Ever get the feeling you’re not accomplishing anything? Yeah. That feeling. It’s much easier to swallow, calling it a “feeling”, rather than admitting that it’s reality.

So, instead of awing you all with photographic evidence of all of the progress around here, I shall deviously distract you with random nature photos (and Charlie Daniels classics)!

Fire on the mountain (Run, boys, run!)*

Cleome, one of my favorite flowers.

Nasty storm coming in over the lake. We were on our way to town and just about got blown off of the road a few times. Visibility went down to zilch. White knuckles and all that. Pull over and wait for it to pass? Pshaw. That’s like asking a man to stop for directions.

*Fire on the mountain reference:

More stuff added to the For Sale page just a few minutes ago.

Harvested from the lower garden Monday evening:

It’s going to be a big, big melon year…

When in doubt, use caulking. Lots of it. Everywhere. (Except on the kids as they tend to bloat and then explode out some newly-formed hole.)

(I’ll spare you the details of my urinal and bathroom plumbing adventures. You do not want to know.)

Now how to gracefully segue from urinal caulking to eating?

I give up.

So, for the first time since moving out of Illinois, I saw corn on cob on sale for 10 cents each. Wow. Guess what we had for dinner?

And a wee bit of garden porn for you in a beautiful basket we got from the plant swap this spring. (I use it every day and wish I’d had it years ago!)

Our first cherry harvest, from the trees we planted this spring. I took this pic back in… May? and then forgot about it until today.

The kitchen garden in May, neat & tidy.

The kitchen garden in July, definitely looking more lived in.

In addition to watermelons, we’re growing a bunch of other melons this year. It won’t be long now!

Okay, so the last one is not really a melon. It’s far too large. It’s like a planet. It has its own weather system.

Taking turns talking to Steve on the phone.

Discovering evil bugs on the summer squash.

And giant grasshoppers eating everything they can.

Bringing out a few chicks to play (and hopefully eat a bunch of bugs).

As long as we’re here:

The newly seeded spots of beans and cucumbers.

Holy basil going to seed.

Okra loving the heat.

Lemon verbena — the kids love taking a branch in the house to make tea with.

We had a nice, cool & rainy break for a week or so but now we’re heating back up. The plants enjoyed the break, as did we. I’ve taken advantage of the cooler, wetter weather to plant a few things for fall: beans, cucumbers, and cowpeas. There are no signs of bugs this time but I’m ready to battle should they return! And there’s always plenty of room in the freezer for naughty goats and chickens….

This is turning out to be quite the melon year! The first plantings should be ripe pretty soon. I’ll be heading down this evening to check them more closely, this time armed with notes on what to pick when. I am really, really, really bad at determining melon ripeness.

And, for Steve: Tess, the monster tomato.

He requested fresh pics of Tess’ Land Race.

I think it growled at Charlie.

The peppers are bouncing back rather nicely considering they got eaten three times. Some of them are newer transplants bought after the first munching but even they were eaten down a couple of times. I wonder if peppers have nine lives like cats?

Here’s one of two wide rows of peppers:

My favorite of the year so far? Purple Beauty! A friend, Paula in Texas, sent me the seeds for this one. Isn’t it gorgeous?! Thanks, Paula!

(I love how great pics turn out right after a rain! This is how the world should look all of the time.)

Before Steve left, some progress was made. None of it makes for good photography but it passes for exciting stuff around here.

The mailbox I’ve been nagging him about for years is finally up and in service. Still needs some sort of closure and a flag but those are small potatoes to worry about later.

The wellhouse is still not finished but Steve wrapped the openings in chicken wire for now so that I can clean & straighten it back up (dog + cats + welding = extreme unneatness) and start lifting weights again without worry about Josie running off every split second I turn my back.

The goats and chickens now have a larger, lusher area to roam and munch. It starts at the west end of the garden and original pen,

heads west along the edge of the driveway,

and down to the road, linking up with the old hog pen (the kids and I will fix it so they can go in there as well in a week or two) and around to the lower garden.

The critters are fat and happy!