Monday, Monday

Howdy.  It's been a while.  Not only do I go through phases where I really want to blog, but I also typically go through blogging binges when I upload my pictures to my computer from my camera...and I only do that every now and then.  Plus, I've just been too busy lately to blog or do anything computer related anyway!  Today is Monday.  Monday is my day for going to town. I pick up local farm produce (but not veggies) from two different farms every Monday, so I usually run into town and pick up anything I need that day too.  But today I may not even hit town.  I might just go to the farms and bypass "the big city"....ha.

We've been going through a heat wave the past week or so.  As I was commenting on just how hot it was yesterday, I laughed with Aaron saying that we think this is hot, but it's nothing compared to the heat of Texas or Atlanta, or even the piedmont North Carolina!!  So, I'll take my hot, humid 83 degrees and not complain.  There's always the air conditioned house or the garden hose to cool off in if we can't take it anymore.

Along with the heat has come some pretty dry weather.  The garden is doing alright, but my spinach (which had just started producing) is starting to bolt, the tomatoes and peppers are kind of stymied, the squash, zucchini and cucumbers are MORE than stymied, they're barely alive.  But I'll write more about all that later. I have some good looking onion tops, though it doesn't seem like there's much below the surface; I don't know.

I'm going to check on my bees this week if I have a chance; maybe Tuesday or Wednesday when the temps cool down significantly.  I had to re-queen due to a swarm (well several this year) that apparently left me with no queen.  I am excited though because I think I may be able to harvest some honey soon!  I'm going to make sure the queen has established herself and is laying and check on honey supplies.  Then, if I think there's enough honey, and it's all capped,  I'll maybe try to harvest next week.

Oh hey, can you tell on which hand I got stung right on the very back of the hand?  I had a very unhappy yellow jacket sting me and just hang on, so I got a decent dose of venom.  I slapped it with chewed up plantain almost immediately which helped significantly with the shooting, make-you-wanna-die kind of pain that went racing through my arm and to my pit within mere moments, but it didn't do much for the swelling.  My whole hand swelled all the way to about 1 1/2" from my elbow and stayed that way for 2 days.  It was awful!  I hate yellow jackets.