Knee Deep in Summer and the Girls

Summer is going too fast, isn’t it? I have lived my life waiting for Summers although now I do love Autumn and Spring equally a well. The lazy days of Summer when you go bare footed, don’t have to throw on a sweater or coat just to go outside. The smell of new mown grass, the lavender in the garden. The taste of the first ripe tomato out of the garden. Dogs hiding from the hot sun under the deck. The sun on your face and feeling the coolness of water when you go swimming. It’s all good.

My garden is thriving. The pumpkin vines are spreading all over everything. I just may have pumpkins this year. I haven’t had any luck with the big ones but have with the small Jack-be-little pumpkins and I have grown hundreds of those.

See that pumpkin among the leaves? It makes me so excited. I have planted a variety pack of pumpkins. Some are suppose to be orange and some white. I have plans for Halloween decorating if I have any white ones.

The cucumbers are getting ahead of us. I have never liked cucumbers. I always try to grow some for David, but this year these cucumbers are so good and sweet I have been eating them a lot. I even make cucumber sandwiches. So British of me. Try spreading chive and onion cream cheese on a cucumber slice and it is heaven.

Every day I bring in nine or ten. David takes them to work and gives them away. I am going to take some to church Sunday and try to give them away to whomever wants some.

The basil is doing well despite the dogs having dug it up by the roots. Now I have to figure what I am going to do with it. I have never made pesto, but I hear it is easy and is good.

The flower garden is flourishing also. I love this Perovskia. It makes drifts of blue in the garden. I am going to plant more of this next year.

Years ago, my neighbor gave me a small Hibiscus plant. This one plant has spread so that now there are several of these plants in the garden. They are making a hedge along the garden path.

Some are this color. These look almost like Rose of Sharon flowers.

Shasta Daisies. Another plant so easy to grow and transplant. I have these in several places in the garden.

Our Jack-in-the Beanstalk sunflower. I have not planted one sunflower this year. The birds did a fine job of doing it for me. The Goldfinches sit on the flowers pecking away and dropping seeds for next year’s crop.

I cannot close this post without talking about the girls.

The chickens like the cucumbers as much as we do.

This is Freedom. See her poor little twisted foot? Sometimes she can stand normally, but most of the time her foot is twisted under. she can still get around quickly when she wants to.

See Freedom hiding under the ramp? The other chicks, the bullies, peck her sometimes and that is where she feels safe.

I think Penninah is just beautiful. She follows me all around the pen and always meets me at the gate when I go out there.

My camera intrigued her. I read on another blog that if you put a mirror in the chicken pen they will enjoy looking at themselves. I think I will do that.

Chickens can take a patch of ground and turn it into this very quickly. There were Irises growing in the pen when we first put the chickens out there and they ate them, bulbs and all.