summer garden

Our seedlings are behind last year's, smallish, the sunflower much more slowly towering over Jake as it did before.

As we weeded and re-dug up the garden, readying it for the seedlings on the porch, we discovered a plant that resembled squash or zucchini. It has become huge, taking over half the garden, and not growing up from where the squash was last year; it has traveled from one of the garden to the other. We planted around this, putting sunflowers to one length and corn to the other, hoping one of the two would survive. (Thigh high by July--corn is supposed to be fourteen inches and right now, ours is about half that.)

These buds indicate squash to me. We've never had squash survive beyond this withered yellow gourds that fit in the palm of our hands. Zucchini, yes, and excessively huge, as well as sunflowers, tomatoes, green peppers, eggplant. I have hope for the squash, my favorite in the garden.

Today K and I are packing up to go to Green Bay for the weekend. K's mother has agreed to address our wedding invitations (beloved wedding invitations), my mother has agreed to team teach the summer theatre class (thus relieving a huge pocket of stress in my summer plans, making it more fun and about teaching then about struggling through), and it is father's day. We love our fathers.

And a note about Z and his chewing before I go (as some have commented or emailed about the level of destruction): Indeed, he is an amazingly destructive puppy. He even manages to pull things from high above (the glove was put away in a bag and the corn tray was on the counter, though I admit, it might have been used as a George Foreman grease catcher, which is irresistible to any pet in the house and Zephyr was just the lucky one this time), making him clever and destructive. Does he have enough chew toys? Maybe not. He has enough toys lying about the house for me to trip over, but most are now ragged rope pull toys, strewn to bits by their constant tug of war. In fact, the only toy to survive both dogs' puppyhoods is Burris, Junior, given to us by my mother. I'm not sure if Z is extra destructive, or if he's just teething for an obscenely long period of time. We've talked to the vets about this and potty training (which he, more or less, has down, but he doesn't hesitate to urinate on a box of cookbooks if we aren't getting the hint, and Pen would never do that... of course, she's not as good at aiming as Z is...) We love him, and we'll continue to be patient with the little bugger. He doesn't mean any harm.

As I see it, he's training me for two things: becoming a more patient human being (and getting ready for kids, who may destroy more, but will understand to not do so a little faster), and to be much less materialistic (you're probably sick of me mentioning how my house is cluttered, how I am cleaning and losing so much of the time... I just see it as his version of cleaning... I just wish I could direct him away from my favorite shoes).

Happy weekend, everyone! What are you doing to celebrate father's day?

PS: These are gorgeous. What a neat idea. This is also neat. This, just after talking about not being materialistic. Sheesh. I'm just enjoying creative ideas!