72 and so humid this morning, cloudy and the threat of rain became reality in the afternoon. It's still raining as I write this, a blessing we have come to appreciate after the heat and drought of the past month.
I finished up my string-trimming work this morning before the rain came, and am glad I did as the grass was so thick I had to go back over it three times to get it cut properly. I had planned to do it yesterday, but my oldest neighbor came down for a visit which was a really nice treat. Then in the evening as I was preparing to get started, another neighbor dropped by bringing a big box of cabbages that she'd gotten free from someone and didn't need. We were planning to make kraut with our cabbages so these were prefect timing.
Deer have been in my big flowerbed again, this time nipping off some new coneflower plants. Makes me so mad but right now I don't have any deterrent. I'll be figuring that out soon. They also got into Larry's pumpkin patch which he'd just removed the plastic netting from so they could spread out. He was aggravated for sure. So the netting went back up in a different configuration to keep the deer out. I know most people think deer are beautiful, and they are, I admit---but I really dislike them anymore because of the damage they cause to gardens and shrubs. They have all the rest of our place to roam, you'd think they could let our little piece of it alone.
So this afternoon after we finished our mowing and trimming, we got to work on the cabbages.
We ended up with 13 quarts. These are lightly capped and are now in the workroom to ferment for 21 days or so before being re-capped and processed. We were down to our last quart of kraut so we're happy to have this new batch on the way.
Today is our youngest son's birthday. He lives in Miami with his family, and we miss him so much.
We'd planned to visit in the spring but the virus has prevented that. I am hopeful that we might see him sometime before the end of the year, but not banking on it. What a disappointment this year has been. We have not seen him or our oldest son since Thanksgiving.
This evening is dark and wet, a good evening for being inside. Maybe I'll finish my book, Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford. It's been a good read and I will be sad when it ends.
I'm really enjoying the rain here too. We've had two days of good rain & we expect more today. Then the super high heat & humidity come back.
ReplyDeleteI'm right there with you on the deer. Goodness I dislike them so much. We have too many homes in our neighborhood for hunters or I would try to find some during hunting season. I ordered some Repel-al online & it works very well to keep them off my plants. It just smells so very bad. We even used it at our point to keep the beavers from cutting down certain trees. But I don't know that I would spray it on pumpkins or something you want to eat.
I do hope you get to see your son this year. This separation from everyone is seriously the hardest part of the whole mess.
I sat outside on our porch this morning (Friday) and listened to the rain. It is so nice to see the return of green.
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