June on the homestead

We’ve had a busy couple of weeks to start off this month.  I’m looking forward to a relaxing Father’s Day weekend at home.  Maybe I’ll even get ambitious and cook instead of having Papa do it :-).

We’ve been blessed with beautiful weather this month.  There has been quite a bit of rain but most of it seems to fall at night. We received 3″ just on Tuesday night this week – hard and fast enough it caused some temporary flooding of our yard. By the next morning, there were just a few small puddles left for Little Chick to jump in.

When it’s not raining, the sun has been nice and warm. Only a couple of days have been too toasty for my liking, and we were away celebrating a wedding with family. Then you only notice hot temperatures when you have to move in and out of vehicles.

The garden has thrived under these warm and wet conditions. The peas, beans, beets, cabbage and corn are looking great. The turnips? rutabagas? are getting HUGE! I don’t remember what I planted in that section – some type of root vegetable :-). I really need to pick the salad mix soon, it looks like it’s starting to bolt. This is the first time I’ve ever done onions and garlic – they are so easy and we are going to have an abundance of both. Garlic bread for Mama and Little Chick every night this winter – whoo-hoo!

Sadly, there are some areas that look pathetic. Only 1/4 of the carrots came up. I purchased a couple of tomato plants and a red pepper plant two weeks ago. The pepper plant has a flower already. One tomato plant looks ok but the other looked like it needed some water … but we’ve had plenty of rain! I don’t get it.  I still need to buy a couple more tomato plants to fill out that garden bed; I just hope I don’t end up replacing the one I bought.

I think Papa secretly went into the garden and destroyed my vine plants (he dislikes vine plants). I didn’t see anything come up for either the summer squash or cucumbers. I replanted the latter but still need to decide if we’ll try and grow cucumbers this year. We also didn’t have any luck with our herbs. None. No dill, no cilantro, no parsley … none of the herbs planted in our new deck garden. It’s odd. Maybe it was just too dry when we planted? I’m not sure. I’ve replanted some of those in the hopes we’ll still get something.

Finley has been loving this weather. He just lays out in the yard, soaking up the sun. Frankly, I think he’s actually a cat instead of a dog … he acts more like it!

I love how he’ll shake his head until his long ear flops over to cover his eyes. It’s hard to sleep when the sun is so bright LOL!

The chickens have been doing well. No more losses to predators or disease, thankfully. We’re getting about 1/2 dozen eggs a day which is plenty for our family (plus a few to share).

I’ve always felt the worst part about gardening (other than having to weed in August when it’s 100° and 95% humidity) is thinning plants. It always seems like such a waste.  I’ve hardened myself to the fact that thinning means the plants that are left will have an abundance of resources and grow better. It helped my resolve this year to realize that anything I thinned could become a treat for the chickens. I know they really enjoyed the fresh pea shoots we tossed over the fence!

With such gorgeous weather, we’ve been spending as much time as possible outdoors. There’s the fort / playhouse to inspire the imagination, puddles to splash in, a fairy garden to rearrange for the 87th time, friends to play with and other ways to be creative. Papa has taken to bringing a book outdoors, sitting in his favorite chair under the apple tree so he can keep an eye on things but still relax. The bugs haven’t been bad, perhaps because of our dry start this spring.  So overall it’s very enjoyable to sit outdoors. Papa did say that the worst part about sitting under the apple tree is once in a while a little inchworm will drop down on him :-).

It makes me jealous when I’m stuck at work from 8 am – 5 pm five days a week…