Dust Bowl

I am currently listening to a book (on Audible) set during The Depression and Dust Bowl era - and while I was mowing, I couldn't help but wonder if a dust bowl is where we are headed.  The air was filled with dust from the ground that I mowed over.

 It's amazing that after such a wet and lush spring, Summer has arrived hot and parched!  We are badly in need of rain.  I've been watering my containers and garden religiously, and honestly, it would be great to have a little break from those duties.

Thankfully, yesterday was the start of a cooler trend.  Last week's heat was just one degree shy of triple digits.  Animals weather cold temperatures so much better than hot ones. (And so do I!)

By the time you read this, Hubbs should be safely back on the farm.  Eleven days away - boy did I miss him!  I did try to make the best of those days.  I even made a new friend - but he wasn't interested in conversation.

 Friday I invited Tyler and his best friend up to the farm for the afternoon.  They swam and played ping-pong and pool - basically occupying themselves.  I realized that at this age, about the only thing needed from me is food!  We did take Forrest for a walk to the stream so that he could cool off.

He took full advantage of the water and had a ball fetching sticks that the boys threw for him.  

 This beauty joined us at the stream - a common blue damselfly.

I harvested our garlic this weekend.  The bulbs are huge!  Many of them are as large as my fist.

After laying them out on the workbench,

I bundled them up into groups and have hung them in the barn to dry.  Once dry, they will last in storage  until next year's harvest.  I did not have to buy garlic this past year, and with twice as much planted this year, I will be able to share some as well.

We've reached that time of summer where all of the garden work begins to really pay off.  We are still harvesting sugar peas and the last of the lettuce.  Cucumbers and shelling peas are coming in now.  Tomatoes and peppers are hanging from the plants - a little more time and these, too will be ripe.  Squash are beginning to form on their parent plants.  It's all so intoxicating!  One of my favorite garden boxes is this one...

The path of the sun leads from the front of the box to the back of the box throughout the day.  In the front of the box are a row of zinnias (a butterfly house hangs in the middle),

 with a row of sunflowers behind.  Then, growing in the back (which becomes the front in early afternoon as the sun strikes that side) are my loofah gourd vines.

They are growing up the trellis, climbing higher each day,

producing yellow blossoms that will eventually grow into the loofah gourds.  

This is a long process - the gourds will not be ready to pick until October.  These garden plants had their beginnings in the greenhouse mid-March.  Watching all of this life grow from the tiniest of seeds fills me with such awe.  It's a miraculous process!

Every morning I have been picking blueberries. 

There are absolutely more than I can pick!  What a summer of abundance.  And by the way... remember that nest in the blueberry bush?  Well, there are four naked baby Mockingbirds in that nest now.  I have to stay far away from that particular bush or Mama Mockingbird dive-bombs me.  She flew very close to my head one morning - I heeded her warning after that!

Lastly, I wanted to share a cool flower with you that I have planted on our front deck.  They are straw flowers.  Every morning as I am hanging the bird feeders, I notice that the flowers are closed up, looking like this...

By afternoon, however, there sunny faces are looking upwards towards the sun.  The petals of these flowers feel like straw.  I have been cutting them and hanging them to dry for a little winter color.  Cutting the blossoms encourages new ones to form.

Such happy, sunny faces!