Summertime

Summertime, summertime, sum-sum-summertime!  

Yep, summertime is officially here -- both meteorological and astronomical summers -- though it's been summer in the South for a month now.  To be fair, it's been kind of a mild late spring/early summer.  We're just now getting temps into the 90s.  Alas, they're also in the 90s in my work area.

To put that into perspective, it was 94° outside, and 93° inside.  I'd prefer the outside, though, because at least there is a cool breeze from time to time, and fresh, clean air.  The air inside is foul and stale and clings to you like a filthy scum.  

In better news, my tall sunflowers are blooming.  I had to get my selfie stick and extend it to its full length to take these photos, which was an adventure because I couldn't see what I was taking a picture of.  It took several tries, but eventually I got some decent shots.  

As always, I'm not sure which varieties these are, but they sure are pretty. 

This one isn't quite opened all the way, and you can tell how tall this plant is by the flagpole in the lower left corner of the photo. 

Not only that, I'm finally getting some other colors of my Cosmos blooming. 

The peppers are coming along nicely, too.  This sweeet banana pepper is coming along nicely, and so far is the largest one. 

I've got a pretty good crop of Jalapeños, too. 

Unfortunately, my herbs are being completely devoured by...I don't really know what, but they're munching away, especially on my lemon balm.  I've been using the diluted dish soap, but it isn't working all that well.  In desperation, I ordered some Neem oil to see if that helps. 

Speaking of, I found a very large garden spider in my kitchen this morning, and we had a long talk about her job performance.  I told her she needed to get her spidery butt out into my herb garden and eat whatever is out there.  "Imma let it slide this time, but if you don't start paying your rent, you're out of here!"  

 In book news, I finished the second book of the Matched trilogy, Crossed.  It was pretty good, but dragged a bit more than the first one.  I must have thought so the first time I read it, too, because I left it a three star review on Goodreads.  It was a pretty long book, and she could have probably trimmed 20-30 pages and it would have been better for it.  Next up is the third one, Reached.  

This is the one I haven't read yet, so I'm looking forward to it. 

I'll let you know how it goes.