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