Harvesting the Crops

Today I tackled the garden and a lot of other yardwork. Owning a home (and a back yard) makes for a long list of Saturday chores! In the garden, it's been so hot during the entire month of June that certain plants struggled, even with the new irrigation installed. We knew that some plants might fizzle by the end of the season since we had started the garden in mid-April, which is late by Tucson standards. Regardless, we did great and have some yummy corn, peppers, tomatoes and beans to show for it! I'm going to keep the tomatoes and peppers for a week or two more, to allow the fruits on the vine to ripen. Then we'll pull everything out, enrich the soil and start planning the fall crop for after the monsoons! If we survived starting a garden during the hottest season of the year, a fall garden should be a piece of cake;)

Lynch Ladies in Chicago

What is the likelihood that both Lynch sisters would have a business trip to the same city on the same weekend? The stars were aligned for a great girl's weekend in Chicago for the Lynch Ladies! We pampered ourselves with mani/pedis, shopping on the Magnificent Mile, long meals and girly movies. It was great! Well, it wasn't entirely a girl's weekend, since Jeannie is 5 months pregnant with a little boy! So, it was the Lynch ladies and little Max Simpson:)

Tombstone & Bisbee circa 1880

This past weekend we took a trip back in time to when the west was truly "wild"! Back then, women in the profession were referred to as "soiled doves" or "ladies of the night" and the major mode of transportation was the horse and buggy. In this part of Arizona, it wasn't a gold rush, but rather miners worked by candlelight to unearth silver and copper. And most importantly, Wyatt Earp was the law. Where were we? Just about an hour and a half south of Tucson in Tombstone and Bisbee, Arizona. In Tombstone, we saw the shootout at the OK Corral, soaked up the saloons and danced the night away to country western music. In Bisbee, we blended in with the local culture, enjoying art galleries and yummy food in this small town nestled in the mountains less than 10 miles from the Mexico border. It was a great little getaway from Tucson and a fun weekend with Scott's parents. More photos of our Wild West Weekend.

Puppy Pampering

Tucker got his first bath at home on Saturday afternoon. He didn't like the water very much, but afterward he loved cuddling with the towel and fell asleep on the kitchen floor. More photos of Tucker this month.

Home Improvement Project #4 | Irrigation

The next big project was installing irrigation in both the front and back yard. I think we'd both agree that this was by far the best investment we've made to date! Since moving in, we've been watering the lawn, trees, shrubs, and my garden on a regular basis. It's a pretty time consuming process too! With the summer heating up, watering has to occur more frequently and it wasn't looking like a fun chore. We had "Russ the Irrigation Guy" install the electrical components and the main valves connected to the water supply. (See the boxes in the foreground in the picture.) Then, Scott and Larry spent a Saturday digging trenches with a trenching machine they had rented and laying poly for all the tree, garden and shrub lines. It was a full weekend of work!