Hello, summer!

Well now it's officially summer, nearly July. Summers are always amazingly busy times for us, partially because I work odd schedules, but mostly because it's so nice out we have to spend so much time outside working. It is great to be back at work though, I can't believe a month has already flown by! We have a lot of good low tides for tidepool tours this summer (the photos are from South Cove during the amazing minus tides last week: a red-gilled nudibranch and sunflower star). I've successfully led my first try at my new program, a guided hike along the cliffs and through the forest. I've done both my mountain lion & sea otter evening programs (to good-sized audiences), and I'm working on developing my animal tracks one into 2 separate programs, one for kids and one for all ages.

Our garden is going gung-ho, we've already made several harvests of radishes, broccoli rabe, beets, peas, and salad greens. I'll take a photo today to upload whenever I get a chance to post again (don't hold your breath) later. We're also sharing a CSA membership with R's boss this summer, so we're overloaded with veggies! Lots of strawberries too. We went to the master gardeners' plant sale this spring, and found that our tomatoes we had started in the windows of the garage were about 5 times as big as what the "experts" were selling. Currently our tomatoes are blooming! We found a good sale on a pressure cooker the other day, so I hope to get a good batch of tomatoes we can can this fall.

As always in summer, we can't plan any vacations, since I work weekends and it's hard to get days off. But I'm planning to go to my cousin's wedding in Seattle in August, and we've already had visitors twice- Brandy and Evan came down at the beginning of the month and we went camping (in my park, so it didn't feel much like a vacation for me, but was fun all the same); then last weekend my Mom came for a visit and brought be a spinning wheel from my aunt in Cali, exciting! R's boss' sister happened to be up that same weekend, and she taught me to spin, as she has the exact same type of spinning wheel. Serendipitous!

I also bought myself a wetsuit, finally, and am so learning to surf, if the wind and waves ever cooperate. Fall is the best time to surf here, so we'll see. Steph is also a beginning surfer, and her boyfriend has several boards we can borrow.

As for knitting, I finished a pair of socks for R's birthday, and am still working on my aunt's shawl, now that she's actually finished chemo, sigh. I need to finish it soon though, not only to give to her- I need the needles for a jacket I want to wear to the wedding. I'm also working on a "so you think you can dance" sweater (a ballet top knitted while watching that most addicting of summer shows). I dyed the yarn for it myself, it looks pretty cool. I'll put up a pic when it's finished. Here are R's giant socks:


I hope everyone is having an excellent summer and enjoying gorgeous weather! If you aren't, just come visit us here! Oh, and PS- check out the slideshow at the bottom of the blog for photos from Kauai.