Welcome Summer!

 If I'm being completely honest, I cringed when I typed that title.  Summer is such a mixed bag.  Yes, the vegetables are homegrown and delicious.  The flowers are spectacular.  The sights and sounds fill my soul in a way that no other season can.  And then there is - the heat - which has been, this week, punishing.

It's been a very busy week, and yes, I have been absent.  We had a family situation (a story that is not mine to tell - with the exception of its impact on me... leaving me without the emotional bandwidth for creativity) that caused my hiatus from blogging.  A couple of days of feeling all of the feels, and I am ready to jump back into life.  I have learned that there is little about life that we can control - other than how we respond to it.  My coping mechanism is to shut down for a period of time - to allow for the processing of emotions.  After that - it's back to life.  Life is not meant to be squandered in a cloud of negativity.  No matter what - there is always something positive that we can moor ourselves to.  Right?

Added to all of that... Hubbs has been in the wilderness of the Northwest Territory of Canada on a guys' 11 day fishing trip (a solid week of fishing - the rest of the days involved in travel).  I think he's had a blast.  He has no cell phone reception, so communication has been only through the internet when that is available to him.  Their week was filled with adventures and misadventures (no one actually lost their heads, in case you wondered....

(Yes, I cropped the head off of his friend because I was not able to ask permission to publish his photo.)

As you can see... the temperatures there are quite different from here on the farm (almost at the Arctic Circle - and yes... midnight sun at this time of year).  His nights are in the 30's, while daytimes range from 40's to 60's.

Meanwhile, here at the farm... I've been getting up sometime between 4 and 5 every morning so that I can get the horses out for their grazing time before the temperature rises.  We've had highs in the nineties this week, with every day just a little hotter than the one before.  Getting up early also gives me enough time to get the work done before I melt.  It's also been very dry, so watering duties are added to morning and evening chores.

My normally energetic side-kick has turned into a rug.  He is also not a fan of the heat!

I've done quite a bit of knitting this week - unfortunately, the projects are for Christmas presents, so photos of them will have to wait until December!  Which is hard for me - because I cannot wait to show you these projects... they are pretty cool!  Instead, I'll just show you yesterday's loaves - yes, I am still baking all of our bread.

The birds have been liberated again.  The ducks spend their days running all over the farm.  And the chickens have been turned loose on the insect population.  Hopefully they take a big bite out of it.

A few random bits...

Look at all of the apples on the trees this year.  We have had hardly any apples the past two years.  Looks like we may have enough to warrant getting our cider press out of storage this year.

Apparently, there is someone else who is not a fan of the heat.  I found this guy (Bobby) asleep beneath the piano bench yesterday.  He must have sneaked into the house while Ivy was outside - otherwise, there would have been a cat fight!  He was so comfy, I didn't have the heart to move him.  Eventually, I did.  He went back outside and Ivy came in.  Shuffling cats.

I hope you are coping with the heat and staying cool.  Happy Summer, friends.

I hope to do the garden tour video in the next week or so - everything in that space is progressing rapidly!