Ah Summer Time – Where Are Those Lazy Days?

Do you remember those lazy summer days? Laying by a stream fishing, or maybe just hanging out with friend and doing nothing? No? Me either.

Summertime is by far the busiest time of year for us. Not only do we have the normal activities for the kids and us, but there are all the other things to do.

There are Farmer’s markets to get to and, lawns to mow. Don’t forget that garden you have been promising yourself you were going to plant this year. Oh, and you know all those outside house repairs you have been putting off because it was too cold out, well it is time to do those too. Plus, there is always vacation. You have to go on vacation right? Camp outs don’t forgot about camp outs, and BBQ’s, you have to do a few of those. And drive-in movies, you gotta hit a few of those, I mean what would summer be without a drive-in movie or two or three.

If you list of summer activities looks something like this, or even worse, then you you get the point. There are lots of extra things to do during summer and only some of them have to do the things that you do the rest of the year. You still more than likely have to get all your regular things done as well.

I have mentioned before that this year we are working on a local farm. We’ll call it our farm, though the land really belongs to friends of ours, we work there at least a couple of days a week to help make sure that the planting, and growing is actually happens. This has been a great experience thus far, because while we always have great intentions to make a garden work, we always lack the follow through some how. Having other people depending on our efforts, and expecting us to get there a few nights a week for the manual labor parts of it, has really been a great motivator.

Last night we got to bring home our first group of veggies. I will say that I don’t know what to do with a lot of the leaf crops we planted, I have never known what to do with kale and some of them, but I am sure we will learn. There are lots of veggies that will come later in the summer that I do know what to do with.

As I have also mentioned before we have both chickens and sheep this year. Neither of these keep us all that busy, but whenever you add something to your list, it is just that one more thing to do. So our mornings and evenings have one more thing on the list as we check on the livestock to make sure that everything is going as it should and that the animals don’t need something that we are not giving them.

And while we are on the topic of livestock, last night my wife found this video. While we don’t talk to our hens or make up stories about them, I guess the children do name them, well them and our sheep. The good news is that the names tend to be things like, chicken soup, chicken wings, chicken nuggets, mutton, leg of lamb and haggis, so at least they understand that these animals while they might deserve to have a name, are there for food. Granted our chickens (at least this year) are layers and not meat birds, but any chicken that gets out of control and starts getting uppity with the kids or something, becomes soup. (Period)

Anyway, back to the video. The scariest part about this video is about half way in, when she starts talking about hens being a gateway animal. I really would rather not tell you how close we are to that intervention stage. Really I don’t want to tell you. (Hint: it might already be too late.)

Since this is kind of an update post, and I have not updated you in a while. If you follow me on either Twitter or Facebook you will see that I have started running again, or rather that I am keeping track of it with an app that allows me to send the updates our into the social media sphere. I don’t have any real goals in mind other than to just get back in shape. The kids and I (and possibly my wife) will be running in a 5k at the end of the summer. And my summer goal is always to get comfortable with half marathon distance and maybe just maybe run in one. Hopefully the updates won’t bug you but if they do, I usually only run once a day and early in the morning so you don’t have too much to worry about.

Last but not least, in the lawn mowing category. If you wanted to know my kryptonite well, it is poison ivy. For the last few years I have managed to get it just about every year, and each year it gets worse. This year it landed me in an urgent care facility. They gave me some good stuff and I am healing now. But because I want to repeat that ever again lawn mowing will now require long sleeves, pants, and gloves. Believe me the extra heat, that the extra clothing will cause is far easier to deal with than the pain of the last few days.

So that is it. That is summer time for you. I will certainly try to update here a bit more often. In fact, I have two other things to talk about that I will post later this week.