Under the wire

Just noticed that I have not posted once in June, despite it being a perfectly lovely month in which many good things happened.

Kicked it off with a visit to Temp in her new digs. She took us to the licorice store, an awesome street market, the Nebraska store with its incredible selection of Nebraska wine (don't laugh), several nifty beer joints, and The World's Most Homoerotic State Capitol. There was also a little gardening in what locals seem to consider soil but I know as modeling clay.

Hit the lake for the first time this year for a rainy weekend with the folks. It dried out long enough for us to go on a few good walks and for my dad and I to fail to catch any fish. We did, however, have a splendid bird-watching excursion from the boat, so let's just pretend that was the point.

Last weekend was the Minnesota wine tour! Yay! A bunch of us squished into J & TSB's minivan (thanks again for driving, J!) and drove around the southeastern part of the state drinking wine. Beautiful vineyards and sparkly shirts abounded. Couldn't have been nicer, even down to the dramatic thunderstorms on the return trip.

The garden is going well. I built a raised bed for the tomatoes this year and filled it with mostly compost, so I have huge, beefy, mutant plants. Whee! Since Ken retired this year, he's growing his own. It feels very strange to only have five tomato plants instead of my usual 15 or so. The snap peas have been weird this year. The plants only got about a foot high. They still gave me peas, but on these tiny, spindly little vines. For the first year since I put them in, I'm getting a bountiful blueberry harvest. Oh, so tasty. Now I'm wobbling again on whether to move them. They just finally started producing well, so it seems a shame to dig them up! Accidentally bought bush beans instead of pole (oh seductive purple, why could I not read the packaging beyond your allure?). The poor zone 5 peach tree is still with me, but the center keeps dying off every year, so it's weird and sprawly and completely lopsided. I'm sure I could fix some of that with pruning, if only I had a clue how to do it properly and what to take out (though there's really no pruning that can balance out an empty center). But it did bloom this year, which was pretty damn cool.

Also, bought a reel mower. I should really do a product review of that soon -- it's nifty, but does have some issues.