No time lately for new pictures or tirades or cute postings; we have been working hard, as we always do in the early days of June. Hose-dragging, vegetable-picking, mowing time is here with a vengeance. Last week I was amused at my early attempts to beat the heat. This week, it is not a joke. You know, all year long I look forward to green beans. What a fantasy! Green beans are a wonderful thing, no doubt. But after a week or so of trying to keep them picked, you are thinking how wonderful it would be to just plow them under (!) That may sound evil, and I'm sure all of you would love to have some fresh organic green beans. But as I write this, there is a 75 ft. row out there that would take a single person most of one day to pick. I kid you not.

The yellow beans have been equally prolific this year. I actually sent out an 'emergency!' to our email list on Sunday due to yellow bean excess. By the end of the day, much of the row had been picked by hearty individuals who showed up and thought it was not so bad out there at noon (!) well, more power to them. The effort is worth it to most folks. The beans are indeed very wonderful. But enough of bean talk.
This morning, I was tasked with picking the yellow squash first...and that seems an innocent piece of work. We don't even have a whole row. We were trying to be conservative...and smart. I mean, how much squash can one garden really have before it's a joke? I waded in there with a knife. It's not so bad if you wear gloves. Smarter if you have long sleeves, which I didn't. But I moved slowly, because the new bees think the squash belongs to them, not to me. And they are fighting over each and every squash blossom. If you take your time, they can't figure out what the heck is annoying them (and it's you).If you look closely, you can see that there are three or more bees in this flower. I'll show them, though. I;m going out in the morning to pick these precious flowers. We'll make stuffed (and fried) squash blossoms for dinner.