Our gardening output this year has been pretty bad. Sure, we did have a disruption during prime planting time (hi, Anya!), but we also have been kind of lazy. Or basil is doing ok, but I never took them out of the smallish pots, so none of it is much taller than a foot. Our ‘main’ garden is completely overrun with weeds. And grass. The peppers pretty much disappeared. The pole beans never got poled, so they are intwined in the grass. The tomatoes are small and stunty, but at least they have (green) fruits on them. We have a drip irrigation system I installed, which has at least kept things alive, but I think the weeds suck out a lot of the water. It’s depressing.

Even more depressing is my hop plants, chewed to the ground by the sheep during the winter and early spring, have produced more hops than they ever did when I patiently watered them and put up a trellis. Oh, and there are two HUGE tomato plants growing…in the compost bin.

EDIT: I was down in the garden this evening, doing some weeding (although it’s more like mowing since the ‘weeds’ are 90% grass), and there were a few ripened tomatoes. I also started pulling out the bush bean plants, since they are mostly all dried up now. I think the beans still need to sit out a few days more to dry completely.

Well, the floor is finished and covered in polyurethane. The walls still look like crap, but we haven’t really decided what color we want to paint them. Plus, Cabol wants to put a real wall up behind where the dresser is, and possibly another one dividing 2/3 of the basement into a room that could be used as a bedroom. I guess that will be the next project when her parents visit this fall! Muahahaha.

There is still a little bit of cat pee that is wicking up in the corners when it is really hot and humid (which it has been all week). This should eventually stop – and any stains will eventually be hidden under base trim anyways. Once the new walls are installed.

And here’s what Anya thought of it all:

It’s blackberry time of the year again! Yesterday I mowed around the large bush at the end of our driveway, and came away with a small bowl of berries. It looks like we missed when the ones up on the hill ripened, or the heat got to them, since there were only dried stubs left.

On the way up from the berries today, I saw a small crushed creature in the driveway. This isn’t really an unusual occurrence, and usually they are toads we’ve run over in the early morning or evening. This one was different, though, since it apparently had these:

I don’t think we have crabs around here. I guess it could have been a crayfish, but it’s a good ways to the nearest creek that could support them. Cabol thinks a bird dropped it. I’m nervously watching my toes for rabid land crabs.