well. another month has come and gone and we are still in the middle of this coronavirus pandemic thing. during june, things opened up a bit more and we were able to get out and visit with friends a bit more, so it didn’t feel as locked down-y as months past.
on one particularly hot day, we were invited to swim at our pal’s pool, along with several other friends. the kids had a blast. and the adults chatted and caught up as we moved from the scorching hot sun, to the chilly refreshing water and back, on repeat all afternoon.
random kid game. 
hazel made a new friend.
after planting my little seeds all the way back in march. then making up a zillion origami newspaper planters. watering watering watering. shuffling around the trays of seedlings into the sunlight and then back into the warm indoors for the night. plotting a garden spot. building raised beds. hauling in a bunch of compost. planting my little sproutlets. covering up the new plants on a few particularly chilly nights. realizing there was less sun than i originally thought and cutting down three more trees. still realizing there wasn’t as much sun as i thought and throwing up my arms in resignation. weeding. watering. wondering if the plants would ever grow. finally. they did and in june, i started to see the literal fruits of my labors. snap peas in full force. tiny butternut squash. even a few (very few) tomatoes showing up. (the row of tomatoes get the least sunlight). cucumbers, zuchini and yellow squash.
snap peas. they rarely even made it into the house. 
first butternut squash baby. 
i finally put a trellis between the zuchini and squash for the cukes to climb and found enough stakes to relieve my tomato plants from slumping over.
i’m still a little worried. i don’t have many tomatoes. and none on the last three plants (“mr. stripey”) which are in the least sun of all. my eggplant pretty much got eaten by bugs. and about 1/4 of my carrots succumbed to blight. i still don’t have actual broccoli or brussels sprouts but the plants still seem growing and strong. the peppers still seem stunted and tiny. and most of my yellow squashes and zucchini turn mushy at the end and rot before they are big enough to pick. i did manage to get a few yellow squashes, which we promptly chopped up and ate alongside a big fat steak.
baby. high mortality rate. 
survivors. 
feast.
our pals the deatons hatched a few baby goats awhile back, but it was too covid-y for us to go visit. they are almost not babies anymore, but still super cute, so we were excited when we finally had a chance to visit. anna, especially.
animal lover. 
twins. 
maybe we need to get goats.
in chicken news, they graduated from the box on the deck pretty quickly, and moved into the coop part time until it was finished and secure, and then they moved in officially. anna is sure to visit them regularly and we have realized that maybe ruby shouldn’t. 🙂
curious enough. 
anna hearts frida. 
also the golden laced wyandottes.
garden visit. 
chillin’ with the speckled sussex, who is fast becoming our fave. 
the babies in their coop.
after months and months of following the lobster dogs food truck instagram account, hoping that the stars might align and we could visit, on father’s day, my dreams finally came true. the food truck was at a vineyard in lewisville nearby, and derek agreed that he could think of no better way than to spend his father’s day watching me drink an expensive glass of wine and both of us eating stuffed avocados (keeping it keto!), while the kids begged us to leave.
dreams really do come true. 
lobster stuffed avocado.
loooooong before the current worldwide pandemic, hazel’s FAVORITE teacher invited us to a summer “artventures” camp at her house. obviously we signed up, and even when coronavirus struck, we had no idea that the end of june would be in jeopardy. but then, it was here. and most of the kids backed out. but, hazel was so excited, and it was just her, her bff who we’ve seen several times in all of this, one other kid, and her teachers kids, so we risked it. and she had a blast. we were able to bring the chickens in for a visit on farm day and for the last morning, i sent cupcakes for their summer fun themed day.
fairy tale day. 
summer cupcakes. 
cuties.
also on the last day, we invited hazel’s bff and her mom back to our house for a playdate. when we drove past our favorite little ice cream stand (that serves ice cream from a local creamery that our co-op toured and happens to be where we became good pals with lochlyn and her mom), we decided we probably needed to stop.
pals.
one random night, we visited another friend’s house, where we had some sparkler fun. a preview to the fourth of july locked down festivities.
and now. for a bit of randomness from june…
playmobil corner. 
thrift store book haul organization. 
coffee and precalc. 
she chooses her own outfits. 
sigh. 
two nerds.
and finally. the doggos. we actually ended up saying goodbye to duke during june. he started exhibiting some aggressive behavior with hazel and anna, growling when they came near, and showing teeth if they didn’t heed his warnings. we decided it wasn’t fair to tell the girls to stay away from him. and it wasn’t fair for him to always be on alert when they were around. he just seemed so stressed. his previous owner, victoria, handled all of the rehoming and actually found him a PERFECT match and it’s going so well, i couldn’t be happier. unfortunately, they picked him up while we were in ny, so we weren’t able to say goodbye, but it was maybe better for the kids that way. anyways. we will miss him, but he’s in a way better situation now.
heart.
we never realized how much having him affected ruby. she was instantly more snuggly and attentive to us. also, duke had established dominance over her, and he was always by my side, so she would never come lay with me. at first she had seemed scared, but then she sort of accepted it, so i did too. it was nice to have her back. she did miss him though. derek told me that after he left, she rang the doorbell over and over, not to go out, but to wait to see if he came running. she was so happy when we came home from ny, i thought she might explode.
anna snuggles. 
coffee snuggles. 
back deck patrol. 
boy snuggles. 
ruby and a foot. 
cutest face.
and there you have it. june. done.
when i started this post, it sort of seemed like we were on the road to coronavirus recovery. but, as you probably know, things are worse than they were when things first happened. the difference now is that people have just had it and aren’t willing to lockdown again. it’s all a mess. but onto july we go…