July 23

Storms have come back in, dumping a lot of rain, and unlike last year, we haven't had a big heat wave touching 100F. I don't have a lot of corn, but what is there is not very tall and is blowing over in these storms, and I have to go pile dirt around each stalk after each storm. It's marginally annoying. The sweet corn farm up the road has put their signs out and they're selling for six dollars for a baker's dozen. We got some and boiled it up, and it's sweet and wonderful. I like to grill it and put  a little black char to the outside.

Midsummer prairie - aster, black eyed susans, compass plants, and goldenrod.

We have raspberries coming out of our ears. The plants are more productive than I've ever seen. Every day we can go out and pick a nice cereal bowl full of berries. I might need to make jam just to use some of them up. Blackberries, as well, are putting out huge, juicy, acidic clumps of fruit.

The japanese beetles are now starting to slowly show up.

I tried to start some fall cabbage and broccoli again this year, outside in little pots, and the seedlings again either drowned, got nibbled by insects, or baked in the hot sun. I know one year I will accept that I just have to do them indoors, either in the basement or in the shed I want to put up this summer.

I rode past a big fallen branch from a poplar tree yesterday that had been sitting for a while and I could smell the dead leaves. It was the smell of autumn. Of football season, chilly and wet mornings, raking, and crock pots. It was a fragrant glimpse of what's to come soon.