Midsummer

We've been working on many things: house, garden, bees, bike rides, work, and whatever else in these long days of midsummer. Its an abundant and special time of year when the world just seems full and at ease.



The garden is at its best, full with garlic scapes, strawberries, greens, chamomile and so much more either here or steadily growing. This has been the year of "zero tolerance" in the weed department. Jeremy came up and tilled a perimeter band around the whole garden, which we'll do again in a few weeks, and we've been steadily pulling and mulching the zones within the garden to keep out the stuff we don't want. Its always an effort, but we've made good progress in defining things and taking advantage of our available real estate with in the garden edges.


We received our septic permit from the state which is a major step towards breaking ground. The next item to fall in line is the building permit and we are hopeful that it'll be a quick turnaround. As soon as that is in place we schedule the digging to being and get moving with the whole process. Its been a long push and in some ways it hasn't even begun. We continue to chip away at the questions and get a sharper and sharper focus on exactly what it going to happen when and with what, etc.. its been a little like peeling an onion in that there are always more layers of information to define and make decisions about. Today we went to visit an acquaintance's house that I've found particularly inspiring for many of its qualities. It's modest size, its thoughtful details and the creative ways in which the owners have gone through the process of building.

We are up to nine hives altogether at this point with varying degrees of strength among them. Just this afternoon we checked the hives and were a little distressed to see evidence of chalkbrood. From what we can tell this is not devastating, and often clears up on its own, but it is still a concern. There is a good chance the state bee inspector will be coming for a visit this week and we look forward to seeing what he has to say.



Last week Nancy went up to Craftsbury to visit a friend and I decided to ride up and meet her there. It was just about 60 miles and it felt good to get there. After some visiting, we drove to Hardwick and had an excellent dinner at Claire's. It felt good to ride some distance, see the countryside, and as always, have a little mini adventure just by getting somewhere. Last night was similar; Nance called a contra dance over in Bristol and I biked up and over the gap to meet here there. I love biking up the mountain. Its not so much hard as it is a slow steady constant decision to keep at it. Very rewarding.

Next up is moving the yurt. We've been moving out steadily in the last week or so. If we can we'd like to have the yurt in it's new location by this time next week.