Summer, summer everywhere

June arrived with hot afternoons but fairly enjoyable mornings and evenings.  I kicked off the month by heading to Lancaster, PA for a few days for a work retreat.  I am not usually very excited about retreats since it means lots of meetings that aren't terribly productive, however, it was great to see friends who are spread across the country that I normally only get to hear on the phone.  It's always great to spend time seeing them and catching up, but that time always seems so fleeting as we are herded from meeting to meeting.  That was also the first time I travelled since my surgery and I quickly discovered how pampered and well-fed Wade had been keeping me at home.  In an effort to pack the smallest suitcase possible and travel very light (to avoid carrying and lifting a heavy suitcase - a post-op no-no) I slipped up on food rations beyond my usual oatmeal packs and tea bags. Which meant I didn't have much else to eat and proceeded to feel like I was starving most of the week (I am completely sick of iceberg lettuce salads and fake scrambled eggs).  It was nice to get home to fresh garden produce and eggs again!


The chickens have really taken to the yard as we've started experimenting with letting them roam the yard while supervised.  They have thoroughly enjoyed scratching up mulch under the bushes and trees and bathing in the dirt under the citrus trees.  They are looking for tasty bites of bugs or weed seedlings and seem to have no fear when in the yard - although instinct does make them shy away from open spaces and they prefer the cover of plants (to avoid detection by hawks or owls).  The Ladies are enjoying daily strolls in the yard and for the first week seemed to prefer two small patches until we herded them into other new areas.  They now realize they have quite the territory to cover and make the rounds every evening before sunset.  They have also come to expect free-range time and give us an earful when we come by the coop for eggs and don't let them out.  The dogs can't be out with the chickens, so we always have to make sure they've done their business before The Ladies go out.  When it's time for them to go back to bed we have been using raisins to lure them back into the coop like a parade of chickens which makes for quite a sight as they try to steal raisins from our hands.

We celebrated the Summer Solstice by being thankful for the abundant sunshine, but also praying for rain.  The dry hot weeks without the summer rains have been tough on the garden.  We are waiting for some plants to finish up some fruit for us (bananas, pineapple, mulberries), and are slowly watching other fruit grow on our citrus trees.  We also watched our parsley get mowed down by Black Swallowtail butterfly larvae which was actually pretty neat.


The end of the month we were finally treated to the rain we needed in the form of Tropical Storm Debby as she hung off the west coast of Florida and buffeted us with 50+ mph winds and downpours.  We got over 9 inches at our house and Wade suspects even more than that since our rain gauge was overflowing!  Other than the rain the house and chicken coop did well, although we did lose one tree that likely needed to be removed anyway (Cherry Laurels are notorious for being weak and brittle in storms).  We went to the island to check on Mom and Larry's house which was fine, but we did find one refugee in the yard - a friendly little turtle!

Making friends with a Florida Box Turtle.

Check out our Picasa site for more June in the Garden pictures.