by James Glaser
June 5, 2004

The sun is out, things are starting to grow, but it just isn't summer yet. It might seem real hot, that lake looks so good, but the water temperature is 63 degrees and there isn't a chance you are going to swim in water that cold.

The tomato plants are nice and tall, they have all sorts of yellow blossoms on them, but no tomatoes yet. I even tell the plants, that who ever is first with a real tomato, will get an extra water ration and some good compost.

This time of year all of the flowers look so promising, but any night now the deer will be in them having a salad. Other than hunting season, there is never a good time of year to see deer if you plant anything.

I saw my first fawn of the year and yes, they are so very cute and playful. I also saw baby geese and ducks. There was a Loon swimming by with her babies on her back. I found a toad right outside the green house and I moved him inside so he could protect my plants. Last year I had one who got bigger, so he must have been eating something. By the end of the summer he wouldn't hide from me. Maybe I had a pet toad and didn't know it.

This is the time of year that you want everything to hurry up, but the summers fly by so fast any way, so, we should learn to enjoy this late spring season. It takes patience to grow a garden, flowers or vegetables, but I don't have enough patience. I know every gardener does it, at least I hope they do, talk to their plants coaxing them on to maturity much faster than they were meant to. It does no good, you can't hurry a potato or a carrot and when everything does start to produce you start telling them to slow down.

As with every other year I have planted way more than I should and this is the time of year that people start thinning out things that have crowded their garden and like all gardeners, they don't want to waste this little plant they have grown, so they "gift" it to you. You know that you can always make room for one more thing or heck, you can start a new garden. To be honest, it is an addiction. I should start a GA group up here.

This is also the time of year that you make out that final "to do list" for the summer. You make them out in the winter, but after you start working on that list, you realize that there is no way that you will get everything you thought of in December, done in June, July and August.

Every year I tell myself that this year I am going to pick one project and finish it. However here is what happens. You start out fine and really make some progress and then you run out of materials. You could buy some more, but you have some of the materials for another project right here at home and so you start on that one. The key is to make it all the way through the summer without starting anything new.

I am making a real push this summer to finish the Guest House, which has morphed into the Gift Shop. Charmaine wanted a gift shop and I have decided that I like that idea. The Boat House will have to be the new Guest House and I hope that some of the guests, decide to pitch in and work on it soon.

So tomorrow I will be up bright and early opening the windows in the green house and giving a pep talk to the plants. Then I will continue to use up all the materials I have for the gift shop. It is getting real close to being finished and I could see it opening by next summer. I might not make much money being in a very low population area, but then I won't have any rent to pay either and who really wants to have a lot of people coming by.

I'll tell you the real hard part of this time of year. Things are not happening as fast as you want them to right now. In a couple of months I will be in a real frazzle as everyone will be on me to get their things done, I will be harvesting produce every day, and trying to do something with it at night, and this looks to be one of the best wild berry years we have had in a long time, and I will want to get out and pick.

Maybe, I should just sit back and relax now. I know that isn't going to happen, but that would be a new project that wouldn't take any more new materials.