After what seemed like a long lull in garden productivity, we are now cranking out green beans and tomatoes faster than we can keep up with! We canned our first batch of green beans this morning. Despite the bounty, I can't help feeling like I did something wrong with the garden this year. For one thing, we are going to have little, if any, yellow squash and zucchini. I don't know how you mess up squash and zucchini, but I somehow managed to. Surprisingly, our pie pumpkin patch, planted almost as an after thought, is looking like it will be a bumper crop. I'm always amazed at how different one year's garden can be from the next.

We're still very far behind on rain, although we do get the occasional tenth of an inch here or there. I've pretty much let all of my flowers go, especially the ones in pots. It was just getting too stressful bringing them back from the brink of death on a daily basis! All of my houseplants have been replaced with cacti, so I'm thinking my outdoor flower beds might go the same way.

The baby guineas (amazingly still a dozen of them!) are several weeks old now and not looking quite so babyish. They're getting feathers and testing out their feeble little wings. Thankfully, Mama guinea seems to be less paranoid about their safety at this point. I've actually been able to refill the waterer in the chicken pen without wearing the helmet!


The biggest news of the moment is our recent acquisition of a 24-foot yurt from the Pacific Yurt company. It is a pre-owned yurt that was used for several years at a retreat near here. The owner, whose health has declined recently, was no longer using the yurt and graciously offered it to Joe's mom, who was excited to pass it on to us. Once we get it set up, the yurt will give us 452 square feet of living space, more than double the 192 square feet we currently have. This means that if and when a baby ever comes into the picture, we won't have to clean out from under our bed to find room for it! Although the long-term goal of a real house has not changed, this yurt will also buy us plenty more time to figure out how to make that happen.

We have started clearing out a space to build the platform/deck that the yurt will sit on and hope to get it all assembled in the next few months. We love our current living situation, so we won't necessarily move into the yurt until a baby makes it necessary, but it will be great guest quarters in the meantime. Here's a photo of the yurt packed into the truck and headed to our place.