How things look after a night of thunderstorms

Lovely plums...

Temps are climbing high again and everything is growing.
There is a squash growing out of the compost pile and
the squash are growing inside the garden.
The lettuce and peppers are rebounding from the Groundhog attack.
Lots of things are blooming right outside the garden fence as well.
Swiss chard, tomatoes,green beans and corn are growing like..well weeds.

National Backyard Camp Out Day

Yesterday, we participated in National Backyard Camp Out Day.
We pitched our tent, and set everything up,and we had just started eating, when the thunderstorm came.
We waited it out inside, the sun came back out, we headed outside again.
We only had some things get wet, mostly outside the tent, although one window was left
open, so a pillow was quite damp.All the outdoor furniture was soaked,
so it was hard to enjoy the fire like we planned.It was also too hot. We made some s'mores and played Uno, and Trouble in
the tent. Then we heard the rumbling coming back and we went inside.
Oh well, we tried.We did go back outside this morning to hang out
and it was lovely.We'll do it another day when it's not storming.

The Groundhog and the damage done....

Can you hear the whine of Neil Young?
Yes, I'm feeling a bit abused by the whole
groundhog experience.He chomped off the tops of most of the peppers






and ate all the tasty new lettuce. It looks like he left more in
these pictures than it does in person.
We brought in some professional security...


So far it has worked. We are ready to re-think it when necessary.Perhaps my friend
Zilla has the right idea, and it is truly time for the plastic explosives.;-)

Wildlife

Our yard, I have been told, is filled with wild life.
We are pretty used to the critters who share our home,
but visitors keep pointing out that there are so many.
I took pictures over a time span of about thirty minutes,
here is some of what we saw....



see the squirrel in the have -a- heart trap, (I expected to see the ground hog).
Our resident Mr. Cardinal. (the Mrs. is harder to capture on film)Mr Blue Jay.
Flipper (who allows P to feed him/her clover)

Flipper's bud (or baby..we're not sure)
I had a harder time capturing the Robin family sitting in the pear tree feeding their fledglings,
or the elusive chipmunks who are everywhere all at once.
Thankfully, we are in the middle of the block, so we do not get deer and we have never had a bear,
unlike some of you, although one or two people have thought that was what the ground hog was.
We do get a lot of birds...

There are also other nocturnal animals underground who we never see, although we have a pretty good idea that they are here. They are all welcome, as long as the don't eat more than their fair share of the veg or berries,
or my flowers!! ;-)

Berry Picking

Here are some pictures of my very best berry picker.
The hard work of "training" Princess to walk on the paths only,
only pull weeds, remove rocks, pick only ripe fruit and veg,
don't trample the plants, toss balls into the garden,etc. has all paid
off big time! At age 5, she is now a willing and able helper in the garden.
She waters, weeds, picks..it is a delight!
We knew this day would come eventually.

Some random photos

from around our corner of the Garden State this week.
This week's Most Wanted criminal.
Plum.
Patch o' veg.
Princess's steed.

Berry patch.
Butterfly bush blooms.

Cukes, hidden among the orange mint.Various flowers blooming...

The Community Garden Plot

We spent a good part of the day up at the Community Garden plot
today. It was nice to see how everything has been growing, and we picked
a bowl full of green beans to bring home for dinner.
Princess and Farmer Dad walked around to check out all the different plots
while I got some watering done. Some of them are quite pretty.
As usual we brought our umbrella and a picnic lunch.
The "garden dog" walking the perimeter.Pretty squash flower. We have corn,beans,peppers,tomatoes,eggplant
and a good variety of winter squash as well as watermelon and cantaloupe and some sunflowers.
The hot sun took it out of us though, and we did very little work outside once we got home.
We did spend a good deal of time chasing the woodchuck out of the yard.We were sad to see a dead bunny in the road near our house on our way out in the morning, it was too hot for our bunnies to be out and about today,
or at least that is what I kept telling myself while scanning the yard for them and not finding them.
We saw one bunny in the yard at dinner time...hopefully not because the dead bunny was "our bunny".
Some days we only see one..some days none. I'm hopeful they will both show up tomorrow.