Crash!

Yesterday afternoon, a sudden thunderstorm whipped up, and as the initial blast of wind came through, it snapped this limb off of the neighbor's ash tree, which landed, fortunately I guess, mostly on the strawberry bed. Though it did break the cover. We'll have to have a chat with the neighbors about getting it out of our yard, always awkward. That said, it is literal windfall, and I think we'll saw up and stack the larger pieces for firewood in two years.

Summer is short. I'm counting it down this year by my marathon training schedule. In just nine short weeks, it will be Sept. 23, and time to run the Ely Marathon. That'll mark the end of summer.

But before then, next week is going to fall on us like the flaming sword of the archangel Gabriel. 90's predicted all week, with just a few bouts of thunderstorms. It's going to be hot, and it is going to be dry. What I've noticed about the storms this year is that they only spit a little bit of water. It isn't enough to keep the beds damp and growing.

While the tomatoes are still a little behind, the zucchini & Hubbard squash are starting to produce. Actually, it is kind of amazing how much zucchini four plants can produce. It is already difficult to keep up. 

The yard continues to be a Disney Princess-esque paradise for wildlife. The bees are happy with all of the blossoms and the clover. There is a pair of robins nesting in the garage light once again. Gold finches have been sighted again flitting around the sunflowers. There was a lost frog attached to the sun shade on the deck this morning. And the bunnies. 

We had an incident on Friday. K. and I were walking the garden, admiring the pumpkin that is starting to turn orange, when we startled a tiny handful of a bunny which tried to flee us under the back fence. It didn't make it. It got stuck in the fence. K. sang a calming song to it, while I went for the tin snips in my usual calm way (Ha! I was running to the garage in a panic, repeating "Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no..."). We cut a couple of bits out of the fence and the bunny ran off, apparently unharmed. Sheesh.