It's not a dry heat.

I spent eight years of my childhood in Arizona where the temperature on a July day was normally well over 100 degrees, but as they say at least it was a dry heat. This year in Ohio it is definitely a wet heat. So, though we're used to working outside in all kinds of weather we've found this summer to be particularly uncomfortable. Additionally there are a lot of things that haven't worked out as we'd planned on the farm this year so we're usually pretty tired when we come inside and fortunately being greeted by the following scene helps us forget for a bit all the work there is to do.



Some of that work that we've gotten done this past week includes weeding the newly planted corn. Being primarily a farmer and secondarily a blogger I didn't think to take a before and after picture, but if you replace all the dirt that you can see with little green weeds then you'll have an idea of what the field looked like before I went through it with the wheel hoe.




Our very helpful crew of dedicated workers cleaned up these bean beds this morning. These are "fancy" French filet beans. They are long, slender and a real treat even though their smaller size makes the harvest take longer than it does with other beans.






Even though it went in much later than it should have the winter squash is starting to fill in its beds. Another couple of weeks and it will hopefully have most of the field covered with vines and little baby squash.



The zinnias are finally starting to bloom. Emily is very committed to cutting her flowers at the ideal time so fast-opening flowers like zinnias and sunflowers need to be cut every day. Add it to the to-do list!



We've found that most people either love okra or really dislike it, but even if you don't like the wonderfully slimy vegetable, maybe you can appreciate the flowering plant!