First Firefly

I saw my first firefly tonight.

I love, love, love gardening in June. It's been cool, warm, wet, and dry at all the right times. Wahoo! Weeds haven't settled in, strawberry plants are producing like crazy (5 pints of freezer jam packed away today!), and pretty much everything I plan to grow this year is already in the garden beds. Ta da! Lots of time to sit back and enjoy.

Just a few issues, though:

Cedar Apple Rust: a mold afflicting my apple tree leaves again this year. Last year, I plucked the leaves with early signs of infection and the rest of the tree never caught it. I'm doing the same this year.

Green Aphids: again, the apple trees. Green aphids are sucking plant juices out of several leaves and causing them to curl up all wrinkly. There's a healthy host of ants "farming" these aphids for their butt sap. I'm still looking for non-toxic and organic methods for dealing with this situation.

Bunnies: I've kept them out of the garden beds this year with my tent contraption setup (pictures to come), but one bunny has taken a liking to eating fruit tree bark...again, poor apple tree.

That whole tent contraption setup ("squirrel exclosure") has been an interesting series of experiments and trials. I'm still not completely satisfied, but it's doing its job in a semi-pretty way and I'm grateful for that. I'll have to post some pictures for you.

Neighbor's new fence: *sigh* Remember when I was all tied up in knots about the neighbor's plans to put a new fence up? We talked about it, and I told them what I would prefer, and they ended up replacing PART of the fence with another split rail cedar fence *sigh*. That's NOT what I preferred. The overgrown grapevine and 6-foot high honeysuckle plants are still alive and kicking on the original, wobbly, carpenter-bee-infested fence. I'm so bothered by that decision that I've decided to mow over any grapevines the trail onto my grass this year. A burly, overgrown grapevine will only be helped by a little peripheral pruning. I've got to figure out my own grape plan...but that's for another year.

Bramble patch in the works: sort of. There's a buried gas line I need to be wary of. We had the trees removed and now the front yard looks pretty rough with all of my gardening/building junk exposed. Gotta make a trip to the dump.

Broken eggs: I've had a rash of broken eggs in the coop over the last couple weeks. It's hard to tell if the eggs are just getting roughed up accidentally or if some hen is actively pecking on them. This is something I'll be watching more closely in the near future. I have finally figured out which hen lays which colored eggs, though. Penny and Spot lay the pale brown eggs, Roo and Toe lay the darker brown eggs. It's interesting that each hen is "best friends" with the hen that lays eggs like her own. Coincidence? Hmmmmm.