It's Pea Pickin' Time

Ah, summer. Tire swings and fresh garden vegetables, bare limbs and dogs belly-down in cool grass, gorging on peas.
We're home, as of 10:30 last night. Sleeping in our own beds, hearing our own crickets and night sounds. We're all so happy to be home. The gardens survived. My housesitters are brilliant. Chet got all his booster shots and spent a week in the kennel and is back on bunny patrol, playing Gremlin's Gold at night, tug-of war and tag with the kids. He's a mighty forgiving little animal. People should spring back so readily.We are smothering him with love and he's soaking it all up. He slept with Phoebe last night, a beatific grin on both their faces.

I got up at 7 this morning and was still watering at 9. It's been wicked dry here, but I soaked everything the evening before we left and the plants hung in there until I could get back.

The word is in: I have Rocky Mountain spotted fever. A mild case, I think. Still on antibiotic and feeling fine but for sore arms and more fatigue than usual. Great. Two tick-borne diseases on my resume.

North Dakota was amazing. I can't really begin to describe it without pictures, and those are coming, as are the thoughts that go with them. For now, I'm placeholding with peas. The important stuff has to be done first, like picking fat sugar snap peas. Finally, for the first time in my life, I have enough of them. Five big rows of two varieties--early Sugar Ann bush peas, and later Sugar Snap climbers. The early peas are at peak; the climbers are just now coming in. We took a big bag of them on the plane and ate them all week. What a godsend. I love North Dakota but I don't consider iceberg lettuce a vegetable, and after a couple days of pizza and hamburgers and meat and bread and potatoes with tiny iceberg lettuce side salads I get this hungry glint in my eye and consider dropping to my hands and knees to eat clover. Chlorophyll is what I need.

Baker helped us pick peas this morning. He flopped down on my tuberoses and glads and supervised while Phoebe and I worked.I never saw a green vegetable the entire week in the kennel. I do not know what is wrong with those people. Kibble and meat, that's all they gave me. I am starving for peas.
I would appreciate it if you would shell them for me, but I will eat the pods if you are too lazy.
He picks his own, leaving a distinctive chewed stub on the plant. But he cannot be trusted around the harvest.
Nor can Sir Liam. He's a two-fisted sugar snap pea eater. He has always called them sugar nas peas, so we do, too.Enough peas to share. Life is good.