And all is right with my world

Well, almost. I wish I had a little more time with two free hands to do things like blog, clean my house, and take a nice bubble bath. But, I really can't complain. I had another beautiful little girl on June 27th and we call her Poppy, short for Penelope Rose. My two-year-old daughter Lizzie just adores her.

We're very lucky since a lot of my friend's older children don't even acknowledge their newborn siblings let alone try to play with them. It's not unusual for Lizzie to pile Poppy under all her favorite stuffies, including Bear-Bear (in the dirt above) her most prized bear of all. Poppy doesn't really like to be piled under four or five bears but she'll learn someday that her older sister is being very sweet. It melts my heart to see them together. I wanted nothing more than two little girls and I got them! How lucky am I?!

Lizzie's garden (formerly the Michelle Obama rocks, Monsanto sucks, honorary organic garden) is flourishing. Lizzie took it over by moving her lawn chair in there one morning and saying "I LIKE MOMMY'S GARDEN!" and then proceeded to eat a carrot right out of the ground, dirt and all (luckily dirt makes your smarter.) So I've had to rename my little six foot by fourteen foot patch after my older daughter since she's apparently claimed it. And if I can grow it she'll eat it. I've had other mommy-friends look on in wonderment as she devours homegrown carrots, green beans and cucumbers but leaves her mac and cheese untouched.

Last year I posted a running tally of everything that I grew in my tiny 6'x14' patch and I will again soon. Tomatoes are just coming in now and we can barely keep up with cukes. More than one neighbor has come home to a cucumber or two on their front steps :) I'm already coming up with expansion plans for next year since Poppy will want in on those homegrown carrots and green beans by then and I want some too!

I've been a lot more successful than last year due to the hot weather and a better layout, tucking over-zealous zucchini in a back corner and not right out front where they shaded everything. So far we've also been spared late blight which destroyed my tomatoes last year. There's a late blight warning for the western part of Massachusetts but no word of it on the North Shore yet. I keep knocking on wood though.

The Ipswich River is also running again, finally. We're currently experiencing our third day in a row of rain and I am ecstatic! The USGS gauge went from 0.88 cubic feet per second on Sunday to 75 cfs today! I know it won't stay up there forever but a three day soak is just what the watershed needed to last the rest of the summer. Happy fish!

I will sign off now and hope my state of contentment sticks with you. It helps that my full-term baby is already pulling eight hour stretches overnight so I'm getting a lot more sleep than with my preemie first-born (where I was up every hour and a half for the first two months!) I hope to visit all my follower's blogs soon, but even though life is good it is super super busy. Plus it's summer so we're outside getting dirty as much as we can!