Rain at last!

 Today we are celebrating a half inch of rain that came in the thunderstorm in the middle of the night. It was the first measurable precipitation we’d had since May 22. That’s a long time without rain in these parts, and the 90°F temperatures didn’t help. At least it was a bit cooler this week. Now that we’ve had the rain, though, it’s not only hotter but wickedly humid. Ah well. At least we got some rain.

Jane had her shoulder replaced on June 8. Since we now have extra room, she stayed upstairs while she learned to do all her self-care with only her left hand. Skippy came to visit as well, since he couldn’t stay at home by himself. We thought that he would spend more time out of the cage upstairs with Jane than he does with us when he comes to stay with us while Jane goes to Florida. It turned out, however, that he was no more inclined to behave himself with Jane that with us and was quickly bored with sitting on Jane’s lap and started crawling under the chairs and pulling at the stuffing. So it was back in the kennel for him. Sometimes, though, he relaxed on the coffee table, presumably because the glass was cooler than other surfaces.

Skippy lounging on the coffee table

The chicks are growing fast, as they always do. Their wing and tail feathers are coming in, which means they will be flying all over the place soon and will need their wings clipped. Now that the ground has some moisture, we can install the chick fence and let them out into the run. That will give me an opportunity to replace the pine chips inside the coop, not that it needs it. In this picture, you can see that the Dominique (black) is quite a lot smaller than the meat chickens (tan). Every time I look or—God forbid—step into the coop, they all crowd into the corner farthest from where I am. They don’t call them chickens for nothing.

Rapidly growing chicks cowering in the corner of the coop

The outside garden is coming along. Meanwhile, the high tunnel is amazingly productive. I expect much of it is beginner’s luck. I am astounded at how many cucumbers we are getting. I have one of the plants trellised to string over a purlin. The idea is to use string that is made of natural fiber, in this case cotton, so that at the end of the season, I can cut the string and compost the whole shebang.

Cucumber trellised on a string hung over a purlin

The high tunnel carrots could be harvested any time, but I think I’ll wait until they are a little bigger.

The first high tunnel carrot

The Early Girl tomato has considerable foliage. I’ll have to do some pruning soon. It also has golf-ball-sized green tomatoes. I eagerly await them turning red.

Early Girl tomato plant

Here’s the peach tree.

High tunnel peach tree

The cherry took so long to leaf out that we feared it was dead, but it did eventually show some green.

The not-so-leafy cherry tree

The zucchini and watermelon are going crazy, especially the watermelon. I am considering trellising some of the shoots. I don’t think the string would support a melon. My plan would be to cut the flowers off those shoots so that their energy would go to the fruits developing on the ground. It will be a learning experience.

Zucchini and watermelon spreading everywhere

The first baby watermelon

I think it was last year that I mentioned the sexual dysfunction of my zucchini. Once again, the female flowers developed first. This is bad because if they aren’t pollinated, they get about 3” long and then rot if they are not picked promptly. It would make so much more sense for the male flowers to open first. As we say in the business, pollen is cheap and eggs (or fruits in this case) are expensive. All the wasted resources in the virgin zucchinis! I noticed this morning the we finally have some male flowers, so I can let the fruits get bigger now before harvest.

Finally, a pollinated zucchini

My main activity outside the high tunnel is pulling weeds right now. That is how I usually spend June. The weeds don’t seem daunted by the drought at all. Maybe now that we’ve had some rain, the fireflies will come out. Also the mosquitoes, but they aren’t as fun.