early bird

The nice thing about weekends is that you can either sleep in late and feel wonderful and relaxed, or get up early and feel wonderful and production. Either way is great. Today I'm trying for both!

Woke up early and did some work on the massive archiving project. Then before it got hot, I went out and did some more weed whacking. I couldn't do as thorough a job as Georg because my reach isn't as long, and I missed a few spots. But, I did as much as I could. Then I went up to the top of the bank and weeded around the roses. Without the weed whacker, of course!

The roses are looking really good. It's kind of amazing, considering how little care they get up there. We've never sprayed or dusted them, just frequent watering when they first went into the ground, and now we water them if it doesn't rain for more than a week. By rose standards that's pretty much total neglect, and these guys look great. Antique roses are great! A touch of black spot here and there, nothing to worry about. And no pests -- knock on wood, Japanese beetle season has just started. They're all growing like gangbusters. Awakening is the biggest, it has a cane that's almost five feet tall! None are in bloom right now but they're all supposed to be repeat bloomers, and I hope we'll see more flowers later in the year.

The vegetable garden is looking good, although some blasted rodent has dug up a huge hole right near one of the tomatoes. I guess I should have laid mesh down at the bottom of the raised bed. I meant to do that at the outset, but it slipped my mind. Anyway, otherwise things are looking good. The zucchini is going out of control. We're already at the stage where we could eat zucchini every day and not keep up with it. And it's only June!

The tomato plants are also huge -- well, at least the hybrids are. The heirlooms are tiny pathetic little things. I keep trying to grow heirloom tomatoes, and they thumb their fuzzy green noses at me year after year. They look stunted in early summer, and then when they finally start to grow, it gets so hot that they wilt and produce little (if any) fruit. I dunno what's up with that.

I picked a carrot this morning! I thought it was a decent size, but it was pale and not very sweet. I guess I need to let them ripen more. Maybe they need more sun too. The monster zucchini is kind of covering up the carrots. Maybe I should cut the zucchini back a bit. It could lose a few leaves and not even slow down.

After the yardwork I cleaned up and did some more on the massive archiving project. And by the time I had done enough for the day, it was only noon! Now I'm chilling and watching Ninja Warrior. With the lights out and the windows open, the house is nice and cool. I think I'm going to relax for the rest of the day.