water water everywhere

we have so much water in the rain barrel- i just let them play

 The gardens are on autopilot.  They've been planted and weeded a few times, mulched, or at least most of them have been.  The soil is warm, the rain falls, and everything grows just as it says it would.

The farmers in Minnesota- the real ones with hundreds of acres that is- not the eighth acre variety- are having a hard time getting crops in with all of the rain.  It seems that I hear or read one or two articles a week lately about how late the planting season has been, or how poor the outlook is for harvest this year.

raising kids and gardens in the city

do little boys ever get tired of playing in water?

We had some beautiful rainstorms this week- slow, steady rain with a few claps of thunder, but never enough to be scary or to even thing of going down to the basement.  No- just a nice soaking rain that fills the rain barrel and soaks everything evenly.  Just as I was beginning to wonder if the mid-summer dry spell was coming early.

what happens when the temperature hits 103F in minnesota

i

The Morden Blush roses seemed to thrive on the heat

I don't have to tell anyone that this has been a weird spring and summer in Minnesota.  For the whole country for that matter.  Almost-record setting snow, then a record-setting flood season, then a horrible record-setting tornado season (which has only begun) and now record heat, at least here in the Twin Cities.  The previous record for the day in the Twin Cities was 95.  But it was 103F on Tuesday- unbearably hot for a place that isn't really prepared for that sort of heat.

lush lush summertime

the kids in the pool in the front yard

Summer really truly doesn't start for 18 more days, but this feels like the real thing.  Memorial day weekend is over, and I've heard that meterological summer starts on June 1st, and that feels right to me.  There's never been a frost recorded in the Twin Cities in June- I think the last one was on May 28th or 29th.  So it may as well be summer.