If you want to see photos...

Ok, I have tried and tried and have not figured out how to update my slide show with the photos from Zambia. In the process, I deleted the slide show feature and cannot retrieve it. In order to rectify the situation, I have uploaded the photos to a web album. If anyone is interested in viewing our photos please use this web address: http://picasaweb.google.com/bitaglitz. The title of the album is, "An overview of our trip to Zambia." I hope you enjoy them. I will try to get another set of photos ready to view in the next week or so.

In the mean time, I have to say that Josh and Aaron and the boys did a grand job in cleaning up our garage and shed while we were in Europe and Africa. These places were a disaster area! Now, they look tidy and nice. If you need such a clean-up at your home, these guys may be for hire!

And they had the daunting task of watering our lawn and garden while we were away. Because of their care, we are now beginning to harvest our first tomato, squashes, eggplants, and beans. It is such a joy to go outside and water the plants and observe how much they have grown and changed in a day's time. It is amazing how fast it all grows.

Our squash are not quite at prolific as they were last year, even though I planted more of them. I am waiting for them to be a bit more aggressive in their growth before I have our friends come and pick squash leaves. They eat the medium to small leaves. They peel the rough outer skin of the leaf's stems and use the inner stem and leaf. They steam them like spinach and feast on them with much pleasure. I thought this was very weird but they explained that in Zambia, food is so scarce that this is good source of food and is very nurtrisous. They said that they get a larger food supply from the leaves than from the fruit of the squash, itself. And that taking select leaves actually encourages more leaf growth. So, I told them I would grow more squash so that they can harvest leaves. Steve and I also want to see how the actually prepare them and we want to taste the cooked product.

The grandkids have Uno set up and want to play. I will spend a bit of time playing games with them and then I am going back into the dungeon...the basement...to finish rearranging my scrapbooking area and quilting space. It had become a catch-all from my last attempt at rearranging it. It is a huge job. But, when it is finished, I will be able to start to catch up on some new layouts and finish a couple of quilts that were started. Wish me luck!

I will try to update this site more frequently than I have in the last few months. I hope you are all well and having a good summer. Thanks for visiting my site!

Judy