New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff

The sky is on fire tonight with fireflies

Tuesday 06/24/2014

Oh how a week has made us transition officially into summer. I couldn't help but linger a little while outside this evening on my back deck as fireflies lit up the night sky. We used to call them lightning bugs in my youth.

What a sweep of warm dry days for our local farmers to get in their hay. I was talking with a farmer friend I have known for decade last evening at a meeting in Concord. He says this past five days has been the best haying conditions he can remember in years. All his hay for his horses dried to perfection. Here in Epsom the local dairy farmer has been bailing hay the last week as well. How sweet it is to follow the hay wagon as he plods along and as I glean the fresh hay sent from the air as I trail along. Life is good behind a hay wagon.

My garden is doing well. I picked my first cucumber today. Well this was a cheating plant I planted two weeks ago bought from the local farms good store with a couple of blossoms already on it. But my planted seeds have faired well and I should be seeing oodles of cucumbers from them in a couple weeks. Though I do wish my tomato plants would show more of a spurt in growth. I just started watering in earnest this week with the purchase of a new sprinkler that cast a watery swath the full length and breadth of my garden per cycle. I'll be picking peppers in less than a week too. So far the local deer have not been guests in my garden a night yet. So even my beans are looking good without it seems an annual trimming by the deer. But I'm a couple weeks from beans and that could change any night now.

Yes we are settling in to summer well along River Road.