Lots of things happened on Monday. Rachel, Tabor, and Hazel left that morning. Their visit was too short. Now the house seems empty and too quiet. On Monday I went with Hannah to her Freshman Orientation at Alfred State University. We were there most of the day. She got to see what her dorm will be like. She registered for classes. They served us lunch. Hannah says that after orientation she feels less nervous. She may feel better prepared now, but I don’t. Her move in date is August 20th. I know she’ll only be 40 minutes away, but I’m not ready for this.
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| After church last Sunday. |
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| Our last night of playing games together. |
On Monday our baby turkeys began to hatch. The hen has been sitting on eggs for so long we decided the eggs were no good and were going to take them away. But that very day an egg hatched. And on Tuesday another hatched. She was sitting on more than a dozen eggs but only two hatched and she’s off the nest now, so I guess that’s it for baby turkeys this year. Now the trick is keeping the two poults from killing themselves. Baby turkeys are notorious for finding the most unusual ways of getting themselves killed.
On Friday Josiah and I moved the chicks (the chicken chicks, not the turkey poults) into bigger quarters in the barn. They are fledging now and have outgrown the cage they were in. We won’t be able to put them in with big flock until autumn.
I worked all week in the gardens. I kept to my weeding schedule, but the weeds are so rambunctious that it almost seems futile. Of course if I were to stop weeding, we’d be up to our ears in weeds in no time. To make it even harder, the weed-whacker is broken so the big areas I usually whack down have to be cut by hand.
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| Pompom poppies. |
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| Garden. |
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| The currants are almost ripe. |
One of the places I usually use the weed-whacker is around the beehive. That area is overrun with sunchokes that quickly grow to five and six feet. I have to keep them trimmed away from the front of the hive platform. Without the weed-whacker, I have to use trimming shears and that takes longer, which gives the bees more time to get irritated at me. I couldn’t put it off any longer and on Thursday I donned my bee suit and cut down the offending sunchokes. As I was working, the bees were strangely calm. I finished in about ten minutes and they never bothered me at all. Later that day as I was weeding a vegetable bed out in the orchard, I heard the sound of bees swarming. I ran to check and, sure enough, my bees were swarming. That’s why they were so calm – half of them were getting ready to leave. I tried to follow the swarm, but it flew across the road, over the beaver pond and toward the woods. There was nothing I could do. Then the next day, on Friday, the bees swarmed again. This swarm flew off in the same direction. Two swarms in two days. I don’t know why they made two new queens. Even with two swarms leaving, the hive seems full of bees and they are very active. These bees are very strange. I just hope that after all the trouble they’ve been, they give me some good honey.
We picked our first big mess of peas last week. I’ve been nibbling at peas for a while now, but finally there were enough ready to do a big harvest. The Shilligs also have a big pea patch and they aren’t home, so I picked their peas too. I love fresh peas. I like to eat them raw right from the pods, but I love them most steamed and buttered.
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| Peas on the vines. |
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| Peas in the bowl. |
The thyme in my garden is blooming now. It has almost overgrown the stone path that passes through it. Hannah and Josiah always go crazy with punning when the thyme is blooming. They walk through the path and say “Look, I’m passing through thyme.” Or they pick some and say, “I’ve got thyme on my hands.” Or they’ll stand on the path and say “I’m standing still in thyme.” Such funny children. They crack me up.
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| Thyme in bloom. |
Yesterday was Josiah’s birthday. He turned 16. I can’t believe that the youngest of our children is 16. He’s excited to get his learner’s permit now. That means he’ll be driving six months from now. I don’t think I’m quite ready for that yet. He had a fun birthday. He requested a tropical fruit birthday cake and his mother made it for him. It was delicious with orange, lemon, and pineapple in it. He got some nice gifts – money from Aunt Julie and Uncle Kurt, geeky tee shirts from Geoffrey and Joni, and some suits and a BB gun from the Missouri Shilligs. Perfect gifts for him.
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| Josiah and his tropical birthday cake. |
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| One of his geeky tee shirts. |
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| The new BB gun. |
It’s warm and humid today. A half inch of rain fell while we were at church (I checked my rain gauge when we got home). The air feels soft and heavy and the fragrance is wonderful. Humid air carries fragrances better than dry air. Today it smells like wet earth and trees and something green and sweet. Dinner is almost ready and after that I plan on taking a nap. We’re supposed to have thunderstorms this afternoon and tonight. I love days like this.
