Flowers, weeds who is winning??

So many of my flowers have come back, which is a good thing. The downside is that so have the weeds. I was out in vegetable garden last night and just shocked at all the weeds that had popped up in just a few days. Now, if I could only cross the weeds with the things I want we could have giant, indestructible plants. My garden has it's highs and lows, some things have done very well. The cool temperatures and lots of rain have stunted other things. It had been predicted that we would be in the high 80's , low 90's this week. Yesterday it got to 71 and not much higher today so far. For me that is fine, although wearing long pants and flannel shirts in July and August is a little strange. The plants need the higher temperatures to thrive, my sunflowers have just opened within the last couple of weeks.

Things are strange all around, we will not have an apple harvest this year. There were lots of blooms on the trees, but no bees to pollinate and then high winds that stripped the blossoms from the trees. I do not see more then a dozen apples on all three trees. I am finally seeing some bees, but no more then a few each day. The same is true for the butterflies and humming birds. Within the last week I have finally seen one lone hummingbird where in the past there were 8 or 10. I am looking into how one goes about having a small hive of bees so I will have better luck with crops nest year. I did buy some lady bugs this spring and released them, hopefully they will reproduce and thrive. I see them now and then so know that a few are around.

Here is a picture taken several weeks ago of my new addition to the family. I read that chickens will help with the fly population and other insects, so found a hatchery online and ordered some little peepers. Most of them will lay brown eggs the others will lay colored eggs, cool. There are Black Australorp, Buff Orpington, gold Star and Silver Laced Wyandotte. The ones that lay the colored eggs are called Americana. Jim has worked for the last several weekends to build them a coop. He has closed off the end of one stall, putting 3 kinds of wire and framing it in for strength. He also built a very nice nesting box for them. This weekend he was to finish the coop so I could move them out of the basement. Unfortunately, he had to stay at work as they had several pieces of equipment fail. So I have been trying to get the rest of the wire up and secured. These guys are far to large to be in cages. Wish me luck, that chicken wire has a life of it's own, I have scratches all over in spite of wearing gloves. Will post pictures when done so you can see the girls in all their glory.

I hope every one is having a wonderful summer, amazing to think it is almost over.