A (Pretty Much) Perfect Day & a Short Tour of my Kitchen & Flower Gardens

It was a great day. It was one of those days that makes a month of, ahem, "challenging" days, worth it. ;)

In the morning, I watered the potted plants & deadheaded all of the flowers, including my vast number of daisies, which are by far my favorite for their simplicity, cheerfulness, & resiliency.

One of my double-day lilies. As much as I love all of the single day lilies that I have so many more of, these are a rare treat.

Elegant & beautiful. Day lilies. Hardy, non-invasive native or non-native plants are all you'll find in my flower beds. No invasive species here!

In the afternoon, I taught my 8 year old daughter the difference between a weed (grass & clovers) & a veggie or herb plant (basil, beans, cilantro, dill) & she happily & proudly partially weeded one of my raised beds. :) She'd hand off the weeds to my 2 year old son who'd happily run them down to the chickens - even managing to open & shut the door of the run all by himself!! (Proud Mama moments all around!!) :)

Here are several of our 12 week old chicks, happily munching away on their treat of garden weeds.

Later in the afternoon, I painted a good portion of the window & door trim on the exterior of the house while the kids played with the chickens & the pup.

The calm of the day was broken by a screech from my son.

Parents - you know "that" scream. There's "Stop bothering me!!," "I want that toy, give it to me!!" and then there's, "I'm hurt." This was a true "ouchie" screech. :(

Now since its been so muggy, the kids have chosen to spend their outside play time in the shade of their sandbox, the afternoon shade of their swings, or their pool as opposed to their clubhouse, so no one noticed when yellow jackets decided to move in to their clubhouse. (We've also never had an issue with yellow jackets in the 5+ years we've been here...) My son, in all of his 2-going-on-3 cheerfulness & playful glee disturbed their nest & got a nice bite on his cheek for it. :(

Fortunately he's not allergic (he's never been stung before!) so he just had a slightly swollen cheek & he bounces back quickly, & he was back to happily screeching while chasing after his big sister in no time.  :)  I was able to finish the painting & most of the weeding.  Happy kids, happy Mama!!  :)

While rain is a great thing for a garden, 5 days of non-stop pouring rain, a day or two to dry out, then another week of rain is nothing but paradise for slugs. I've never had an issue with slugs until this year but I knew that setting out beer traps would take care of them, however with so much rain falling every day I knew the traps would just overflow & dilute the beer & I doubted they'd catch anything. Above is my one remaining cucumber plant, the short, sad specimen that she is, bearing flowers. We'll see what happens. The slugs killed all of the rest, at least a dozen others. I replanted the area with peppers & tomatoes instead of more cukes.



My little man hanging out in the shade of the lilac bushes while I weeded.



We always have enough thyme, but never enough time...  ;)




One of our four little yellow squashes & the plants are promising more!  I'm not a fan of the heat, but these gals love it.  :)



One of our five varieties of lettuce.  They're doing better than they've ever done before!  Guess the trick is to buy transplants, not start from seeds.  ;)



They weren't quite ready for July 4th, but it was close!



Grasshopper on some beautiful lettuce.



So THIS is where the phrase "dog tired" comes from.  ;)  A very satisfied pup snuggling with her human brother's stuffed animal.

All in all, it was the best day we've had in a while.  :)  The memories of this day will get me through more challenging, chaotic days to come.