The garden is winding down. I dug out the last of the potatoes today and wished, again, that I’d been keeping track of how many pounds we grew. I gave today’s collection of green beans to the neighbors, since I’ve decided that 5 quarts in the freezer is enough. There are more than 2 pints of sun-dried tomatoes in the fridge, and bowls of tomatoes on the counter waiting to be converted into pasta sauce. Ian is responsible for eating the paprika and mariachi peppers – they’ve both turned out to be too hot for me. Tomorrow, I’ll check on …

It’s a lovely summer day… complete with the sounds of nail-guns and saws across the street where they are framing the two new houses that will be diagonal from us. I’ll be very glad when the framing and roofing and siding are done and the bulk of the noise moves inside… which will probably be sometime in October. I’ve started harvesting tomatoes. Caitlyn especially likes the orange cherry tomatoes and will eat them non-stop if I let her. Strangers are so impressed that she “willingly eats tomatoes!” She also eats carrots pulled right out of the ground and green beans …

We have 2+ quarts of homegrown peas in the freezer. I think maybe I’ll get another quart from the plants before they call it quits. Time to start thinking of what goes in the pea-space in the garden… Caitlyn really likes the ABC song, although she has her own version of it. “Little Tiny ABCs” goes something like: “A B C D E F G, um, uh, um, Next time won’t you sing at me.” If Ian or I sing it with her, she dips in and out of it, dropping out around M N O P and coming back …

I have (more or less) officially finished the planned planting for the backyard. Caitlyn and I planted pepper plants and three kinds of squash seeds (zucchini, pumpkin, and butternut) this morning. Caitlyn seems to enjoy planting seeds. I put the holes in the dirt and she puts in the seeds. Putting the mulch back over them is fun, but the best part is getting to wave her hands in the water from the watering can. When we’re done, she says, “Plant more seeds!” This may be about the seeds or the opportunity to play with the water. So, the veggie …

“So, have you written anything lately?” One would think I had, given how much I’ve been working in the backyard. Gardening is supposed to be good for the writer’s soul, if all those Romantic Poets knew what they were talking about. But, I have no words to show for my labor, just some boxes and a lot of imported dirt. In a month or so, there will be more green back here. And maybe with the arrival of the green, the words will follow. Or maybe the words come later, after the garden is well established. Or maybe I should …