How Fast The Summer Is Going

Just everyday things going on around here.  Regardless, time continues to fly by, and I can hardly believe we're coming up fast on the month of August.

We've had more hot, humid weather this summer than I can remember.  Also, few mosquitoes and very, very few black flies.  The no-see-um's, on the other hand, have been simply vicious.

They've kept me mostly indoors for the past two days.  Although we need (again) a good dousing of steady rain, all we've been getting are intermittent, very light, short showers that make everything wet in the garden and seem to encourage the biting bug population once the dripping stops.

I realize playing among the wet leaves of the garden won't make me melt, and I've tried to do what needs to be done out there, but the bugs are so bad I've given up each time I've tried to venture forth.

One job that I need to get done is to get the clumps of Johnny-Jump-Ups out of my mint bed.  Since early this spring, they started showing themselves right among the mint plants.  These little volunteers are so pretty and cheerful that I hated to pull them out.  I've now realized they're crowding out the mint!  And here I thought mint was so invasive you had to be careful it didn't take over your acreage.  Maybe it's the Johnny-Jump-Ups that might take over the acreage.  I've got them mostly "weeded" out of the bed and am hoping the mint can recover.

The dehydrator has been full of parsley.  This last batch took a couple of hours longer than usual to dry.  Although I thought the parsley felt dry when I picked it, perhaps it had more moisture within the leaves than usual?  Or it may be suffering from the humidity as we humans are.  At any rate, it's done now and as soon as the plants grow back sufficiently from the buzz cut I gave them, I'll do some more. 

I needed to make a run yesterday to the farm to restock our dairy products.  Dear daughter had the rental cabin she care-takes to clean and since the dairy is only a couple of miles from where she'd be working, she offered to go to the farm for me.  Such a good girl!  That saved me an hour's round trip.

We had a good friend over for dinner Wednesday night which was easy-peasy as I served some of the last Stuffed Green Peppers from last year.  I served them with corn and also experimented making breaded and fried zucchini slices.  J and I really liked them, Papa Pea ate one and said, "Okay, I tried them."  He said they tasted just like the breaded eggplant I make.  (He does not like eggplant.)

As we were sitting down to eat, daughter stopped by to drop off a quart of wild blueberries (yum!) a friend had given her.  Silly girl doesn't much care for blueberries and knew we would enjoy them more.  I asked if there was anything I could make with them that she would eat and she said she would like a slice of Freshy's Blueberry Pie if I made that.  Which I did yesterday while hiding from the humidity and bugs.

But back to the dinner table, daughter is also a lover of breaded eggplant so she grabbed a plate and ate her dad's share of the breaded zucchini with gusto.  Gosh, I'm getting hungry just thinking of it.  I'll be keeping the recipe for future use.  At which time I'll serve another vegetable for Papa Pea.

Our day here is starting out very gray, but none of the weather sites are calling for rain.  (Darn.)  We'll have to play it by ear to see what the day brings . . . and how hungry those nasty no-see-um's are.  The harvests in the garden are coming in and time is flitting so I'd sure appreciate some balmy, sunny (but not too hot, please) days soon.  After a day of lovely, drenching rain.