It has been way too long...

I've just not gotten around to writing in the blog in the last month or so.  Here it is, July 5th, and I haven't updated since June 9th.  The likely most explosive and changing month in the year, and I haven't written anything about what's happening.  This has been the time when things have solidified, become relaxed, opened up into summer.  The spring was tenuous this year, and we never really got to the point where things grew like they trusted that it would last.  Then the heat came.  Big heat.  and no rain for a couple of weeks.  It is now high summer, and we are almost in drought conditions.  We need to water every day, and every two or three out in the vegetable garden to protect the investment in plants and to preserve the hope that we'll have fresh tomatoes in August. 

This was the 4th of July weekend, and we had three days of both of us home to really work out the neglected parts that had been ignored as we prepared for the Torch Convention.  I had ordered 8 cubic yards of bark mulch last week, and so there was that to disperse.  And the watering, and the weeding, and the edging, and the creation of a completely new chipped area behind the apple trees.

The raspberries needed to be weeded, preparing for the harvest in the next couple of weeks.  And the area around the pond needed weeding and tending, to make it pretty for the rest of the summer season.  The lilac was totally overgrown, creating a problem for both Lee and me when we mowed the space between our yards.  And there were spent spring blossoms everywhere, as well as yellowed tulip and daffodil foliage.  Lots of sprouted tree seedlings, and other weeds everywhere.  And it was time to do a major weeding in the vege garden and then lay down the straw mulch for summer.  Had to water first, then weed, then remove the walking boards that kept me from tramping down the roto-tilled earth, then finally, spreading the straw.  Again this year I believe I have been careful about not letting too many sunflowers grow, but time will tell.

The deck has finally been cleared of all of the nursery functions, and the only non-ornamental plant left there is a single remaining Christmas Amaryllis.  The leaves keep living on, and I keep watering it.  Soon I must stop, let them die, and hope for a beautiful show next Christmas when I start watering again in October.  Most of the plants around the deck are doing OK, but progress is slow this year.  A nice surprise jumped up in the last week or so, I planted them years ago, and never know where they will come, never can count on them, but there they are.