monday's mountain musings

Ahhh, summer is most certainly in full  swing now and we are in a hot, dry spell here  as is  much  of the country. Most out door work is getting done in the early mornings or in the evening when the  sun has gone down, while the heat of the day is spent staying cool or  something that resembles cool and comfortable anyway as there is no central air in this house  nor a  window room  air conditioner. We  use one single box fan and it works pretty well for us. I must admit that I sort of chuckle to myself when I hear people "dying  without their air conditioners." What in pray tell would they do if the electric grid was to go down in the mid summer heat?

The gardens are getting dry but seem to be doing mostly well  over all. Japanese beetles are into  a patch or two of beans but I figure so long as they stay there then they can munch all they want. The beans are formed  and grown and are just starting to dry on the vines  so in some ways are making my job easier when it comes to picking time. A couple okra plants in one area have been chewed by deer but it is only a couple plants and we have okra in many different locations this year because last season the deer ate the majority of the okra  as it was only in two locations, this year it is in 7 different places. The tomatoes have had some white fly issues but I think they are going to be ok as I have been  mixing up a potion and applying it to the plants and of course the tobacco is having its normal aphid  and bug issues but nothing too major. I do have an update coming on the gardens but the camera has been rather persnickity the last couple days and does not want to download the pictures.

We dug up the rest of the potatoes this last weekend and had a decent harvest of them. we did have something chewing on them though in the ground and large pieces were gone from many. I do not know what did this but it was obviously gnawed on. I took some pics but of course they are on the camera so  I will be doing a post on them soon. We canned up 20 quarts  of small potatoes, those that got jabbed with the pitchfork  or gnawed on and have the remainder curing for storage.

Gumbalina is fixin to be 5 months old next week  and is getting  to be a big girl, 13.5 pounds and 24 inches long at her last check up in mid June. She is trying to crawl around now although she doesn't do a real good job of it. I its more like a really bad headstand  from what I have seen of her. She has found out that her feet fit nicely in to her mouth and every picture I have seen of her in the last week or two has her stuffing them into her face.