In bloom

I think we skipped spring and went headfirst into summer, but I am welcoming this hot weather with open arms. When our indoor thermostat got up to 81 this weekend, my feet finally felt warm for the first time since October.

The plants outside continue to grow and bloom. The garden is coming along; the kale and zucchini are growing especially fast. With the heat and the rain we’ve had these past several days, it feels like I can just stand there and watch the garden grow right before my eyes.

Neat rows of green things, not yet overtaken by weeds or pests.

Finally, after many weeks of checking on the peonies about 10 times a day, they have bloomed. Now I can’t keep myself inside; I run out 10 times a day to smell the peonies.

Below: "Time-lapse" photography of the first two peonies to bloom.




Urbana is a sea of blooming peonies and lilacs right now. Its quite nice to go running and breathe in the scent of flowers the whole time. My next door neighbor (bless her heart) had such an abundance of peonies and irises that she cut some and brought to me. I put them in a vase and can't stop staring at them.



The chamomile that I planted is one of my favorite things that is growing. You can use the flowers to make tea, though I haven't actually done that yet. The flowers are too pretty for me to snip and take inside. It also has a very lovely scent; sort of like apples.

There is some kind of flower growing in a shady spot in the yard that I don't even know what it is:

Name that flower

And of course, there are still some irises blooming.

At any rate, this weekend I finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's latest book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. This is seriously an amazing book. I think everyone should read it. I was inspired to buy some local strawberries at the farmer's market on Saturday. These strawberries were tiny--about the size of the tip of my thumb--as opposed to the tennis ball sized things at the grocery store. And they were really expensive. But they came from Tuscola rather than California, and they were the best thing I've ever tasted.

Alright, that's all for now. I'm going to keep trying to shake off that general gloom I've been feeling by soaking up all the sun that I can. Thanks for reading.