Happiness!

We found a great little farm/orchard about 15 minutes from us loaded with plants, produce, dairy/baked/pantry goods, locally made meads and wines!  AND they have a coffee shop in the local town that shows food films on the regular, has bluegrass/folk bands each weekend and is BYOB.  We might even roll on over there this evening to check it out.  This sounds like the kind of place where we might meet like-minded local folks. 

Today I mowed between the garden beds with the push-reel mower.  The grass around here is absurdly long (really too long for the push-reel mower, honestly) because the gasoline mower is in the shop being fixed... so, we're rocking the whole meadow-in-the-backyard thing until we get it back.  But I HAD to mow between the garden beds before they got taken over again.  I also weeded all four of them and mulched the strawberry bed (well, most of it.  I underestimated how much mulch we'd need and didn't quite have enough licorice root to cover the whole bed, much less all four...).

We let the ducks swim about in the pond, much to their delight.  We cooked some veggie burgers on the grill, and even ate some potato chips with them.  We opened the hive for inspection and found a healthy, thriving colony... even watched a few baby bees chewing their way out of their beeswax nursery cells!  We added the second hive body to give them more room.  Peonies, roses, and many iris are in bloom... It really feels like summer.

This evening a friend came over with a photographer for her maternity photo shoot, and it was a simply beautiful day for it.  I took some photos too!