birth announcement
Before we get any later, we'd better announce the birth of Harvey Douglas Archibald at 5:30 Saturday evening. Five hours of labor, 8lb 6oz, and hale and healthy. You might hear a little more about him later.
welcome summer (or, summer would be welcome)
You will notice the addition of Harvey to the masthead, and he also has his own page with a couple pictures (and more to come), but I don't have much more to say about him now. He's not really very versatile: eats and sleeps, mostly. A little pooping, some spraying pee all over me as I change him; you know, regular baby stuff. Leah is writing the birth story, but it's slow going what with having to nurse all the time.
So instead, our story for this evening is the purported arrival of summer. Sure, I'm done with work for the year so I can focus my attention on taking care of my lovely wife and my son and heir, but on midsummer's day we would appreciate something a little better than 55° and rain. At least there's variety: sometimes it's pouring, while other times it's more of a heavy mist. I wouldn't complain ordinarily—as Alan says it's great for transplants, though not so much for mildew-susceptible cucurbits—but our baby needs sun to stave off the jaundice! In winter it'd be one thing, but we expect better from late June in New England!
Besides Harvey time I plan to use my vacation for gardening, so, a report: the strawberry crop isn't so good, what with the rotting and the not-so-sweetness that comes from too much rain and no sun. Lettuce likes it, though, and so do peas; I fully expect that peas will make up for strawberries' troubles with a terrific crop in a couple days. Cucumbers seem to be in suspended animation waiting for warmth, but beans are moving along nicely, as are tomatoes. Summer squash too, although I failed to implement my plan for preventing the dreaded squash borer, despite buying the supplies. Now it's too late, with the plants starting to flower. Oh well, I'll just have to wait and hope, like every other year. Not that it's possible to get too many zucchinis anyways... I'm not even sure I like eating them in any form.
We've also got blueberries and raspberries ripening up if we can keep the birds off them, peppers, collards and chard, flowers for cutting (sore plagued this year by cutworms or something), ornamental corn, and an experimental crop of edamame-type soybeans. Our biggest garden yet, certainly. I'm already thinking how to expand for next year. I'll put up some pictures, if I can manage to point the camera anywhere but at the baby.
Thanks to everyone who visited us or left their kind thoughts in the comments! Now that we're not overcome with hopes deferred (and work) maybe we'll post a little more often, and with the babe we might even have something to say. Think we can pick up a little bit of that "mommy blog" traffic?