Good morning! Welcome to #weekendcoffeeshare, hosted by Natalie of Natalie the Explorer, please come on in and have a drink and a chat.

Remember when I wrote last week that we were just coming out of a heat wave? We are entering into another heat wave after getting some cool temperature for the week. I saw some spots got snow. Brr… I would not want to be in those places right now, especially not when I have so many crops coming to fruition and so many more that cannot take a frost like the cucumbers and tomatoes.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you it’s been an insane week. It was insane because Wednesday was a holiday and the day off made Thursday felt like a Monday. Ugh! Even after over 6 years at my current job, it takes me a while to get back to rhythm after time off.

There’s another holiday coming up in 2 weeks – the 4th of July – and that’s falling on a Thursday this year but I’ll admit that it’s a much better day to be off than a Wednesday. This year, I’ve elected to take that Friday off as well and just enjoy an extra-long weekend.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you I’ve been counting down the days until my mom is off traveling. She’s leaving on Wednesday next week and will be gone until the 15th of July. Unfortunately, I won’t be alone this time as I was when I traveled for 3 weeks back in December. There’s no chance for me to take long road trips as I had then. The best I can do this time is day trips but I guess it’ll work.

The thing I’m not particularly looking forward this time is that I will have to take care of my aunt (my mom’s youngest sister). All she does now are eat whatever’s placed in front of her while her eyes are glued to her phone, sleep, and work on her work days. She doesn’t cook and will only do chores at odd hours like night time. She isn’t disabled but just chose to be lazy. I might as well have to become a mother to a child that’s 18 years my senior.

Finally, if we were having coffee, I want to show you a part of the garden which I haven’t showed anyone this year and that is the back-fence garden, I call it the “Perennial Garden”. It has just about the worst soil imaginable but in some spots, it’s okay. I put mostly perennial in there so I don’t have to access too often. You see, the only way to access this garden is by climbing up the boulders.

One thing new I put in this year is this dill plant. I grew dill in a raised bed last year and it got so tall that I couldn’t put shade over my other crops. So, this year, I put it here hoping it will reseed next year so I can seed start one less thing. I just love it when it blooms. From this angle, it looks so magical, doesn’t it?

After waiting an entire year, my Triple Crown blackberries are finally fruiting. I had a couple of prolific blackberry bushes before I moved into my current house and have been without blackberries since 2017. So, I’m looking forward to having blackberries again.

I’m pretty positive these lilies are planted a few months ago because I don’t think I’ve seen them before.

I can never remember what these flowers are called. I just call them “Mango poppers” but actually, this variety is “Mango popsicle” Red hot poker. I have 2 plants near one another and even in its third season of bloom, I can never get tired of its peculiar-looking blooms.

I appreciate you stopping by. Until next we chat. 🙂