Dog Day Afternoons

Shorter walks and longer stints in front of the fan these days... 

Summer arrived brutally, with temps and humidity soaring right up to the brink of insanity even before June 21st rolled around. Nick doesn't like it at all, and we're dealing with it the best we can. After breakfast, we sweat for two hours doing chores, eat lunch, then rest for a bit. Sometimes it's a nap, sometimes it's just an hour (or 90 minutes) trying to catch up with the stack of New Yorkers building on the coffee table. Then we hit it again until it's beer o'clock, which rings about 7 p.m.

Mason rebuilt the front porch stairs (photo to come) and the well house foundation. The well house is also getting a new paver floor and new insulation, all inspired by The Snake Incident.

All my spare time has been spent pulling weeds, which has been made easier by a ridiculous amount of rain.

A mulched path? Or a pond? Criminy!

I've also been busy in the veggie garden, finally getting the potatoes in the ground and, new this year, in towers. I'm trying to grow a few things vertically, to make room for more varieties (edamame, peanuts and sweet potatoes are new this year). Today Mason helped me build an arch that will soon support 1,500-Year-Old Cave Beans. It's a pole bean that was discovered in New Mexico in a clay pot sealed with resin of some sort. Carbon-dating determined the beans found inside were incredibly old (1,500 years old to be more or less exact).  I love cooking dried beans in fall and winter, thus the arch.

He has his own chores to do, but helps me with my crazy ideas, too.