And back to hot! A general update.

Well, summer hit hard last week. Lots of temps in the upper 80s. The garden is loving the heat but isn’t so happy about the complete absence of rain. It’s a bit disturbing how dry we are so early in the summer. The catchment basin, which normally holds water until mid-August, is almost totally dry. More a stinky mud pit than a shallow pond. I doubt the wood frogs had a chance to develop from tadpoles, poor things.

Chris did a hive check on the new bees and all appears well. He’s got capped cells in the frames and they are actively working all day. My tomatillos are starting to flower and the last bees adored them. Hopefully these guys will like them too as I purposely planted three near the hive.

The wee chicks are 11 weeks old and running around the fruit pasture like crazy things. The older flock is paying more attention to them through the fencing and I’m going to try to integrate them next week. As this is my first time combining flocks I’m more than a bit nervous. 

Chris continues to make great progress on the upstairs railing. We’ve poured black colored resin into the cracks and voids in the two cherry newel posts, stained the middle pine posts black, and stained all the panel wood black as well. The bottom support rail is in ash and we’ve burned it like the dining room table top (which I just realized I never posted about). We’ll do the same to the ash rail cap. He’s got to cut the goat panel to size, I’ll paint it, then it’s on to assembly. 

NY is now in phase 3 reopening although most the rest of the country continues to see rising COVID-19 cases. Hopefully we continue our favorable trend. Our favorite restaurant is reopening this week and we’ve decided it’s time to venture out. We’ll use only the outdoor seating and hope for the best.

Dad has spent the last two weeks in South Carolina getting his new house prepped for his moving in. His house up here closes soon and I’ll be heading south to help him get settled. We’ll definitely miss having him so close but I totally understand the desire to get away from our hard winters.

working on the railing