School's Out! As much as I do love my job feeding the students and staff at The Learning Center!, I will admit that the prospect of two months of summer vacation stretching out ahead of me has me feeling a bit euphoric. Maybe I will even do a better job of keeping my blog up to date.

Well, I did finally just give up on all attempts at gardening in the bottom land where the animals are. They win. They can have it. My tiny square foot garden shows much promise, though. Even with this little patch we are inundated with lettuce. Not a bad problem to have in my opinion. The gourmet type green beans and the squash are both coming along well and the potted tomatoes seem happy. And as my husband pointed out recently, even though this a much smaller garden, in the end we may actually get more out of it since we aren't "sharing" this one.

We have been eating the lettuce and despite the hot weather and little rain, it wasn't at all bitter. Of course, I am watering it (but since it is so compact, it takes much less water) and we also have it covered with a layer of Agrobon, which I think is really helping it. I stretch the cover out over the green beans to keep bugs off and they seem to like it too.

Plans are to extend the garden a bit this summer. I will also have to find a good place to replant some asparagus next spring since the goats destroyed that as well. But we live and learn. One thing I have come to realize is that a farm is never stagnant, never "finished". Circumstances change, the mix of animals changes or we just figure out a better way to do things. It is always a work in progress, but that may well be one of its attractions to me.

The next big event at Pleasant Places should be the arrival of the goat kids. Stay tuned...