This one's for the fellas

Not really-I'm just having trouble coming up with a title and it's Fathers' Day so...happy birthday Dads!  Hope you all have a lovely day.  :D  I would apologize for not writing but really, let's not fool ourselves, that is pretty much my modus operandi.  If I manage more than one post a month THAT is when you should be shocked.  First off, a bit of good news.  I got promoted!  I applied for a management position in a group that worked with mine under the same director.  They didn't think that was a good fit but it so happens that my current manager was moving into another opportunity in that other group so I got promoted to the manager spot of my current group instead!  I was super excited because honestly that was the best way things could have worked out.  I know and have worked with my new boss because he was already my director.  (Those who know me know that I have some management change apprehension with good reason).  I get to provide continuity for my group and there's some potential opportunity for others with my old position.

So with this news we have been dipping our tentative toes back into the real estate market just to see what is out there.  We weren't sure that my current company was going to be the long term place for me but since it seems like new opportunities have opened up, we now know the center of our search radius.  I, like any true Bay Area commuter, am willing to accept up to a 40 minute commute and that gives us quite a few possibilities.  We made a document over the last several years with must have, nice to have, and other categories (honestly does this shock anyone?  We are planners!) and we sent that to our agent.  He can put in a search radius and we can't and he came up with some intriguing stuff.  Basically this just made us feel better that we don't have to be in any huge hurry because there were several that had many of the things we wanted.  So this year we are going to work on some things we need to do to this house-boxing in the ductwork, removing dead trees, refinishing the wood floors, fixing some light fixtures, etc-and then we will see about listing it.  Our agent feels like what we want to get is reasonable so fingers crossed.

Our garden is coming along well.  We have the largest cabbages we have ever had to date.

Everything seems to be going well but we have seen a small groundhog in there a few times.  We keep going out to scare him so we are hoping that he will seek greener pastures.  The deer have stayed away-the scarecrows seem to be working on them.  I planned to share some photos but of course it is raining right now so I don't want to go out.  On the bright side, we planted some petunias, yarrow, and coneflowers yesterday so now we won't have to water them.

Ok-I waited to post so I could share.  I put in the cabbage photo above and here are a few of the overall garden.  We need to do some major weeding, but nothing is big enough to hinder the plants' growth.




I added some handy labels so the layout would be more obvious.  The big empty spot was supposed to be a second ring of green beans but we didn't have very good germination.  This year has been really great for eggplant.  We have never got them to grow beyond seedlings but this year they are almost as tall as the tomato plants.

Our tomatoes are coming along nicely also.  We planted ten and are hoping to get enough to can some this year.  We at least want to work on making our own stewed tomatoes and tomato sauce.


All of the red-edged leaves in this photo are cimmaron lettuce.  It's a kind of romaine. We have had many salads from it and are amazed it is still trucking along this way well into June.  It's tasty and more than we can eat.


Hopefully you can all recognize carrot leaves amongst the bed here.  We planted red, white, yellow, and red carrots.  We have left the clover to help keep the moisture in the soil.


We planted three types of potatoes this year also-blue, red, and white.  So far the plants are looking good.  There are some small holes but we are thinking they are snake holes.  There are no mounds that would show if it were moles and the plants aren't spontaneously dying (which they would if their roots were eaten off).


Here are some peas I picked this morning.  Maegwin loves opening them and eating them out of the pod.  In fact, we really haven't eaten many because she scarfs them down but I'm happy to see her enjoying them so much.


I was ripping up pizza boxes to go in the compost and Maegwin found this little container with potting soil in it.  She had a fun time and had dirt everywhere-even in her hair by the time I noticed!

This post is getting long so I'll do a knitting catch up post another time.  Maegwin is getting pretty clingy right now so I'll sign off.