Summer Bounty

I’m beginning to feel the bounty of mid-summer.  I  live up on the North side of a hill with an incredible view, and the farm is down below my house where the terrain levels out and the exposure is better, but it also means that the cool air collects down in that hollow.  There are two streams on either side of the field which cool the air a bit, so at night it is always about  five degrees cooler at the farm than at my house.  It’s definitely not the best location for quick summer crops, but a good place for greens and cooler crops during the hot summer months here.  But I’m finally getting lots of tomatoes, the first corn, melons, and eggplant.  It feels like true bounty.  There’s nothing like breaking into a sun-warmed, home-grown melon with juice dripping down the chin and cooling the parched summer throat.  Work is starting to feel more relaxed, the spring anxiety and breaking ground, melding into bountiful summer harvests and sumptious pot-luck dinners with friends.  We are also beginning to get lots of eggs from the flock of chickens we started in early March (as well as a surprise of 3 roosters…).  Beginning to appreciate going to the grocery store less and less and feeling more self-sufficient.