The weather has been funny lately. A few weeks ago we’d have a day where we were hot and sweating and it felt like the middle of summer and then the next day it would be cold and pouring outside like the middle of winter (our rainy season) and Jeff would start a fire in the woodstove to take the chill off in the morning. Yesterday was so warm we weren’t out for long in the heat of the day, but when we went to work in the garden in the evening it was so pleasant, it felt like a summer evening. Tonight these mountains felt downright chilly and when Jeff and Bracken went to put the chickens away for the night and I hung a few things to dry on the line (when I finally got that second load of laundry hung), I wanted to run back in the house to warm up.

On April 25th (writing this down for future reference) Jeff planted a few sweet potatoes. We’ve never grown them here before and thought it would be fun to try. They’re in a large black pot to keep them warmer and Jeff puts a cover over them at night. Bracken and I have been picking the purple flowers off the chives. Maybe they’re a delicacy of some sort (are they?), but I’ve been tossing them to the chickens. I want the chives to last in the garden for as long as possible, but I haven’t been doing a great job in keeping up with the flower removal. Other things take priority in the garden, but I do love my chives.

In years past we’ve always dumped every container with standing water that we could find in the yard to reduce the mosquitoes around here. But this year Jeff and Bracken have been leaving the standing water on purpose and have been wanting to encourage mosquito larvae. Why in the world would they want to do that you might ask? I guess I should back up because I’m not sure if I ever mentioned Bracken’s pet frog. He’s had a pet fish (a beta) for awhile now and he wanted a frog to go in the aquarium with his fish in the worst way. At the pet store, they said the only way to know if the arrangement would work out peacefully, would be to try it out. So we took a risk.

Thankfully the fish and frog have been getting along great. (Moss and Plummy are their names.) In the beginning, though, we couldn’t get any food to the frog. The fish would come and eat, but the frog didn’t seem to figure it out. After a few days he wasn’t very active and we were worried about him. Jeff said he knew what the frog would eat and he and Bracken headed outside. They came back in with mosquito larvae and the fish and frog ate them alright. They went nuts! We all starred at the aquarium while the frog leaped in the quickest flashes like a primal hunter, catching them one by one. We don’t have any problem getting him to eat now when Jeff and Bracken bring mosquito larvae.

The Sunday before last some friends came over and we went on a walk in search of salmonberries in the woods. We found some! It was torture for the boys to wait to eat them until I had taken a picture of that beautiful handful of yellow spring berries, but they managed. Those boys have been spending time together since they were babies and every time they’re together I’m flooded with memories of the two of them over the years. When our friends came to visit this last time, the boys collected mosquito larvae together and brought it to the aquarium to watch the entertainment. Apparently our family is not alone in finding it quite entertaining.

P.S. I mentioned before that we had tons of leaf hoppers on our currants this year. I covered the leaves in diatamaceous earth and it did the trick! We hardly had any leaf hoppers on the currants after that. Some (not pictured) are starting to turn red and Bracken is watching them like a hawk, determined to beat the birds to them.