it's officially the dead heat of summer

Storms last night with tornado warnings again. And later, in the wee hours of morning 5 or 6 storm cells passed by with thunder and lightening. I tried hard, but couldn't wait it all out. I went to bed with some of those cells yet to pass over head. Apparently they weren't threatening. We were still in tact, this morning when we woke. We don't take that for granted!

I know I just updated. And I don't have any fresh pictures...can you believe it? But I need an excuse to stay awake. I'm really tired today. It's steaming hot outside too. Like walking into an oven, with a gigantic humidifier working over time. It's very hot and very humid. I tried to work on packing a soap order and after working up a good face dripping sweat decided it was time for a break.

Wednesday we pulled the garlic...we planted 600, but only got just a little under 500 in return. Apparently some of them didn't grow, that we had planted. We pulled the onions too. They died prematurely and the big beautiful onions we hoped for didn't materialize like they did last year. But we still have good onions to put into the cold storage after they have dried a little more. We'll pack them individually in the legs of pantyhose, and knot them inbetween each onion. They keep so well that way. I recently bought the first bag of onions in over a year. The storage onions from last year kept right up almost to harvest time. That makes growing a garden worth the time!

I decided a couple weeks ago that it was time to take sprouts off the storage potatoes and get rid of ones I couldn't use. The rest I consolidated into 2 egg baskets. As I took off the sprouts I discovered toward the bottom of the crates, where it was darkest, and maybe a little more humid, little tiny potatoes were growing! New potatoes from the old ones, without even being planted!!! I collected 2 strawberry baskets of them and couldn't wait to hear what Tom had to say when I served him new potatoes that night for supper! Oh, they were sweet and tastey.

We are now just entering full swing into the veggie harvest time. We've enjoyed the early spring edible pod peas, asparagus, lettuce, mesclun, strawberries, beet greens, baby beets, kohlrabi, green beans, table onions, new carrots, potatoes, sweet corn, cucumbers, tomatoes and raspberries. We'll have a few more raspberries, the birds got every single one of our blue berries!!! grrrr, sweet cherries we fought and managed to get a taste of them. The robins really like them too. and zucchini and yellow summer squash. How could I forget them???

When I cook the Kohlrabi it reminds me of when I used to ride my bicycle over here from where my folks, my brother and I lived. Grandma used to fix that for their summer lunches I guess. I have good memories of spending lazy summer afternoons with my Grandma. We'd swing on the front porch (2 or 3 times back and forth and I was seasick though) and play that memory game, I'm Going to California and I'm going to take... Grandma let me use a baby stroller, and dress up the cat. He was an unwilling participant though. Not at all a cooperative baby!

Now, our own grand children come for a visit and make memories. The cycles of life. It was good to walk down memory lane today. About the only exercise one can do on a day like today and not perish with the heat! And now, I suppose I need to take the boxes out to the soap shop and try to get that order packed and ready to ship tomorrow.

Stay cool.