And just like that it's almost the end of June. Aside from picking snow peas and shelling peas, we are at the in between time of harvesting things.
Which to be honest, is kinda nice. Because there is always a surplus of to do's to get done during the summer months, so along with all the transplanting, seeding, weeding, and fertilizing chores, we've been doing a ton of cleaning, mowing, farm building and vehicle maintenance, and a ton of other things.
Because we are taking a sabbatical from large livestock, all the fields needed to be mowed before the knapweed bloomed. The hubs has been out with the tractor brush hogging the fields. This development has made the wild turkeys quite pleased, and I have enjoyed wandering through the freshly mowed fields and gazing upon the endless flocks of wild birds enjoying the seed heads and exposed grasshoppers.
In about two weeks time or so, depending on the heat, we will be cutting and drying the lavender crop. This year we also added a ton of other flowers for cutting and drying, and my first flush of sunflowers is getting close to blooming.
Cutting and drying flowers is a thing. You have to cut them at just the right time if you want them to dry nicely (i.e. not fall apart, retain their color, etc.). Around the same time the lavender crop is being harvested, it looks like I will have quite a lot of sunflowers and strawflowers to harvest too.
I am not sad about this.
In fact, I was pretty darn elated as I wandered around checking the eventual blooming status of it all. Well, that and I was sweet pea stoned. I swear, all it takes is one huff of a sweet pea bloom and I am in a good mood for days....
That and a obligatory gaze upon the amaranth. The burgundy color slays me!
But I am always brought back down to earth by a quick glance at the zucchini plants. There are little baby zukes present already, which means my work load is going to be spectacular right after the fourth of July.
Thank the stars for the potatoes! Any time I feel the crush of harvest work upon my being, I just glance at my potato plants and smile. I love how they have to hang out and cure in the ground for a bit. Or in the bag. My bag growing experiment potatoes look right nice these days:
Speaking of nice looking things, one of the last things I see before I go into the house for the night is my rose bush the fam got me.
And on that note I'm outta here, there's buds, blooms, and a cornucopia of the homesteading things to tend to!
And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's in need of a camera lens cleaning and currently sweat pea scented iPhone. The text divider image was made in Canva.