Several years ago Ben started a group of wine grape test vines down below the Rose garden.

For a long time not much happened to these miserable little vines lying limp on the ground. The weeds around the vines did much better and Sophie and I spent so much time down there weeding we told Ben that ANY wine he ever got from the grapes was going have to be named after us.

Anyways, this year, while Ben walks the vineyards of La Rioja and other wine regions of northern Spain, all part of his Camino to Santiago de Compostela, his home town grapes have decided to spring into action and bear a lot of fruit.

And the weeds? They aren’t so bad for some reason. Everything is coming into some sort of equilibrium. No doubt Ben will credit his grape whispering in the ancient vineyards along the Camino.

So……..while our harvest this year may bear little resemblance to the vendimia in Spain- no ladies dancing in big vats of grapes- Ben is going to return from his pilgrimage with a lot of grapes waiting for him! That and a lot of junk mail.

The rest of the gardens are also doing their best with the little bit of sun we are getting.

Here Konigin von Danemark gives us a gorgeous show. I love this Rose and its vibration that leads us away from perfectionism and shame spirals towards gentle self acceptance.

F.J. Grootendorst is another Rose that lingers with an endless supply of these generous clusters of summer joy.

Here are Ben’s grapes with annual Pom Pom Poppies in the foreground. I can’t get enough of these Poppies, nor can the bees.

We get the best mail. This summer it may be raining cats and dogs outside, but inside, as always, it is raining fun, beautiful, informative, supportive mail!

So many of your letters, cards, and emails share your experiences with the Flower Essences. What you share is always so much fun to read. Thank you one and all! We deeply appreciate each of you that takes the time to tell us your healing stories!

Here’s an excerpt from a note we got yesterday. It reminded us that all our efforts to find Flower Essences for hair issues were worth it.

“Guess what? My boyfriend has begun to grow hair on a pate smooth for 20 years.”

The Flower Essences she ordered? Claret Cup, Cedar, Cotton, Bog Cotton, Madagascar Periwinkle, Ocotillo, Digestive Woes, Desert Gold, Healthy Coat, Beautiful Skin and Vitex.

As I transcribed this list, I thought maybe I should only mention the part of the order with the most obvious connections to hair issues. The Angels interrupted me to say, ” All of these Essences serve this situation, not just the most obviously hair oriented Flower Essences like Cotton. This is such an excellent example of how in trusting your intuition even when it seems to lead towards choices that have no apparent bearing on the situation, you open the way for the Flower Essences to support you in the most profound and multifaceted way possible.”

Nicely said! And now I am going to start my day with a glass of water containing all the unusual unexpected and inexplicable Flower Essence choices of the Angels!

So are the Slugs…..

And after finishing off most of the Red Shiso, they have moved on to the lettuce, spinach, chard, hostas, marigolds, kale, peppers, eggplant, cabbage, broccoli.

At this point, between trips to the local farm stand for vegetables, I begin to wonder, is there anything besides crab grass that slugs don’t eat?

I am not alone in my musings on these meaty existential questions. At the farm stand yesterday, they ALSO were talking about slugs and their futile attempts to make slugs more appealing, even cute by calling them, “hitchkhikers.” Apparently at the pick your own strawberry part of their operation, the slugs are all over the berries and this PR is not really improving the situation.

Let’s face the sad truth, there is nothing cute about slugs.

There is hope that the slug population will recede as we have finally seen the sun for a few minutes. It is almost freaky to see a bit of blue sky and have a few blessed moments of sunshine.

And the few moments of sunshine were not much consolation to May May and Jim who have worked on the stonewall patio project in “heavy mists and light drizzle” because their only other options were working during deluges, floods, thunderstorms, or downpours.

Is it really any wonder that another Sheehan has taken off for Spain where the pilgrimage trail promises sunshine and heat?

And when I took this shot of Ben about to head to JFK on the train to NYC, I had to acknowledge the good sense of Will, who is looking like he might leap that train with Ben and head out on the Camino himself.

Now there’s a hitchhiker that might qualify as cute.

When the paths look the same as the ponds

and some even look like small rivers,

you know you’ve had enough rain.

Now that the full time census here is three men and one woman- at least until next week- there are some obvious points to be made.

The Sheehan Men. They like sports. Four days of US Open Golf on TV can drift into five and not just because of rain delays. And that’s a sports joke that I can only make because of an epic amount of golf viewing last weekend.

The Sheehan Men. Their obsession with little white dimpled balls is not just an arm chair activity. They plan to play 54 holes of golf this Saturday with a 4:30 am departure from the farm and a first tee time of 6 am on their favorite gold course in southern New Hampshire. I think the dogs and I will not see them off. Probably will be asleep when they return too.

The Sheehan Men. Because when golf in all its variations is put on the back burner, there is always soccer. A crowd (of men needless to say) is gathering at 2:45 today in front of our TV for the US versus Spain game. Apparently its not often that the US gets to be trounced by the best team in the world- only, like, every time they are in a tournament. But who is quibbling?

Because the other thing about the Sheehan Men is that they haul rocks. Lots of them. Even Will (whose main job is eating) found time to carry rock this morning in between bowls of ice cream. Not only do they haul rock, but they place it nicely. And they even look cheerful while heaving solid granite around as if tossing feather pillows.

But then, the smiles could just indicate they know game time is now only an hour away.