High summer

Harvest season is kicking into high gear now.  Strawberries and asparagus have come and gone, and now we're in the height of blueberry and sweet cherry season, with a sprinkling of black raspberries and the first of the peaches coming in.  I'm freezing and vacuum-packing as much of this wonderful fresh fruit as I can manage in preparation for this upcoming winter.  Last year I felt like I didn't put up nearly enough... we ended up buying a lot of not-very-locally-grown pineapples this past winter to satisfy our cravings for fresh fruit.

I'm in the middle of a very busy, long work week... I picked up some overtime hours, and shortly after was offered the opportunity to audit an ATLS course (a trauma course for physicians)... I couldn't turn that down.  I'm desperate to get into the trauma bay at work, and this is a big step towards that.  So what if it means working 64 hours this week, right?!

The garden is going nuts.  The pumpkins are becoming problematic.  I knew I'd planted them kinda close together... but damn.  They're climbing over the fence, wrapping themselves around the tomatoes, and even the potatoes, which are two beds away!  I'm just hoping we get a decent harvest from these unruly beasts, who seem to have no sense of boundaries.

The three ducklings that survived their first week of life without getting snatched up by a predator are getting so big already.  We moved them into the chicken tractor with Coyote, and moved the chickens back into their fenced run for now.  As much as I hate confining them, it was very clear that they needed some protection from hungry wild critters until they're big enough to scurry away in a timely fashion.

Hubbybunch made friends with this beautiful creature last week.  The cecropia moth is apparently the largest moth in North America!  Its fuzzy bonkers were enough to make me melt.  So cute.