This holiday weekend was very full…food, family, and fireworks, just as it should be.
Friday the eldest helped with a neighbors party. He was the 15 year old watching the younger ones on the zip line, and helping with fireworks. I stayed at home, being unsociable, and enjoying the quiet of the house. The man about the place had taken the youngest to Virginia, to pick up the middle son at Boy Scout Camp. They went up Friday afternoon to be there for the bonfire, enjoyed the wonderful cool air and camped out overnight.
Saturday morning I began the clean-up and cooking for the friends coming to join us for the fourth. The eldest scrubbed down chairs and set up picnic tables and chairs. I made a blueberry and a blackberry crisp, homemade vanilla ice cream, prepared hamburger patties and made fresh tea, and made some fresh pico de gallo.

By 2 pm the family was reunited… small boys with tales to tell, and lots of camping gear to put away. It was cleared off the front porch just in time for the first friends to show up. The afternoon became one of fishing, swimming, chatting, and eating.

The tractors always end up out and being used for something.

The fish were not really biting this evening...

Perhaps because there were so many people in the water.. in boats, kayaks, canoes, and swimming...
I enjoyed chatting and knitting….

My current lace knitting project...
and got custody of a molar that finally fell out…

Middle son, lost another tooth.
It was a lovely fourth, that went into the evening. Fireworks sounding off all around us, along with the frogs and the fireflies that kept us company as we talked and ate. Grilled brats, potato salad, crisp and watermelon and ice cream and chips and dip and beans… a wonderful evening.
How wonderful freedom is. We are so very blessed.









I set out my favorite tea things on the table, only to come back a bit later to find the creator had come along and put protective cloths under everything. Whooops…




















Here is my newlywed Betty Crocker and my grandmother’s version. She always used a piece of plastic wrap to cover the pages from splashes in later years, and that is something I have kept in the book. Need a recipe for pancakes? All of them have excellent versions. Need one that doesn’t call for butter, because you are out? Turn to the older cookbooks!
And I love my grandmother’s Joy of Cooking… which I use quite a bit. And another kids version, which was either purchased for my mom, or purchased later at a yard sale and used by my sister and I.
There are actually three shelves of cookbooks here… the top one is not visible. The top shelf also contained all our Wildlife identifications books from trees to wildflowers to reptiles, as well as our crafting books for kids. Most of the contents are now in boxes seen in the last entry.


