going on at the Eastern Seaboard. So everyone is experiencing this hot weather. That does not mean that we like it. How is a garden supposed to be fun if it is so hot it wilts the plants? Thankfully for me, I work in the mornings on Saturday.

Sasha took the Truck into the shop for the 5K mile oil tune-up. He had a coupon for $77 oil change, but when he came home the price was $116! OK -what is the deal? Supposedly with taxes and other some such nonsense, it was another $40? Scary to think what it would be without the coupon.

After work, Sasha and I enjoyed the pool with one of my co-workers. We stayed in there until 5 or 6 pm. It was very nice.

June 8th: Temp OMG- 99 hi/72 low: This is what is supposed to happen, we shall see if it really gets to 99 degrees. I plan to be in the pool until I have to go to work (well, not really, but I will go for a swim.) So I did. Sasha went up to Walmart and got these Noodles - plastic things that you can use to float in the pool.

While I was working, Sasha got the motorcycle to work so he could use it this week. Just in time too for the gas prices are now up to $4 a gallon.

June 9th: Temp 98 hi/70 low: It is still really hot. And being only June - what is August going to be like? All I can say is I love working in a place where the utilities are paid for! And the pool is not bad either! I had to work today, not so bad as Monday's go. We are doing some re-arranging in the store and cleaning it up. Makes it a better working conditions when everything is neat and tidy.

June 10th: Temp 98 hi/70 low: The day of the major storm! I actually saw the temp go from 98 degrees F to 73 degrees in the space of a half hour. Of course, the thunderstorm/major gusting winds/possible small tornado might do that. These pictures were taken the next day, as I did not have my camera on the day of the storm. 

I had started working at 2 pm and everything looked clear and fine. However, we had looked at the weather forecast and had decided to bring in the awning before Sasha left for the day and to bring in the ATV from the road. No sense in it getting totally rained on. But at 2 pm, the sun was shining and it really did not look like anything would happen.

But it did - the storm came in real fast. Jeremy and I were the only people on for the time being, as our manager went home for the day (after all, the storms that came around last week did not do anything.) But by 3 pm, the storm started coming in...

Really Really fast. We first heard thunder, and we got the people out of the pool. They were like - "Well, we do not see lightening - so what is the big deal?" I figure, if it is thundering, well, there is lightening somewhere, so it is best to get OUT! Then came some wind, and Jeremy and I started getting things in from the porch outside - did not want them to roll or blow away.  Then came the rain - so much rain that you could not really see out. I heard Jeremy say that he saw a tree go down....I was kind of freaked by that. The lights flickered and then Sasha called.

I saw that it was him, picked up the phone and said "Hi Honey, I think we are dealing with a tornado..." and then the line went DEAD! Sasha was frantic - called back several times - could not get us at the store, so he called my cell phone. I think the land line phone that I was on, fried when the transformer crashed down. Don't know for sure, but the phone was dead. Our other phones were working fine but the one I was on with Sasha was toast. I told Sasha I would call him back, we do not know what the damages are yet as we are still in the storm, but that I and Jeremy were fine, and the store was still standing.

After I got off the phone with Sasha, we started getting more phone calls. Some where from the people at the campground, saying that they did not have power, and some people calling in to make reservations for tonight. Those that called for reservations, I took their info and stated that I would call them back. Once the storm was truly over (less than a half an hour and the sun was back out and shining), Jeremy went out to access the damage and see which sites still had power.

In the end, we only had two sections open for daily people, some of the dailies did not have electricity but did have generators so they could use those. We had some monthly people without power, and were able to hook up some to external power sources.

The biggest thing of all is that NO ONE was hurt, NO RIG was damaged, and that only a few trees went down. Every single tree that went down did so on sites that were not occupied. 

June 11th: 84 hi/62 low: the day after the storm:

This picture was in the D Section. There were several tree limbs down. This area rarely gets used because there is just water and electric. I'm just glad we had no rigs on any of the areas that got hit. No major damage, just some trees down as you will see in the next couple of pictures, the internet is out (although it might come up sometime today), electricity was down for the evening (which again, was OK as it was not too humid out).

This picture is in the A Section. Most of A was taken out from the storm, meaning that there was no power on these sites. Where the tree has come down completely, (I think that is A4 or A5) yesterday, there was a family of four, they had left the morning of the storm. As the storm came in around 3 pm, they had left the area. I am just so thankful that they had left, because that is exactly where the trailer would have been.

This is where the major amount of damage took place. There was a transformer back there that was down. This area is also the A Section and again, no one was on these sites. We are still in the process of cleaning up, as we have people coming in this weekend. Hopefully all will be cleaned up and working by that time.

The power is back on, it seems that Alleghany Power Company came in around Midnight to fix the power. But the internet is still not working as of 2 pm (I'll have to get an update when I go in today.)

I was supposed to be off today, but I am going in at 3 pm, to help out. I will have further updates this evening or tomorrow once I know more.

I now am an affiliate of Net10 - NO Evil - phones and service. This is one really good company: NET10...Pay As You Go Made Simple. I talked about it in my seminar as well. Hopefully they will have other sized ads so that I can put it up on the right side rather than in the text of the website. I guess I could also put an ad below. 

I guess this is how people have the ads in their websites. I always wondered how they did it! Learn something new every day!

June 12: Thursday: hi 88/low 59: Still hot, and lots of cleanup going on at the campground. But I had several things to do today, like figuring out a garden. I decided to do the Square Foot Gardening, and so made some plans and worked on the garden, getting weeds out and clearing out the area a bit. I took four hours of cleaning it up. I do not plan on using the soil, rather making boxes and putting soil in there. I will have pictures up when I can.

Sasha and I are going to spend Thursday night over at his sister's house, to celebrate Sasha's Dad for Father's Day. We can't all get together on Sunday, so this will be better. It turned out to be a great day for a cook-out, and we had a great time with everyone.

June 13: Friday: 90 hi/61 low: Would have thought that the storm would have brought in cooler weather, but I guess not. Drove back to work - took the long way back, got some non-perishable groceries at Aldi's, went to the post office and got our mail, and went to Checkers and had a meal, just in time to get to work.  

June 14: Saturday: 91 hi/66 low: The day of getting the wood, soil and putting it all together! After work, Sasha and I went to Lowes and Meadow Farms to get wood and soil for the Square Foot Gardening (SFG). The hardest part was finding the Vermiculite - one of the parts to the "Mel's Mix" soil for SFG. I had to go with what was available - medium grade as opposed to coarse grade. But that was better than nothing, so I got it.

Just as we were getting out of Lowes, it started to storm/rain. So we went to Five Guys for a quick dinner and then went home to put the boxes together. We got all of the boxes together and brought them over to the garden. We would do the soil the next day.

June 15: Happy Father's Day to all the Dads out there! 83 hi/61 low: It seems as though the heat has finally broke. Sasha and I went to work on the soil (it really was a two person job, so happy Sasha was able to help out!) When we filled the boxes, there did not seem to be enough, but we put the lathes on top, to make it look neat.

Got the gardening done, had lunch and got to work in the nick of time. It was a pretty quiet Sunday, but quite beautiful too.

June 16: Monday 80 hi/61 low and Severe Thunderstorms - when is it not going to thundershower? The storms were very windy, I was a little bit scared this time around, thinking that the wind would tear off the awning. But that did not happen, thankfully. I got plants for the garden today and planted all of them, two of tomato, one jalapeño, several marigolds, one nasturtium, two chive plants, and three cucumbers. I could not find plants for peppers, eggplant, or beans. I did get a small plant of basil. I have radish and arugula seeds that I will plant on Tuesday. 

I also went berry picking and got rained on. The berries were slightly disappointing because there were many out there that were mushy. Still, I managed to get 4 pounds, so not too bad.

June 17: Tuesday: 73 hi/58 low! Being a little lazy, I read a couple of books and then got out into the garden kind of late. I plan to go grocery shopping and get a few things, but today is much cooler than the last couple of days.  I hope my little plants survive this cooler weather.

I just went to Wal*Mart - I figured, I only needed a few things, why drive further? I also got a couple more plants, a pepper and a sweet basil. As we have three cucumber plants and two tomato plants, we are going to need the metal supports. Sasha and I will have to get those this weekend.

Prices are seeming to go up every time I go to the store. The only grocery store that I have not seen too much change is Aldi. Getting a garden in might just be a good idea with all of these high prices, meat is getting really high, bread and corn product are high (chips and pretzels) and milk products like sour cream and yogurt.  I keep trying to re-stock what we have, buying extra dried milk, dried berries, oatmeal and pasta every time I go to Aldi, but with some of these things, we are just not buying as much. We hardly ever eat meat anymore, just a little in salads, and sometimes I get kielbasa, a Polish sausage. I get smaller packages of deli meat too - like turkey and ham.  

We are also trying to sell the ATV, but it is definitely harder to sell than the dirt bike. We have someone coming out (I think) today to look at it, so maybe it might get sold. There just is no place to ride here, and we probably will not get another one until we are out west.  And that might not be for a while.

June 18: Wednesday: 72 hi/52 low: will be working today, but did take some time in the garden, including taking some pictures:

The first row closest to the gate (which is west) has marigolds (two per square) in the first two squares, then nothing in the third square and a habenero (sp) pepper plant in the last box.

The second row has chives in the first square, nothing in the next two squares, and then a tomato plant in the last square.

The third row has a sweet basil plant, nothing in the next two squares, and a tomato plant in the last square.

The last row has chives, nothing in one square, a nasturtium plant, and I think, it is a pepper plant. Where I got the plants, they transported this plant to its own container, without the thing stating what it was. So I do not know. But it looks like a bell pepper plant.

Here is the two on the south fence. The one box to the left does not have enough soil in it. I am going to have to make the mixture again to fill that box. And as soon as we can, I will put an eggplant and a zucchini in there.

This is the third box, it is against the east wall.

The top row has a cucumber plant, then nothing in one square, then arugula, then clover (I think).

The second row also has cucumber, then nothing, then radishes, and arugula.

The third row has cucumber, then nothing for two squares, then mini basil.

The last row has a pepper plant, then nothing, and then two marigold plants per box. I suppose I could have put one of the marigolds on the other side. Marigolds are supposed to keep away the rabbits and other stuff. We shall see.

June 19th: Thursday hi 74/low 51 - It is almost down right chilly in the morning - the temperatures are acting all weird here. I called around to different garden shops to find out if anyone had eggplant plants and found one that had. When I got there, they stated that NO they did not have them and who did I speak to? Hello! Like I am going to remember the person's name? I was just so excited that someone actually had the plants. But still I bought more peat moss, compost, and vermiculite from them. Stupid on my part, but at least they had Zucchini, squash and I got a couple of peppers. So we will have a few of those.

Here are the pictures again (I added some stuff):

These are the two boxes on the south side and the close up is the left box. Since squash and zucchini require so much room, there are only three plants in this garden.

This garden has a squash in it as well. I'm not too sure about it as I do not want it to overwhelm the other plants. But we will see.

June 20th: Friday hi 80/low 56 - Starting to get warmer, but it was a mostly cloudy day. However, still warm enough to have storm clouds and a quick shower (less than 3 minutes) so that Mother Nature could tell you who is the boss. 

June 21st: Saturday hi 85/ low 59 - Worked in the morning and in the afternoon we sold my little donkey, (slightly weepy) BUT at the same time it went to a good home where I think the people will like it and hopefully take care of it. The reason we sold her was because I was not using her AT ALL. It really makes no sense to have something unless you use it.

After we sold the ATV (we had to bring it to Vienna), we went over to Sasha's parent's house for an improvised dinner. Bo was also there (Sasha's brother) and we dined outside under the table's umbrella. It was a beautiful night. Dad had a growing garden, with radishes and lettuces that I picked for our dinner's salad. Dad grilled up some hamburgers, chicken and hot dogs and we had several types of bread. Mom, Bo and I had wine while Sasha and Dad had beer. It was a truly great evening.

After dinner and desert (home-made baklava OMG the best!) we were flipping through the TV stations and Jurassic Park was on - it had JUST started, so we watched that. Of course, by that time it was late, and Mom asked us if we would stay over. They have an air mattress that takes seconds to "air up" so we stayed over.   

June 22nd: Sunday hi 84/low 62 - Mom fixed us a great breakfast the next morning, scrambled eggs in tortillas and blueberry pancakes. I was so full when we left, I did not have to have lunch. I went to work still full! Found out that one of my co-workers was sick, so I would have to come in on Monday, my day off. That was fine with me, I was planning to work in the garden, I would just do it in the evening rather than the morning. 

June 23rd: Monday hi 82/low 61 - weather has been great, with low humidity, although I am sure it will change soon. I worked today, did not get to water the plants until afternoon. They were looking a little thirsty. But I was able to do some weeding and watering as well, so that was good.

June 24th: Tuesday hi 82/low 54 - Had our book club meeting today, so after watering the plants, I took a shower and drove us to Sasha's work. We arrived there at ~ 10 am, a little later than normal because I did not get off at the right exit.  I am more used to using Route 7 rather than the Greenway, so I got confused as to where to get off.

I shopped at Wegmans Food, it is very close to Sasha's work. The prices are better in Loudoun County rather that where we are. Plus, the sales tax is less. So I stocked up. I brought us back lunch and then I went over to where we had bought our tires for the car and got an oil change ($17.99 with a coupon!) and rotated the tires. So I dropped off the car and walked back to Sasha's work. At least I got some exercise....There is no sidewalks in that area so people do not tend to walk anywhere. I think some of the guys at his work might walk to the deli down the street, but that is it.

Got the car (after a couple of hours!) and went to Whole Foods Market to get some extra stuff, then came back to Sasha's work, read for a while and then headed over to Delia's Restaurant for our book club meeting. The meeting went great, I believe everybody was there plus we have a new member. I think everyone enjoyed the book "Roberta's Woods" as it made people think what may happen if the gas does go to $10 a gallon. Considering it was published this year, and prices are at $4 a gallon, $10 a gallon does not seem that far off. Scary though it is.

We had a great discussion, a great meal -everyone got something different and it all looked very good. They only have beer and wine right now, but I'm sure they will have liquor soon. But beer and wine are fine for dinner out. It was great seeing everyone as well.

We got home very late last night but I plan on working in the garden tomorrow before work.

June 25th: Wednesday - 86 hi/59 low:  Put more seeds into the garden, radishes, carrots, and lettuce. I am hoping, even though it is late June, that because they are close to the tree, the squares will get more shade and therefore not bolt. I have started picking the basil (larger leaves) and the nasturtium flowers. After getting such nice leaves at Sasha's parents house, it would be great to get some here. I don't know if it will be too late or not. But this is a summer of experimentation and trial and error.

I watered, weeded and got rid of rocks (outside of the square foot gardening - most of the fenced in part of the garden is weeds, so I try to do my part to get rid of them naturally, by pulling them out.)  There are a couple of weeds that are small trees, trying to take root inside of the garden. They were the hardest to get out.

After getting real dirty, I went back and took a shower. I try to go in before the cleaning gets done at 1 pm, that way the shower is only dirty for a short while. I had something to eat and got ready for work.

June 26th: Thursday - 92 hi/68 low: I have found that if you pick, more will grow! I started picking the flowers of the nasturtium plant now, and each day I come back and there is at least another one there. It is so cool to see. I never really paid attention to the garden when I was growing up, most of the plants seemed to overpower the garden, with weeds and big leaves. Plus, except for tomatoes, I did not like eggplant, radishes, and squash. And we had tons of those. Now, I like radishes, maybe because of they are spicy in a root type of way, and I like zucchini if it is grilled. And I still like tomatoes and peppers. I hope we have them.

Thursday is the last day for people to call and cancel for the Fourth of July weekend. We have started to get cancellations because of the economy. There are still those that are diehard RVers that are not going to let a little thing like $4 for a gallon of gas get to them, but many families are not going very far. In this area, we are close to many highways and again, close to many states that still have people camping.

Regarding the Fourth, as soon as someone cancels, we have at least one or two people that could fill that spot. But it is not like Memorial Day weekend, where we had overflow parking and people on water/electric sites. Those sites are not filled like you would think. But there are definitely the big rigs coming out here. HUGE rigs, over 40 feet in length. I would think that the gas or diesel on those rigs would be outrageous. And most are towing a car behind them, so that they can tour in a smaller vehicle.

It is interesting though, in both this area and when we were in Prince William Forest Park, there were not the buses or train stations to take people into DC. You still have to drive at least 30 (or more) closer in before you could get to a commuter train.  And many people are asking for the train stations - but the infrastructure is not here. There is a train but it is for moving stuff, not commuters.  Too bad. 

June 27th: Friday - 91 hi/69 low: We were running low on dried fruit...there is a little lag between strawberry season and blueberry season it seems. I called up the place where I did pick strawberries and they did not have blues, but they did have cherries, however, they said that people had come in the day before and picked it clean. She stated that I should come back on Saturday. Cherries would be $3 a pound. But no blues.

As we were very low on gas in the Saturn, I finally went online, checked to see who had the lowest price, and hurrah! Costco was the lowest at $3.86 a gallon. So I got gas there. This month gassing up for the Saturn has been over $40 for the tank each time! Yikes! So I combined the trip for gas with buying provisions at Costco. You will see the Food & Household amounts are going to be really big this month, because I am using the "Bribe Check" from the government for a return on our investment to go to food. Whatever is left, goes into savings.

June 28th: Saturday - 88 hi/70 low with Thundershowers in late evening: I always have a hard time getting up in the morning, to get to work by 8 am. It is especially hard when Sasha does not have to get up too. I do not make oatmeal like during the week, because he does not usually get up until 9 am. It would be a rock hard mushy goo for him if I made it. But thankfully I had bought provisions of granola and dried fruit this past week and blues yesterday, so I had that for breakfast. It was a yummy treat.

After work, I came back to the camper, had lunch and took a nap. Although I am not doing physically demanding work, I sometimes need to snooze. Especially if the day is really warm. So I did.

When I woke up, we worked on the trailer, and I looked over the provisions that we have. I try to keep us stocked with at least a month's worth of breakfast stuff, including coffee/tea and dried milk. Each time we go to get our mail, I go to Aldi's and get dried milk and pasta, as the prices are better than anywhere else.  I wrote down what we had, and what we need, as I will go in a couple of weeks to get coffee and other provisions. I think that it is important to be prepared for whatever happens out there. One of the girls from the book club was also prepared for whatever...she said that they always had the cars gassed up, just in case of emergencies. We, of course, have other stuff as provisions, just that the breakfast food is an important part of the day, so it is good to have that in large supply.

While I was working, Sasha went on a little trip with his motorcycle to George Washington Forest. He checked out a bunch of forestry roads and a couple of towns, like Capon Springs. We checked out the resort (on the web) when he  got back - $150 per person based on double occupancy per room. They even charge for kids!

I went over to the garden to "water" and a storm came up, and watered it for me. I managed to get a flower and some basil leaves before it poured. I think this evening, Sasha and I will watch a movie that I have either on my computer or on our hard drive. We have to get the trellis stuff up, of course, I still need the trellis nylon stuff (I had to order it from Burpee, no place else had it. But we could put up the metal parts first. Once I get the trellis, I can put that up myself. Then we need to get picking Cherries (I made an appointment with one of the places - they are not open during the week.) I will let you know how that went tomorrow.

June 29th, Sunday 89 hi/68 low: We got up as early as we could (basically did not set an alarm clock, just got up naturally), and did a couple of things before we left to go picking. I was wrong, it was not for cherries but for BLUEBerries! Love those blues, can not ever get enough. I think on July first, I will get a dehydrator at Wal-Mart - that is the only place I have see one. At least it is clear plastic, so that we can dry up some of these berries, to use in the fall and winter.

So we went to Blue Ridge Berry Farm in Toms Brook, VA, you can find the farm on www.PickYourOwn.org we were in the northern Virginia area to find blueberries. This particular farm just sells blueberries, no other berries. They make appointments for people to pick as they do not want to overwhelm their trees. It is a nice idea, although a little offsetting when I first heard it. They also only allow picking on the weekends. We got 10 quarts of berries for $30. At Costco, it is $7.49 for 2 quarts so we "saved" $7.45 but really, it was the chance to get out and explore the area that was the real reason.

We went on a little road trip after picking the berries. I got to see some of the area that Sasha has been checking out with his motorcycle. Why oh Why, we did not bring the camera the pictures would have been great. Such is life. Let's just say we were in Shenandoah County, where the air is fresh, the trees are straight, and the roads are not.

We could not explore too much as we had to get back for me to work at 2pm, so we grabbed some fast food and hightailed it back to the campground with about 10 minutes to spare. I washed off, got changed and jogged up to the office. The car's time is off by 7 minutes, so I was able to relieve my co-worker with time to spare.

Work went fine. On Sunday we close the shop a little earlier, but this evening it was hard to close. People kept coming in right before closing time. Ultimately, I got one of the outside coworkers to help move stuff in, then locked the doors so no one else could come.

Sasha was making our dinner - pasta with dried veggies rehydrated - peas, mixed peppers, and celery. The mixed peppers and celery turned out great, but the peas - no matter how long we soak them, cook them or whatever, they still remain hard in the middle. So we still use them, but I do not plan on buying them again.

While the pasta was cooking, we put up the vertical frames for the square foot garden. I have two squares that need trellis makings, but we only had the makings for one, but still, we decided to put them up. I have not yet gotten the nylon tomato trellis to put on the metal frames, but once I get that, I will start training my plants to go up that, rather than fall on their faces. I will put some pictures up in the next couple of days to show you how it looks.

June 30th, Monday: Although this is the last day of the month, the numbers for the interest of our CDs does not come in for another day. I do know that Sasha got gas today, so hopefully that is the only expense. This month has been quite expensive, as we put in the garden and have been buying extra provisions (food that goes into storage to be used in the future.) I have been also going to berry picking places and getting lots of fruit, and that has been expensive, but oh so tasty. So this month's expenses, I am going to change it around a little bit, to show the different costs under the Food & Household.

Expenses: June Can we keep up the low expenses? Obviously NOT!

Check out Next Month: July, Fourth of July, plus More Berry picking and hot weather!