Back home

Have you ever been someplace that's so special, so different, that it's hard to let it go when you go back to your normal life?

Iceland's like that. I've been back for almost a week and I feel like.... without seafood and restaurants, I don't know what to have for dinner. Without the clean, clear, fresh air - I don't know how to breathe. It is incredibly hot and muggy here. Without being in Iceland, I don't know what to blog about!

*sigh*

Have I mentioned yet how two weeks of near constant rain and summer temperatures affect a garden? We didn't ask the house/dog sitter to do anything other then water the garden if the weather didn't do the deed.

The lawnmower broke just before we went on vacation anyway, and I didn't want to educate a city boy on how to care for the tomatoes.

So.... the grass was overgrown and the tomatoes were every which way out of control and there were weeds.... everywhere.

We hired a friend's 13 year son - Peter - to help with the weeding this weekend and got started. Peter cleared the driveway, the path to the back gate, the flagstone pathway and the front garden. Neil handled the fenceline garden, and cut the lawn with a rental lawnmower until ours can be fixed.

I weeded, and weeded, and weeded, as much of the rest of the gardens as I could. And staked the tomatoes, and cut their suckers. And discovered why the irises didn't bloom much and died abruptly - I think they are too crowded, too covered in mulch and plant remains, and two weeks of constant rain have rotted many of the bulbs.

Anyway... things are mostly back under control.

Neil's freshly weeded fenceline garden.



Neil's shade garden. It's his thing. We have distinctive garden preferences.



The tomatoes - back under control, sort of. While I don't have a person standing in the shot to give you perspective, consider that I am 5 foot 4 inches tall and standing to take this photo. It is not angled up in any way.



Something else that I found strange upon returning home are these black eyed susans. It just doesn't seem like it's the right time for them. It feels too early yet in the season. For me, black eyed susans are the harbinger of fall.