Scouting and Gardening

Anselm Samuel (aka the little boy) turned 17 two days ago.  Its hard to believe that that same little boy who used to race snails after the rain now towers over me, is a high school graduate (two years early) works full time,  and goes to college part time, has his drivers license, and is progressing through his welding certificate requirements.

After the divorce he lost interest in scouting for a couple of years. I guess it was hard with me not having a place to live near him.  I don't know.  And when he got back involved he didn't want to do the stuff required for advancement, he just wanted to go to troop meetings and go on all the camping trips.  But last spring her really jumped back into it with both feet.  All last summer he worked as a life guard at Camp Hi-Sierra, became a patrol leader in his troop,  and decided to go for Eagle Scout rank. He was awarded Star Scout rank a couple of days before his birthday and has to advance two more ranks before he turns 18, which is the cut-off age for earning Eagle.  So, he went by the Scout store yesterday and bought all the books, got his Scout Master to sign off on the forms, has contacted the merit badge counselors and has begun work on the remaining merit badges.  Its going to be a lot of work, and he has no time to goof off.  I hope he can do it.

The garden is doing well.  We lost two tomato plants; the Cherokee Purple and a Big Boy.  Kathleen really likes the little yellow tomatoes so I replaced the dead plants with Yellow Pear and Sungold.  Altogether we have 11 tomato plants.  It looks like the summer squash has decided to come up.  4 of the five seeds I planted have sprouted.  None of the sunflowers have come up.  The parsnips, onions, and carrots are doing okay, I guess.  It's hard to tell since they grow underground.   In other news, a red-tailed hawk has begun perching on top of the oak tree behind the garden.  I heard his (her?) cry when I was planting tomatoes.  WOW!  it is loud!  Other than that one cry the only evidence of it's presence is an absence of squirrels and, every few days, a scattering of pigeon feathers in the garden.