The garden is flourishing. All of a sudden, things just seem to be taking off. We have corn (that we are attempting to pollinate by hand), lots of kale (once again), tomatoes that are finally showing some buds, a few carrots and some broccoli and pumpkins galore! Plus, Jeff’s hop vine is growing pretty steadily too.

As you can see, I pulled out all that kale in the first garden box. It now has a new home with a man who traded us for the flower box. It’s so much fun eating from the garden. Tonight we had home-grown swiss chard, kale and spinach tossed into a pasta dish. The best!

I just finished making another story telling set for my etsy shop. It’s one of my favorite all time children’s books, Miss Rumphius. It was so much fun making this little set. I almost want to keep it for myself.

She even has a pocket on the opposite side to peek out of (or to keep your lupine seeds).

I’m lucky to belong to a few wonderful online communities of incredible artisans of children’s toys and lucky enough to sometimes get toys for trade. Ellie received a beautiful wooden Beluga whale in the mail this week. I’m as smitten with the whale as she is. It’s a beautifully handcrafted toy and Ellie has been thrilled that her fish and mermaid have a new friend. You can check out Allison’s shop here. There are so many fantastic artisans out there. I’m hoping one day to be able to make these little wooden creatures too. They are just so magical.

She also made the connection that her beluga whale was in a book too. We’ve been singing lots of Baby Beluga around these parts.

So that’s what’s happening in these late days of June…. Tomorrow is my birthday and then next week I go in for some oral surgery to hopefully fix some tooth aches as well as a lot of sinus trouble I’ve been having. Wish me luck. I may not be in this space very much next week but I’ll try to at least make it for next week’s portrait project.