🌻 A radish, a sunflower, a firefly, a bee

Finally a sunny week to get back outside.

Happy Sunday!

I am pleased to report the new bunny fence seems to working. Plants have leaves that haven’t had leaves in weeks. It also successfully keeps Samson out, who has taken a liking to eating flowers.

No, no, buddy.

Here’s what else is new in the Funkyard:

• We got our first radish, which may turn out to be our only radish. We have other radish plants that look like they’re growing fine, but don’t seem to have made radishes, just leaves. One bolted (flowered). I Googled it, and the internet tells me that once it’s 80 degrees or so, the plants invest in flowers and not tasty bulbs for my salad. So maybe we planted them too late? Perhaps. But it’s definitely over 80 every day now, so maybe we’ll pull them up and plant something else in their spot (and try radishes again in the fall).

One whole radish! Woo!

• We also got our first sunflower. We planted mammoths, which supposedly can get up to 12 feet tall. They’re about 2 feet tall right now.

Also getting eaten, what else is new. At least it’s not bunnies. Or dogs.

• I trimmed our redbuds a bit where they were overhanging and shading our tomatoes. It hurt me to cut any branches off my new favorite trees, but it had to be done. They also had a LOT of dead branches, so I lopped about a gazillion of those off, too. We just got new loppers, which are amazing, and I really enjoyed climbing the trees. Now we have a giant pile of sticks for the fire.

• The previous owners really let their fencerows and garden beds fill in with whatever came up, so there are 4-foot-tall honeysuckles, mulberries, honey locusts, and more scattered everywhere. I’ve started removing them, chopping them as low as possible and painting the stumps with Roundup brush killer (which the Missouri Botanical Garden said would work on honeysuckle, so I’m hoping that applies to other weedy shrubs!)

• Samson is bigger every time I look at him. He’s almost 35 lbs. (And honestly, since we last weighed him yesterday, he probably is by now.) He crested 30 about a week and a half ago, and was just over 20 when we got him (just under a month ago). GIANT DOG, INCOMING.

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Next up we’re making a hanging garden for our strawberries out of a pallet (that the previous owners left us, among much additional trash wood).

Funkyard species count: 135 (119 logged). New arrivals: Lightning bugs, crickets, tiny cute sweat bees, and poison ivy (boooooo!).

I’m reading “America Has a Drinking Problem” in The Atlantic. A deep dive into why we drink and since when and what it means. Super interesting. Also: “'Wakanda Doesn't Have Suburbs': How Movies Like Black Panther Could Help Us Save the Planet” in TIME from Kendra Pierre-Louis. A must-read if you’re tired of doom and gloom and “climate change will bring the apocalypse” vibes. It’s not that.

We’re watching The Irregulars season 1 (Netflix). Sherlock’s world, but Sherlock isn’t the main character. We’re a few episodes in, and so far hooked. Also Army of the Dead (2021, Netflix). Very gory, very entertaining.

We’re playing soccer. We signed up for a co-ed league that may or may not start this week (it’s unclear). Andy and I rode our bikes (for the first time in 5 years) until we found a mowed field and practiced this afternoon, it was lovely. (Andy is a soccer player; I am not. Pray for me, we don’t know how competitive this league is.)

We’re listening to, um, music. I want to listen to more music. Please reply to this email or leave me a comment with your most recent favorite “no skip” album — that is, an album where every song is good and you don’t skip any tracks. (Can be old or new music, but bonus points if it’s new-ish!)

We’re eating jalapeno poppers for dinner, because we are healthy.

This week I wrote my first book review! Here’s what I think about the just-released Technically Food: Inside Silicon Valley’s Mission to Change What We Eat by Larissa Zimberoff.

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OK team, that’s all for today. Have a great week!
Take care please,
XOXO,
A

P.S.

“I’m sorry I ate your flowers.”

✌ 💖🌻

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