June Bugs

It has been an excellent fruit summer. I've spent the past 5 years working on a raspberry hedge and this year it has paid off with dozens and dozens of raspberries that can't be eaten before they overripen and drop off. The season seems to be extra long with a crop lasting several weeks. Having a ready snack when I'm out working in the yard may be one of the best things in life.

The girls and I went blueberry and cherry picking, which we haven't done in many years because of my annoyance with our local farm. It's only 5 minutes from the house, but they have changed their model so drastically that it's clear that they exist only for entertainment. In addition to having to make reservations in advance (which usually sell out), you have to pay an admission fee, a service fee, and can only use their containers when picking. Ten years ago I used to go there, without fees, and fill up buckets with strawberries, blueberries, and cherries to freeze and can. This year, I spent $42 on two pints of blueberries and two pints of sour cherries. It seems like most people go here so they can take pictures of their babies in the orchard, which is fine, but in catering only to this audience they've left out the people who want to pick 15 pounds of fruit. Obviously the solution is for me to start my own orchard, in my free time.

Like many others on the East coast, we had lingering smoke from the Canadian wildfires for many days in June. It's difficult to capture in a picture, but you can see the haze in the background. Recess and sports were cancelled when the air quality reached hazardous levels. I hope for everyone's sake the fires are out soon!

By the end of June, all of my plants go from neat and tidy seedlings to giant bushes overflowing with flowers. Oh, and so do the weeds. Last year I had 5 subscribers to my flower CSA, and this year I have 18. Every few days I am cutting buckets of blooms and making bouquets. I've come to recognize that the warmer half of the year is a series of microseasons, where every two weeks or so different flowers and bugs peak. 

Freshly weeded: three weeks later the weeds had taken over and it was time to weed again. My favorite tool for this job is a stirrup hoe: no bending over! Using it gives me active minutes on my Fitbit, so it's basically working out. I've contemplated putting down mulch in the paths, but I worry that it might just make weeding more difficult. I also like to strip stems as I go, dropping the leaves in the paths. They either compost there or I rake them up later. Having mulch in the paths would probably make this process messier.

I filled the biggest order I've ever had, 15 bouquets for teachers at an elementary school. I was white-knuckling it hoping I would have enough flowers. Harvesting and putting all these bouquets together resulted in several late nights that I am glad to have in my past.

See how the flowers in the photo above and in the one below are completely different? Again, a 2-week microseason. This is the coolest and most rewarding part of growing flowers: getting to grow and introduce to people the incredible variety when you buy local. Grocery store flowers are the same year round because they are grown in greenhouses under controlled conditions and shipped very long distances. The varieties are always the same, because those are the ones that ship well. 

It's not all overflowing buckets of perfect flowers - thrips have been my #1 enemy both last year and this one. I have not been able to stop them no matter what I've tried (which hasn't been much because I draw the line at non-organic pesticides). They are primarily on my snapdragons, which is heartbreaking because they are such a great long-lasting flower. They seem to be attracted to the lighter colored flowers, so next year I'm only going to grow red, purple, and other dark colors. If anyone has a successful thrip remedy, please let me know!

So one day I was in my office working, when this florist shop van stopped on the street right in front of the house, and proceeded to sit there for a really long time. Doesn't the driver look shady? Were they checking out the competition? This is a long, straight street, and there really isn't a reason why someone would park here. Sketchy! (Do people say sketchy anymore? I was born in the 80s after all.)

As all parents of school-age children know, May and June are packed with year-end events. Cora had her preschool graduation (some kids knew the song they performed and some just looked confused, as expected for five year olds.) She also had her dance recital, which to be honest, was brutal. Her class performed second out of 39 performances. They hold the children hostage until the end so we were forced to watch 37 more amateur dance performances by children we had no connection to. Also, I'm no prude but some of the costumes worn by preteens and teenagers were shocking. And the dance moves they were doing - yikes.

The previously mentioned orchard also has these big slides. Once, as an adult, I went down one. Worst decision of my life. See all the ridges? I felt like I had just slid down a cheese grater.

Life Off Headset will recognize the two above photos immediately :) We went to The Kennedy Center to see The Lion King musical, and it was fabulous. I'm not a big musical person, but I do love live performances and the costumes, dance, and acting were as amazing as you've heard. Since I'm pretty grumbly in this post, I am also going to grumble about the people who were using their cell phones during the show. We all paid a lot of money to see this show, and for a lot of us it will be the only time we see it our lives, and yet some people just HAD to Google things at that exact moment. The ushers came around and told people not to do it, but that wasn't always effective.

The puzzle of the month was another thrift store find, isn't it cute?

I'd love a relaxed, quiet summer, but that isn't how it goes these days. Coming up are more camps, vacations, events, all requiring planning and disruption of routine. At least there are no snow outfits to deal with.