Jennifer, I did not check the turnips and beets today. The guy that baled the hay and ran over the beets and turnips was here today working on the baler and hauling hay. I did not want him to feel bad about a crop being in that mess he ran over, plus my grand daughter came to visit, the rain also kept me in the house a long time today. I don't know how much rain we got, but, it was at least .3 inch. The rain, hail, and wind was a little rough on the tomatoes. I was so proud that I was doing a much better job keeping them tied up, but I fell off the wagon and they got out hand in just a few days. I tied some damaged plants up today, and hope to do more tomorrow. I harvested our first pimento pepper today, and I have a sweet banana pepper ready for harvest. All the peppers are green, I wont expect any ripe ones for a long time. We are getting a lot of squash and cucumbers, but I don't thing we are getting many customers at the produce stand yet, but this is only the second day the stand has been open, and they are trying to sell the garage sale stuff out first. I hope to get up in the morning and pot up the last of our sweet potato slips. We have a few late slips, which I may try growing in hay. I have got to quit gardening, and start working on equipment, it seems like everything I own is broken down.

I just read Dear Mrs. Bird, by AJ Pearce, a little bit of an older book for our book group. We'd done some heavy topics the last few months so wanted something a little lighter. It was quite charming and while not 'fluff' it did have a bit of humor along with some interesting info about what it was like to live in London during the WWII blitz by the Germans. It wasn't as light as we'd hoped but we all really enjoyed it. Now onto Exiles by Jane Harper. I've enjoyed her other books so hope this one is the same.

@liz888 Thanks. It’s kinda a fun stage, but also just stresses me out. So many of the subs are careless and just knock walls and knock into things and so much touch up is needed everywhere. They are a bit spendy, so will slowly just replace our boring switches with them. They’re are some really cool industrial switches on Etsy too that I might get. Our update: Gotta move in in 4 weeks… FML! Kitchen and mudroom is mostly installed, everything’s been templated for stone countertops, electric is all in (just gotta hang all the misc fixtures), and hardwood floors got installed. Appliances are scheduled to be delivered and installed mid-July. This weekend we need to sand, stain, and poly our butcher block. Our kitchen has a LOT going on with a variety of materials, so I’m hoping it all magically pulls together somehow. Doing a really unique matte black quartzite island and butcher block for perimeter, bar counter, and pantry. Decided to just do them ourselves. 🤞 Next week: carpet is being installed in the kids rooms and playroom, cabinet install wraps up, finish base and case, install our fixture, get front deck designed, finishing external siding on window wall, and figure out where the hell our exposed ducts are (apparently majorly delayed somewhere). Might also be installing our railings which I am just thrilled (and maybe terrified) to see in person. Happy 4th to everyone. Enjoy the holiday weekend.

Lynn, thank you for typing all that out. I think you've mentioned that product before. When we get back from Oregon, we're going to have to get serious about getting rid of them. They're so annoying. We've had what I call the "regular" ants get in at our last house from time to time. It seemed mostly seasonal, and they were fairly easy to get rid of. But theses suckers are a pain...and so persistent. They are very, very tiny. You almost don't notice them until they are all congregated around a crumb that someone didn't wipe up. You can't even see their features to identify--they are that small. I got a magnifying glass out and they look like Pharoah ants in appearance and also in behavior. Pharaoh Ant I am not a slob in the kitchen, but we do use our kitchen fully. All three of us. We mostly eat at home. Constantly washing dishes and wiping counters. They aren't interested in my compost bowl, which is mostly E's coffee grounds, veggie scraps, and toilet paper rolls. They are interested in the butter. Butter is too expensive to allow ants to get into it. We like to keep it on the counter. Rambling. We got nice rain this morning. Super happy about that as it will save a lot of time watering the gardens. I'm pleased with our gardens so far. I sure wish the aphids would leave us alone, tho. Other that squash pests, they are the biggest pest issue here. I would rather deal with hornworms than aphids. Hornworms are easy to remove and deal with as long as you're paying attention. Aphids are not. They destroy plants at our house, especially the green peas....and even southern peas and noodle beans. Ugh! I sure hope the ladybug and lacewing eggs hatch quickly and take care of them. I'm always taking my phone out to the garden with me to identify things. This is a woolly aphid. When we get back from Oregon, we'll have a lot of work to do. Potatoes, onions, and garlic will all be ready. Honestly, some of the onions are ready now. Same with garlic. I just don't have time to deal with it all right now. Also, Rick's green beans will need to be tended to. Tom and I prefer frozen green beans, but Rick might want to can a few too. We're getting some here, although there's fewer plants and they are bit later. I picked a quart ziplock bag of them last night. The plan is so push those off on one of my relatives as we won't have time to cook/eat them. There's still a refrigerator crisper drawer full of asparagus. It's limp but still tastes good. I'm going to try to push that off on family as well. We've been eating it a couple of times a week. Honestly, I've just let it go over the past few days. Had I harvested it better this past week, it could have easily gone a couple more weeks. But....there's only so many hours in the day. As soon as all of those green tomatoes ripen up, those will need to be dealt with as well. We use quite a few diced tomatoes in our cooking, so we'll probably just can them again. Pretty sure Rick needs to restock his as well. Peppers look good. So happy that I have 5 actual jalapeno plants! Our peppers did very little last year. What a strange year. We have family coming for an early supper today to say goodbye to E. I've had so many other things on my mind, that forgot it's my BD until FB friends wished me HBD. And Tom gave me some little gold hoop earrings early this morning. Duh. It's my BD. lol. We walked our neighbor around the house and property yesterday to show her how to care for the animals--I feel like we're nearly ready. It's such a big thing to leave so much stuff behind that needs cared for...including the garden. It doesn't help that I've made all of our animals spoiled brats. I own it. One needs this food bowl, another needs to drink out of a fountain waterer. And...I care too much about them all, including the chickens. This house isn't going to clean itself. (wouldn't that be a dream!) Company is coming. Hope everyone is getting some rain.