Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch . . .

We've been away from our house for the last week (not just away from the blog).

I was really hoping it would rain.  I mean, it rained every day in July, practically, and I was really hoping the weather wouldn't pick the week we were gone to stop watering my garden for me.

Happily, it did rain a little, and my plants survived.  (Well, the outdoor plants did.  The indoor plants are another story . . .)

I think the watermelon missed me so much it tried to come knock on the back door and find me.

Tomatoes are looking . . . okay.  They're not growing as fast as I would have thought.

 The pumpkin is vining out nicely.

And the green beans are great.

The collards, on the other hand . . .

Well, we had some uninvited visitors while I was away.  :hostile stare:

Yardwork

The first thing I noticed about the new house when we got here was that the yard was a lot shadier than I remembered.

Of course, the first time I saw it, I had seen seven houses already that day, and I went on to see four more, and I had just defended a dissertation and survived a car breakdown en route and . . . well, it's amazing that I was sentient at all.

So, here's the back yard, from the deck, left to right.

A lot of work to be done.

Fortunately, most of the trees that will need to be taken out are on our side of the property.  The trees on the east side of the house are not, though, and we'll just say nice things about them when we grumble about our air conditioning bill.

("Geez, this is high." "Yeah.  Thank goodness for our neighbors' shade trees, though.  It'd be even worse without them.")

So, for one more summer, we've got to limp along with the container garden.  Happily, the one spot in the back yard that gets full sun is just in front of the deck.

So, there we are.  We've gotten a few things started.  Will keep you updated.