Early August

The little guineas are still finding ways out of the chicken yard. I'm working on it. They're not quite two weeks old, and real feathers are already replacing the fuzz on their wings. I found them sunning and dusting in a striped heap on the old compost pile, while their parents worried a few feet away inside the chicken yard. Confident little fellows.

Em and Richard came up yesterday, delivering a teacher's desk and staying to haul the last of last year's beets and carrots from the basement. We shelled peas and talked about Em's Grandma Betty, who was an accomplished pea-sheller and a big nut. We miss her. They left with veggies for tortoises and for people.

C. canned a batch of dill pickles and two of green beans last night, and more beans and some carrots today. The pantry shelves are slowly filling up.

Pea and bean picking is a daily chore. Those vines are out there pumping out pods and seeds every day.  Little today, big tomorrow. Amazing.

The deer continue to nibble here and there, but nothing catastrophic since we flopped chicken wire over the cabbages and the lower row of pole beans. And recent rains have greened up the grass a bit, so maybe we'll get to harvest most of what we planted.

I've got rolls rising, and hope to have the first melty-parmesan-and-tomato sandwich of the summer before I fall asleep tonight. Mmmm.