Fathers Day 2020

Some little bastards have been nipping my tomato and pepper plants off in the garden. I have noticed that they leave the larger ones alone so I bought larger replacements. I will start them inside next year and wait until they are nine inches or taller before I put them out.

Out of ten rows of corn that I planted in May, I may have had a dozen plants grow to a foot. I tilled all of that under today and I will replant tomorrow night. I also tilled for the second planting of peas. Everything is growing slowly with the lack of rain. I’ll water until things get off to a better start.

My folks were supposed to come over for burgers and beer tonight. Dad called and said that with the rain and thunderstorms, they would stay home. I figured the rain just meant that I would have to use the gas grill on the eave of the barn rather than the charcoal barbecue out in the lawn. Burgers were still good and I used the side burner to reheat some hot wings that I made on Thursday. I like them fried to crisp the skin.

My daughter agreed to go to the park with me for a walk. It started to drizzle on the way and turned in a real rain storm by the time we got to the parking lot. We spent about ten minutes waiting for the wind to die down and then put on our hats and pulled my backpacking umbrella out of the trunk. It is big enough to cook under, not quite big enough to keep two people dry. I finally gave up and gave her the umbrella, summer rains are warm enough to walk in so long as I have a hat.

We found a bunch of small frogs on the trail tonight. My daughter had to learn to look for them so she would not step on them. After around thirty minutes she was spotting them herself. Not sure if they are small frogs or peepers. They do not stand still long enough to get a good shot.

This guy actually sat still so we could take a picture.

Once we left the wetland we found a bunch of snail friends. She learned to see them pretty quickly, they do not hop in front of you.

After scanning the bush line for deer and coyote, we turned around and headed back to the parking lot. I found a box turtle giving us a close look.

Meredith pointed out a turtle in the wetland. I cannot find my Audubon book to identify this one.

The rest of the walk was full of baby rabbits darting into the bush, gold finches and blue birds darting around the thistle, and black birds sitting on top of precarious grasses and crab apple trees. The path should be full of black berries in a couple of weeks.