I checked on our other two hives, one located at picket fence creamery, and one at raccoon forks farm in redfield. They are both doing GREAT!

(footwear of choice of pink-haired beekeepers). By the way, donning jeans, hi-tops, a long sleeved button up shirt, hat, veil, and gloves in 97 degree heat and 115 degree heat index? Is HOT.

Swiss chard is so pretty!

Tomatillos!

The garden is loving the heat. We haven't watered ONCE during this heat wave.

Let me repeat that.

We haven't watered ONCE during this week long stretch of 95+ degree hear and heat indexes over 110 every day.

That, my friends, is the power of mulch, lasagna beds, and soil rich in organic matter.

Started harvesting a few veggies!

Ask Donna how much she likes figuring retail sales tax. Go ahead. I double dog dare you.

Making bath teas

Our rooster-that-was-supposed-to-be-a-layer started crowing yesterday. At Maggies house, in town. He was promptly relocated to a friendly farm outside of Madrid! Lucky fella... Gets to do what roosters were meant to do, with lots of lovely lady chickens!!!

A "cold front" moved through Thursday, bringing rain and temps "only" in the upper 80's yesterday. Donna and Cam took the opportunity to go puddle stomping. (note Cam's foot attire....cracks me up!)

After another HUGE morning downpour, we once again deemed it too wet to do much outdoors. That's ok... We had a busy day helping customers in the shop, filling a couple of wholesale orders, and trying to fill the shelves.

Veggies are enjoying the rain though.

I've never grown any brassicas, but these (heavily discounted clearance) veggie plants tempted me to try :)

And I'm I'n love with this beautiful plant! I don't know much about it. I believe it's called red sorrel, or blood sorrel? I'm
Not even sure if it's a perennial, or if I eat it like regular sorrel. But it's just so pretty I had to get it.

We are growing potatoes vertically. Or trying to anyway. We found some round wire cages on the curb this spring (yay curb crawling!) and got a ten lb bag of seed taters at an Amish store for $3.75. We shared the taters with our friend Becky, so we probably planted 6-7 lbs in five round cages. Put cardboard under the cages to supress weeds, threw the cut up seed potatoes on top, and covered with leaves and old straw. That's it! As the potato plants grow, we add more straw or old hay. I've covered them twice do far and as you can see they are ready for another layer.

Tomatoes are doing well, we will have to think about stringing them up soon.

This ambitious little pepper plant has a pepper on it already.

BABY PEACHES!!!

The very first St. Johns Wort blossoms!

Dante is a faithful (and talkative) garden helper.

The big, icky, super-duper sweaty project today was hauling lots of very heavy barn refuse (MAN those mini horses produce a lot of manure) out to the raspberry patch. Donna weeded, and Maggie mulched. It wasn't very hot - maybe lower 80's? - but the humidity was 91 percent and the sweat was literally dripping off us. Sweaty drippy manure-covered us. That's sexy farm life for ya. There's at least another 3/4 left to do, too. Here's hoping the berries are plentiful next year!!