Quick, while it's not raining

The last couple weeks have been hot in the am, thunderstorms with heavy rain in the pm.

The first storm knocked the downspout off the gutter above the hen yard, causing a major waterfall between the girls and the coop. Hubby held said downspout in place while I chased them inside then tied it to the deck rail to end in an old garbage can - since my rain barrel has not been finished. It filled up in ten minutes and I watched, angry at myself, as it overflowed into the yard. All that water wasted. . . .

My time at home seems to be taken up by reorganized the house for better wheelchair accessibility - or working on the front yard so the neighbors find it pleasing. . . .

The only thing growing in mass quantities are mushrooms. They are all over the yard and in the landscaping. We think they are edible meadow mushrooms, but without an authority on the subject to correctly identify them they are useless to us. . . .

The winter squash and watermelon are going all out - vining profusely but only with male flowers that will bear no fruit. The peppers and tomatoes are fruiting - better at the P-patch than at home. Nasturtium at home is burned, at the P-patch they are 6 feet long. We cut back all the basil at the P-patch, enough to make 5 cups of pesto.

Hubby got his first ripe cherry tomato (yellow sungold) yesterday. He claims it was the size of a golf ball, but since we never saw it (he ate it) I am inclined suspect this is the gardeners version of the fish that got away story.

We lost (literally) one of the quails this morning while I was cleaning their hutch. After an hour of Juju and I chasing him (her?), it slipped under the deck - as far as we know it is still there. I had a heart to heart with Mesha before work. She has been very insistent this year that we become urban farmers and I told her that losing livestock is part of being a farmer. She seemed to take it rather stoically for a 6 year old.

I've still got to butcher the last meat chicken. . . .