summer salads and the first lightning bug

I feel so lucky today. Perhaps it was sleeping in on a warm summer Sunday or maybe it was the hours playing in the garden and then jumping in freezing cold water to wash off the sweat and dirt. I am very happy with the pace of how the gardens are planted this year and I am incredibly happy that we didn't start the CSA as early as we did last year. I just keep thinking, geez, we'd be on week two already last year!
I am happy this way because it is allowing the lettuce to head instead of all be loose leaf. Sure, we will only catch the waning end of the asparagus and strawberry season but I think that the best is yet to come. The war on the weeds is on and Scout, my dad's white german shepherd suddenly figured out that his call in life was to hunt groundhogs... which is good news for us. There has only been one squash bug sighting so far and I haven't seen a cabbage moth all year yet. The peas are in full flower, the squash is putting on new green leaves, and the trees have settled into their new leaves quite nicely, turning the chartreuse into a rich, chlorophyll green of summertime.

I saw my first lightning bug today! It was at dusk and I was walking out to the sheep as the tree frogs were warming up for their nightly song when the ground started blinking at me. It is so funny how the early lightning bugs are supercharged, blinking so fast it seems like they are confused with their power to illuminate. Once settled in within the next few weeks, I'm looking forward to their nightly show as the bats fly overhead eating hundreds of mosquitoes.

I feel lucky today. Not that I am going to play the lotto or win money or narrowly escape catastrophe, more just glad to be in this moment at this time. Everything is growing, blooming, fruiting, and baa-ing. It's summer salad time!