Makin hay, with a side of bacon

This weekend, we had appropriate-to-the-Northern-Hemisphere temps for June, sun and everything! It was a marvel. We spent a good chunk gardening outside (Husbandman is mad for weeding, thankfully, I just like to tidy... compulsively), but squeezed in some wandering time too. We took a nice drive into town and had an awesome lunch of chicken gyros and humus that we shared with Sae. We did a tiny bit of thrifting, but that was cut short by a colossal Toddler Shit Fit. Squidge was off camping with a friend for the weekend, so we were able to deal with tantrums and naps this weekend a bit more smoothly. Mostly mine, but Jellybean had a few impressive fits, herself!

We also drove out to a local nursery, Thompson's, and browsed around. We're on the quest for an affordable camellia - I think we're SOL, but it's fun to hunt around and enjoy all of the plants. Plus, nursery workers are awesome people. I love plant folks. While we didn't find our lusted-after Yuletide camellia, we did find a couple of cheap mint plants and some ridiculously cheap veggie starts. We went home with a morroccan mint, an apple mint, three sugar pie pumpkins, and what Prof Husbandman thought were more pumpkins... but were in fact, UFO summer squash! BWAHAHA.
See, it's funny because I've been forbidden to have more than one zuke plant, which I do already, and most cucurbit (see: pumpkin, squashes, cuke) starts look pretty much the same at the secondary leaf growth stage.
I grew up around plant dorks, I blame them.

Our backyard seen from upstairs, south-facing of course. Apples and veg at the back.

So far this year, we've weeded, pruned all of the apple trees (7 in all, one giant old gravenstien that you don't see here - that one took three full days to prune up), made a veggie bed kind of shaped like a mirror image of Oklahoma, a triangularish ornamental bed, and the Old Man is making a bed out front. That one is weird, kind of a berm of clippings and compost and lawn clods, he claims he's going to put japanese maples and magnolias atop it. Odd man, that one. I have no idea why he wants to do it that way, but it keeps him off the streets, so I ain't complainin'.

Here's a labeled view of our veggies. I neglected to capture the Pumpkin Panhandle off to the left, but we have some. YAY.

click to make with the big

Here is our new ornamental bed, again with labels. Aside from the buddleia and the columbine, I have no permanent plans here. I really look forward to the now-tiny butterfly bush to grow into its full 8 foot purple glory of honey-drenched-smelling deliciousness. I can just imagine, a warm summer day, the buddleia in full bloom casting a nice shadow over the kitchen, windows of the house open, then a breeze hits and everything smells like it's covered in powdery honey pixie dust. Loooooooooooove.

clicky clicky click

Otherwise, for now, I am enjoying these...

peonies, my absolute fave

delicate indigo Japanese irises, hooray!

June! You are off to a wonderful start. Every now and then I'm discouraged with what feels like too-slow or absolutely NO progress on the house and yard, but then the sun hits the front of the house, and I forget that stupid bullshit and enjoy the cute little bungalow for what it is right now.

Yeah buddy

I mean, what's not to like? Weeds happen. All this hard work is paying off, and it no longer looks like meth heads are using this as a cook house. We are making a difference. It IS getting better. We ARE working our asses off.

And my husband IS an excellent gardener (all of the shaping and weeded prettiness there is aaaaaaaaaaaall him). Life is most definitely good!