finally seeing the light at the end of the
planting tunnel. two more gardens to go and
i'll be done. the two that are left are outside
of the fenced area so they are always left
until last.

we've had plenty of rain recently (and i see
that George is getting another round from the
hurricane down there in Texas) with three inches
of rain in the past several days. the ground
is pretty soggy, the ditches are getting full
and some areas along the rivers are flooding.
we had a nice sunny day, a good breeze to keep
the biting flies off and mid 70s temperatures
and not too bad of humidity. compared to
yesterday (hotter and much more humid and not
as much of a breeze) it was beautiful.

more chances of rain yet this week, but that is
ok, as it's nice to have rain instead of using
the well water.

in other news we've been using buckets, ramps
and sunflower seeds to reduce the chipmunk
population. the semi-feral cats have not been
around very much at all and the chipmunks have
been running all over the place. we've captured
18 in six days and there's still plenty more. in
other critter news i thought i'd chased the
groundhogs off last fall but they returned a few
days ago - a whole pile of kits... i've captured
one of them and been using the air rifle to chase
the rest of them off. so far it seems to be
improving (if i want much of a bean crop i have to
fight for it). the rabbits too are very thick.

i should take all of these critters being around
as a good sign and i do as it means the system is
capable of supporting a diversity of life. today
i saw the first large toad i've seen in a long time
and we have a good snake population too (the toad
probably got flooded out of their home in the rocks).

the strawberries came in nice enough this year
and i've been putting up jam and berries in the
freezer. had some folks over to pick Sunday and
they had about 30 quarts when they left. more to
pick yet, but i'm tired today - perhaps tomorrow.
it's about half the crop as compared to last year.

everything else is growing pretty well, having
some sunshine today has helped.

that's the news for this day the middle of June,
hope everyone else is doing well?


songbird