summer is trying to win me over.

Between my garden and the weather, it's doing its very best. I'm not the biggest fan of summer; the sweating, the mugginess at work (73 degrees? COME ON! our thermostat is a liar), the oven my car turns into after 20 minutes outside, the watering and campfire restrictions as summer scorches on in Colorado.

But, this late spring and early summer have been dramatic. Mild and clear mornings end in the sky throwing a tantrum- funnel clouds, hail, charcoal-gray clouds dumping rain. Lawns and flowerbeds have thrived on their own much longer than in past summers. We haven't had week-long stretches that linger at 100 degrees each day. When I work into the evenings, chances are my ten minute drive home will be cinematic, like the time the whole sky was clear but for a towering bank of clouds to the east, filled from top to bottom with constant sparks of lightning.

And then there's The Little Garden That Could. On a whim I ripped up some grass, mixed in some topsoil with the clay as best I could, and hoped for the best. The peppers and basil are struggling, but the beans and spinach are thriving. So is the mutant squash plant to the lower left.

The garden is flanked by raspberry bushes that some previous owner planted, and they have just been dripping raspberries the past few weeks. I pick a bowl full almost every day.


The first zucchini squash of the season.


And so summer is not so bad.