June 2026 – Summer Somehow Flying By

June 2026 the month here that always flies by and we’re all left wondering how its July already and how are we really half way through the year!? Our weather in June was super extreme this year. We did get some rain though it came in with MAJOR storms so I never did have to actually water an acre of baby trees (yet) but early in the month we also actively saw extreme heat as well. Daily I looked out at my temp gauge in the direct sun on my deck and it was over 110 degrees.

No matter the temp though June was a month of WIND. Weirdly after that insane heat June cooled off to highs only in the 60s which is super odd for us this time of the year. But I’m not complaining, though I like the heat and love summer, getting a break from it for awhile was actually kind of nice.

I swear my out of shape butt is still recovering from planting my 360 trees two months ago!

Most of my outdoor list from this spring is complete besides transplanting my perennials but they’re far better off being moved in the fall anyway. And I’m also really reconsidering where I want to move them now too…

That just leaves siding my shed and fixing a small spot of siding on the South side of the house as my entire summer “to-do” list. Of course there’s always the bucket list items such as building the work bench of my dreams and basically converting the third stall of my garage into a wood working shop.

It is nice not to feel rushed or stressed anymore. I’ve learned better now how to set boundaries not just with other people but with myself too. Reminded often that everything I want to get done here will wait for me.

I saw a video of a DIY blogger who started a thirty days of thirty little things she’d been putting off forever.

June 2026 You are not alone girl!

The last few months I’ve been tackling the “little things” I had just never gotten around to.

Putting up a piece of missing trim in my living room. Patching a hole in the drywall in my master. Fixing the latches on the three interior doors that Lodi kicked in. Trimming out the access door on my garage and putting up beadboard above my new front door.

I mentioned the black bear in my yard in my last post and I referred to it as a “he” well, it turns out, it was actually a big mama bear! My mom (who lives less than a mile from me) sent me pictures of the bear and her THREE cubs up a tree in her yard.

(Isn’t my humming bird feeder pretty?! I bought some beautiful new feeders this year and, just in case the bear does take interest, I also picked up some breakaway clips that will save the feeders and the hanger!)

Because of the bear I haven’t had suet or bird seed feeders out for a over a year but now, with my little dog gone, I can put them up in my “dog” kennel. So I moved two shepherds hooks from my deck to under the eve outside the window of my office so I can finally put out suet again and I can also watch birds from my preferred spot on the couch now too. I couldn’t do that before because my dog ate any suet or bird seed that was dropped…

I’m not putting out seed again though as it never occurred to me that sunflower seeds would draw in mice and I’m rather embarrassed to admit that. How it became obvious was the result of my having to run a DSL line across my house.

When I moved my office this last winter I couldn’t get a decent enough WIFI signal to play Fortnite with my family as the modem was in the other room. (It was fine for any other kind of work but Fortnite is a monster that requires exceptional internet.)

It was either I run a DSL line across my house OR under my house through my dreaded crawl space.

So one night I put on my favorite music. I put on a head lamp and dropped another around my neck for back up as being in my pitch black crawl space with no light was not something I could let happen. Then I drilled a hole where I wanted the line to go in each room and threaded down far more DSL cable then I would ever need and tied it off.

I put on long sleeves, jeans, light shoes and tucked my sleeves into a tight pair of gloves. I also braided my hair and tucked it into my shirt as there wouldn’t be any room for a pony tail or a hair clip where I was going.

Then, in my basement, I got up on a ladder and proceeded to snake myself up into my (at best) 24 inch high crawl space.

I’ve been in my crawl spaces several times in the past and they’re definitely in the top five of the least pleasant experiences this house has ever given me. This was once a farm, this is an old farm house, my crawl spaces have seen the births and deaths, over a hundred and twenty years, of generations of mice and other critters.

So that’s what I was crawling through and trying very hard not to think about.

At one point I just laid on my back with my eyes closed, “This isn’t so bad. I’m legitimately just laying here doing the opposite of manual labor. The music is good and there’s absolutely no rush. This isn’t gross, creepy, icky or claustrophobic at all…” The floor joist above my head, in that moment, was less than two inches from my nose.

The belly crawl to get my DSL line to the other side of the house was about sixty feet round trip and I’m not in great shape nor near as thin as I used to be – that was a workout! I was at least able to crawl between the floor joists for most of it which gave me another six inches of head room.

And now I’ve gotten to the part on how the very obvious became clear to me and I will never again put out seeds for the birds.

Guys, I wasn’t just crawling through the ick, I was also crawling through two inches deep of sunflower seed shells. Mice (and only God knows what else) was living in my crawl space while I fed them year around. Since I stopped putting out seed my little mouse problem has all but disappeared.

*sighs*

June 2026 Fortunately it turns out most birds love suet and my pileated wood peckers found it within just a couple of days!

I told my best friend about it and she couldn’t believe I didn’t call someone to spot me.

“What would you have done? Yelled encouragement through the floor at me?”

“Something could have happened!”

“I was literally laying down the whole time!”

I don’t blame her. It was a very icky crawl. But on a scale of 1-10 of the most dangerous things I’ve done here by myself it was less than a 1.

June 2026 I am still struggling with the fact that I have my whole property back and I can do what I want with it. The house was easy but the yard has been… more difficult to get through to me.

When Lodi was here his priority was no trees and all grass. He “allowed” me my garden and a tiny spot to plant flowers for the bees and butterflies. Absolutely all of the rest of this property that could be lawn simply had to be… according to him.

Looking back now I actually would have planted trees where my garden is. My garden would be in my giant “yard” and my pond would be beside it… looking at my yard now I really want a do-over but for this year I’m going to leave it alone as my garden is already producing and I really do love my pond!

But my perennials still absolutely HAVE to move this fall. My L shaped garden by my house is falling apart and my peonies have languished for years where they are. I was going to put them around my garden but now I’ve finally realized I can put them anywhere I feel like it.

(Though up by the garden means they would get watered with the garden which is super handy…)

Reconsidering things…

JUNE 2026 TREE UPDATE:

OMG THE OAKS ARE SO FLIPPING ADORABLE!

JUST LOOK AT THEIR LITTLE LEAVES!!!

Doing a head count I so far have at least a 70% survival rate which is pretty much as good as I ever could have hoped for. The trees that did well though surprised me. Over half of my oaks are leafing out, almost all of my red pine look amazing but I lost over half of my white pines which is suck a bummer and I have no idea why.

June 2026 Garden update: I’m gonna start with the bad news. Something ate all of my peas even before they sprouted and none of my thyme, oregano, rosemary, sage or dill came up.

On to the good news: My green beans, cucumbers, basil, carrots, beats, tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash and butternut squash are all doing awesome!