Hello Summer

Today is the summer solstice, the longest day in the year for the northern hemisphere. It is a lovely 70 F, humidity isn't too bad, there was a cool breeze earlier when I started walking the dogs but it seems to have died down now. Last night we had a campfire at Hal's parents' house along with one of Hal's brothers and his wife. The last campfire of spring I suppose. May have another one tonight, who knows? Depends on the weather. But we will be over there again for dinner as today is also Father's Day. And that is where I am now, waiting for the grill master to finish the ribs so he can grill the whitefish I bought 2 days ago. Smells great so far.

But what else have I been up to? You are probably not even asking. I've been pretty busy, I did finish that skirt and am even wearing it right this very moment! Yes, I know, wow! I've bought more material and specific patterns to hopefully make more clothes this summer. Probably went a little overboard as I did with yarn last year, especially as I have plenty of material purchased previously and still languishing in bags and boxes. I am planning on making one particular skirt with a flounce on the bottom. I've never done a flounce, it's supposed to be easier than a ruffle, which I have done, but the flounce pattern piece isn't matching up to the length of the skirt hem and I don't understand why unless I'm supposed to stretch it to fit and it's the only thing that makes sense because that part of the flounce will be on the bias which is very stretchy. But everything I've researched and the people I've aske on line all agree with me that 2.5 inches is a bit much to stretch. It seems it would make the skirt bunch. So I'll have to do a test piece out of muslin and see what happens and alter accordingly if I have to.

The vegetable garden is doing fairly well, snow peas are starting to come in though there haven't been enough to pick and cook for a meal. My Jade green beans are a couple inches tall and getting real leaves but the Masai beans are a failure. Two plants came up, what happened to the rest I don't know, something must have tunneled in and eaten them because I can't find the beans and there are no obvious holes. I have another half packet of each to plant so we'll see if I have better luck or if I need to drop Masai from my repertoire.

Only half my pumpkin hills came up, less than half, 2 out of 5. And many cucumbers failed to sprout as well or if they did had their tops nipped off. So I reinforced the fencing because it has to be from a critter. I planted more cucumber seeds but have misplaced the pumpkin packet.

My cherry tomatoes which are in pots on the east side of the deck are still scraggly, and I found a hen in one pot one afternoon digging merrily away. I swung a bag at her and chased her away. This explains the dead tomato on the ground I found earlier in the week. I hope the tomato cages I put in will deter any more chicken shenanigans.

Hal and I are still well, our weight loss seems to have plateaued again. I am still down almost 17 pounds The dogs are well, Ziggy has run off into the woods a couple times chasing something and ignoring my calls. I still blame his beagle half. Otherwise he and Luna spend most of our daily walks chasing chipmunks and digging at the base of trees and stumps trying to find one. My walks have become fairly lonely. I'm averaging at least 3 miles per day now and for a stretch of about 9 days managed 4 miles each day. A couple days I've done 5 miles, but it really depends on the weather, we've had some hot and very humid days and it makes walking 5 miles kind of unpleasant.

Dinner is over now, there were baby back ribs, whitefish and whistle pig all grilled by one of Hal's younger brothers, as well as various store bought and homemade salads. Now we just wait till dark and have another fire. Nice start to summer.