Summer is bad for my blogging and other excuses

Actually, I have no other excuses. Summer has been pretty demanding. We have been busy being busy and hot and humid and cousin-y and gardening and dentist appointments and watering flowers and mowing and jam-making and, and. It seems like this is what I look forward to all winter, and now, I just get so busy doing everything that I don't really ever enjoy any particular thing as much as I wanted to.

Someday, I will have maids and nannys (or more realistically, the kids will grow up) and I will devote my summer to projects., such as growing the perfect flowers instead of a wild cacophony of plants that strike my fancy and are all dumped together, with wilting window boxes that foolishly depend on me to remember they need water.

And I will make the perfect jam. So far I am zero for two. The first one was rock hard, the second blackberry-blueberry was slightly soupy. I think it was because I dumped in some frozen blueberries because I didn't have quite enough blackberries. It is a really good ice cream topping. I think it will be scrumptious on pancakes too. Hmmm.... I seem to have said that before. The pectin ones went MUCH better. I am now the proud possessor of mango-raspberry and kiwi jams that ARE jams.  Sweet accomplishment.

It has been hot here. Not as bad as the midwest, but still hot. The other day it was 90 with 93% humidity. I wanted to crawl up to Hudson Bay and hibernate until October. I have been totally whiney about the heat. I want 70's with occasional breezy days in the 80's. Until then, I guess I will have to sit in front of my fan and hope for the best. Our AC cheerfully broke last week. It probably knew how much I would overwork it now and decided to take an early retirement. Smart thing.

Clover and the kids have been up since Saturday and will be here until Friday. Lots of cousin time! Of course, they are overtired, overheated cousins, so the time isn't as quality as it could be. They are still having barrels of fun. It is amazing how furiously mad they can be with each other and yet sob when mothers start interfering and tell them to go do separate things. We had to come home mid-afternoon today for Gilbert's speech therapist, so we are having a little down time, with Gilbert and Lily napping and Orianna looking at books.

Now, since I am so behind with pictures, I am going to put up a lot of random pictures of the past month.
There are a lot of flowers. Get over it. You know you love them. And some were taken by Olivia. Get over copyright infringement too!

My roses. They are looking sadder now.

My windowboxes that should be glorious by now, but are limp and wilted due to lack of consistent water.

I saw this flower while I was walking one morning. I had to go back that afternoon and take pictures of it! Some kind of wild lily. 

Brad, our worker, and Justin weeding the corn.

Grass by Olivia

This is Brad, dancing with the scythe. Some old hippie that Justin bought some lawn tractor parts off was in the paper about doing a scythe demonstration. He said it was an art. "If you aren't dancing with the scythe, you might as well put it down." So Brad and Justin were giving it a go for the fun of it. I think they caught the rhythm.

Lettuce

Peas

Our other lettuce. It has lasted really well. The head lettuce is all wilted and gone, but this stuff is still super! And the sad thing is, I can't remember what it was called....

Union meeting under the trees. Well AFTER union meeting. :-)

Good daddies taking the kids to see cows.

Lily and Ethan

Goofy kids with Owen taking off in the background.

Owen and Ashley drove all the way to Vermont on this for the 4th. Ashley said it wasn't quite as comfy as it could have been. 

A snapper

Watching the turtle from a safe distance

George looks like he is just LOOKING for a reason to fight this thing.

Owen

Ethan and I playing the piano.