Summer Fun

Summer is the annual permission slip to be lazy. To do nothing and have it count for something. To lie in the grass and count the stars. To sit on a branch and study the clouds.
— Regina Brett

Everything good, everything magical, happens between the months of June and August.
— Jenny Han

Summers had a logic all their own and they always brought something out in me. Summer was supposed to be about freedom and youth and no school and possibilities and adventure and exploration. Summer was a book of hope. That's why I loved and hated summers. Because they made me want to believe.
— Benjamin Alire Sáenz

The daughter and granddaughter visited a sunflower farm last weekend, and surprised me with a beautiful bouquet of sunflowers. I love flowers – it made my heart do a happy dance.

Last week was a shorter week of babysitting – I had Monday off because it was a holiday. And unfortunately, the weather wasn’t much improved, so most of our activities were indoors, except for Wednesday.

Wednesday, my sister (who lives in Hamilton) came down for the day, bringing with her her daughter (my niece) and granddaughter (my great-niece). There’s about a 3 year age difference between the granddaughter and the great-niece, but they got along pretty well. Mostly.

One of the things they got along with was playing in the pool:

The granddaughter, as I’ve mentioned before, swims like a fish. The great-niece . . . not so much. She wasn’t very comfortable in the pool – she’s only had a couple of swimming lessons – and she’s never been as comfortable in the water as the granddaughter. But then again, who is? LOL

We have several flotation devices – the giant unicorn pictured above, pool noodles, pool noodle chairs, and a couple of inner-tube like donuts – but the only one the great-niece felt comfortable trying out was the inflated target for the water darts game:

My sister wanted to check out my gardens while she was here. There wasn’t much to see really, but I did point out the reason I didn’t have any green beans yet. I’ve been invaded:

That is a Japanese beetle, which has been the scourge of home gardeners everywhere this year. They’re part of the scarab family of beetle, and kind of pretty, but they’re also relentless. You see the way they turn leaves into skeletons.

Their favorite plants seem to be roses and string beans, although they don’t seem to care for tomatoes, peppers, or lettuce. And their grubs will attack the roots of many plants too.

As for the rest of my vegetable garden. Well, you can sort of see the carrots, struggling for space, and half a row of lettuce, but I defy you to pick out the tomato plants from among the beans:

I planted what I thought were bush beans at the back of the garden, and planted my tomatoes in front of them. By the time I discovered that they were pole beans, it was too late, they’d already tethered themselves to the tomato cages and were taking over. *sigh*

The single cherry tomato plant I have was planted at the edge of the garden, so it seems to be doing well, but the rest of my tomatoes? Who knows. I’ve been able to poke through the bean plants enough to see that I’ve got a few green tomatoes, but whether they’ll ripen or not while hidden away is anyone’s guess.

Other highlights from my gardens included the pond garden:

And the coleus that have taken over Kelsey Park:

Up on the deck we have a yellow rose that was originally a miniature rose that I bought a couple of years ago, kept in the house until it was all but dead, and then stuck outside to see what would happen to it.

And last but not least is the deck pot that the hubby fills with flowers for me every mother’s day. This year’s batch apparently really likes the wet weather we’ve been having:

Glad someone does!