My bean patch is going NUTS!!  I'm telling you, we seem to have a bumper crop of everything this year, both planted and natural.  ALL the perennials bloomed this year, for the first time in our 5 summers here.  Even the peach tree flowered and is now covered with little fuzzy peaches!  Had I been thinking straight at the time, I should have thinned them much earlier on, so I'm not sure how big these will get.  There's quite a few.  I have raspberries like I've never had before.  And, as I started with, the bean patch is full, full, full!  I picked a whole bunch the other day and had to freeze half the batch.  Went back out to check stuff today and filled another bag, which I gave to a friend since we really have plenty and there's much more to come!  But I really enjoy sharing my bounty as much as I enjoy eating it.  People are so appreciative of fresh-from-the-garden food, since so few folks seem to garden anymore.  I also have little baby cukes starting to show from the blossoms!  Won't be long before pickling begins.  The other neat thing we've discovered recently is a couple of Monarch butterfly caterpillars on the little milkweed plant near the front porch lattice.  Guess I won't be pulling that out anytime soon.  We have tons of milkweed over with the raspberry bushes and last year they were full of caterpillars and later, chrysalis.  SO neat to watch that whole process; what an amazing part of Creation!

Meanwhile, with my oldest son off to camp, it is unusually quiet around here, esp. in the evenings when DH is at work and it's just me and the other two boys.  They get along so well that I rarely have to play referee or see what they're up to.  I love my eldest with all my heart but I am really realizing what a force he is within this family!!  My middle son has been going to soccer camp in the mornings this week; he and the youngest will both play on the teams this fall.  My youngest is also going to be taking horse back riding lessons - wahoo!!!  I actually found a place that will take young kids (he is 5) and I've been in touch with the instructor and she's wonderful.  We're going to go over and meet her and the horses one day soon and get some lessons set up for the boy!  He got the horse bug from me, for sure.  Hopefully in Florida we'll be able to find a place to ride (and one day, keep our own!) and keep it going.