e-i-e-i-o my aching back!

First, let me say that Advil is now my new best friend.


Oy.  I had started the holiday weekend with a grand proclamation - the garden would be planted by close of business Monday.  I am very big on grand proclamations, but very small on actually pulling them off.


However, at precisely 2:45 PM on Monday, I had planted everything. 

A tidy, enclosed garden.

Right - beans, melons and sweet peas.
Left - weedy bed.

Foreground - garlic, onions, scallions

Three kinds of kale, two kinds of chard,
golden beets

Pickling and slicing cucumbers, celery

PEPPERS! and eggplant

Herb bed (with weeds)

Elderberry

Tomato bed, dead ahead, squash to the
left.

There is still the weedy bed and the herb bed needs attention.  I still have flowers to plant.  But!  I planted:  red and green yard long beans, melons, sweet peas, three kinds of kale, two kinds of scallions, two kinds of chard, golden beets, way too many tomatoes, way too many peppers, eggplant, celery, pickling and slicing cucumbers, parsley, cilantro, cosmos, three kinds of dahlias, nasturtiums, and a bulb flower I forget the name of.  Before I planted, however, I had to prepare the raised beds.  It took, literally, all my energy.  I topped it off by installing my new fence around the garden (which, for some reason, made me inordinately happy) and found that I did not have enough to completely enclose it.  I am using a section of the sheep fencing, while waiting for the additional fence to arrive.  I did rally three times during the weekend (it's all about balance, right Mama Pea?) and got my hair cut, had a lovely visit with a friend, and socialized with a lively bunch of friends at a camp on Spring Lake!  Wowza! 


There was also some baking - I made rhubarb kuchen for the barn crew, my neighbor and my friend.  I have a bumper crop of rhubarb (which is why I felt impelled to plant yet another kind - what?!?) so I have been making rhubarb everything.  I mixed up a batch of rhubarb 'iced tea' to have in between my glasses of regular herbal iced tea.  I mixed my first batch of cold brew coffee.  I pickled more quail eggs (the bourbon pickled eggs were, meh.) and managed to totally ignore the messiness of my house and the largeness of my pile of ironing.  I knit to a preordained point on my wool shawl and stowed it away until fall.  Then I promptly cast on two summer sweaters.  I was a MACHINE, people! 


I was also happy to read the forecast of rain today (let's hope) and to get in the car and drive to the office.  Where there is no planting to be had.  Holey guacamole.  The sheep will finally be sheared this Friday - poor babes are uncomfortable in the heat (as I predicted, we virtually skipped spring and catapulted into summer) with their woolies and blubber.  I still have to consult with my vet about how best to get Apria sheared.  She needs it, but is impossible to handle because of her blindness. 


There is also (good) news on the job front.  I think.  I will report on that in further detail, once I am sure.