Seeing as how we are half-way through June, it seems it’s high time I get my May favorites posted.  Shoot!  In about two weeks I should be posting my June favorites, so I better hurry up and take a look back at May!

Favorite #1

At the beginning of May we were starting to harvest sugar snap peas in the garden.

 

Here are my little pea pickers hard at work!  Of course, a few slipped into their mouths instead of into the bucket, but what better snack?

 

Helen proudly displays the morning’s harvest!  This was the best year for the peas we’ve ever had.  They’re done now, but we sure enjoyed them while they lasted.  And this was the first time I froze a batch of them, so we’ll see how they cook up after being frozen.  I’ve done it with snow peas before, and they were pretty limp.  Don’t know if it will be different with the sugar snap.

 

Favorite #2

So those were my pea pickers.  Now here is my WEED picker!

 

You can’t tell by the look on her face in this picture, but this girl actually ENJOYS picking weeds!  Are you kidding me?  Every gardener’s least favorite chore is picking weeds, so this was a BIG May favorite for me!  It’s very rare to find someone who’s actually willing to help pick weeds.  😘 Love you, Cara!

 

Favorite #3

It may seem strange to have a garbage receptacle as a favorite, but I bought this at Costco to use in our addition, and I LOVE it!  I was skeptical when I purchased it, thinking it may just be one of those gimmicky items that is a waste of money, but it’s awesome!

It’s a motion sensor trash can by Sensible ECO Living.  You can have both of your hands filled with garbage, move your hand over the sensor and it magically opens!  It also closes on its own 5 seconds after the motion stops.  The only down-side is that it runs on batteries.  But you can also just manually open it, so when the batteries go bad, you can still use it until you have time to change them out.

 

Favorite #4

 

I already posted this picture when I did my Let’s Look post about Mother’s Day weekend.  But it also deserves a place here, since Mother’s Day was definitely one of my favorite days in May.  And it was made all the more special since Cara, Paul, and the girls were with us to celebrate it.

 

Favorite #5

I planted both romaine lettuce and red leaf lettuce in the garden this year.  We eat a lot of salads, so it’s a favorite when I can get our lettuce fresh from the garden instead of having to rely on the grocery store.

This was the harvest on May 19, and I’ve gotten many since then.  And it’s still going strong!  I think the red leaf makes the prettiest salad, and it tastes great, too!

 

Favorite #6

When I brought Big Eagle home from his surgery on the 22nd, it was so heartwarming to see the signs at the end of the driveway and the chalk drawings the girls made on the cement to welcome him home.  I posted some of these already, but here’s another one:

 

The Masked Singer is one of Big Eagle’s favorite TV shows, so this drawing is referencing this season’s winner.  Those girls are something else.  Their welcome home was a favorite!

 

Favorite #7

This whole COVID stay-at-home thing has kind of widened the gulf between the internet haves and have-nots.  It’s so easy for the haves to invite others to Zoom meetings and for most to “attend” church on-line and what-not.  Where we live, which is not exactly what you would call rural, but it is outside city limits in the county, internet service is very poor.  The service is poor, but the cost for the poor service is high.  While Paul and Cara have been here, they’ve had to buy a few hot spots and data to go with them in order for Paul to continue to work and for the girls to do school on-line.  Our internet is satellite-based and is limited.  Once we use up our data for the month, we are throttled back to the point that it is useless.

SO…that being said, seeing THIS in our neighborhood was a HUGE favorite in May:

 

This is fiberoptic being brought into our neighborhood by our electric co-op.  We are chomping at the bit to get connected to this!  The worker who was at our place putting in a new guy wire told us it may be just a couple of months away for us.  Hopefully writing these posts will go a LOT faster once we’re hooked up.  Major thanks to United Cooperative Services for providing this for our area when none of the big names were willing to do it!

 

Favorite #8

We’ve had resident hawks a couple of springs in the last few years build a nest in a tree in our front yard.  They were back again this year, and we’ve enjoyed watching them so much.  Around mid-May, Paul was able to get these two awesome photos.

 

This particular late afternoon we watched as one of the parents (the mom?) swooped into the nest and proceeded to feed the baby.  And Paul got this shot!  Amazing!

We watched while she fed her little one for a while, discussing what we thought she might be feeding it.  That became evident when she left the nest.  Paul snapped this picture of her leaving the nest with this mouse carcass in her mouth.

 

Not too many days after that, we saw the baby lose it’s fluffy white feathers and replace them with brown ones, and before you know it, they were gone.

 

Favorite #9

We heard from Danny and Erin a few times during May.  It always makes us happy to connect with them.  They’re still in New Zealand, and on the 27th Danny texted us these cool pictures.

They were on the west coast and in this photo Danny is lining up the mountains on this naming device.

This next one shows the reflections of Mt. Cook (Aoraki) and Mt. Tasman.

 

They sure are seeing some beautiful sights!

 

Favorite #10

Toward the end of the month us natives were getting pretty restless.  So while trying to come up with something different we could all do to get us out of the house, yet still allow us to stay socially distanced, we decided to go on a breakfast picnic to a state park.

So on the last day of the month, we loaded up all we would need and headed to Cleburne State Park.

Once we got everything unloaded, I got the coffee percolating while Big Eagle started cooking up the bacon.

While breakfast was being prepared, Edie explored her surroundings…which included roly polys. 😃

 

Helen and Paul worked on cracking and scrambling eggs.

 

After breakfast, the girls were ready to swim!  Might not be able to tell in this picture, but the water was C-O-L-D!

Warming up in the sunshine.

 

One shivering girl happy to have a towel!

 

Once the girls and Paul had had enough of the water, it was time for a little hiking.

 

A pause where the trail nears the water to check things out.

 

This park is a no-wake or low-wake park, so it’s great for kayaking and paddle boarding.  We saw LOTS of kayakers.  Made us want to go back and do that!

 

At the end of our hike was this floating platform.

 

It was a good spot to look out over the lake and to rest a bit and have some hugs.

 

Silly girls!

What a fun morning it was!  So glad we got there right when the park opened, because it wasn’t crowded at all.  By the time we left, attendance was growing.

 

Favorite #11

Later that afternoon, I did my first canning of spicy dilly beans.  Helen helped me pick the dill and wash it up.

The beans are amazing this year.  Nice and long, and a lot of them straight.  So where I usually do pint jars for my dilly beans, for my first canning I left them completely whole and did quart jars.

Once they processed there sure was a lot of space at the bottom of the jars.  It wasn’t that way when I packed them.  We really enjoy these as snacks, and I like to add them to cheese boards, too.  Love having some on the shelves again!

So there was May!  Was the whole month fun and carefree?  No.  But it helps to highlight the things to be thankful for.  And thank God there is much to be grateful about!  What can you look back at May and smile about?