Vermont is in the midst of a heat-wave right now. Yesterday, for only the second time in my 40+ years in Vermont, my exterior house thermometer (not in the sun) registered 100 degrees. That doesn’t normally happen in Vermont! Yes, in the winter, we can get long periods of bitter cold, but we don’t do heat terribly well.

Over the last few days, we have had family visiting, and enjoyed hours of fun with the youngest members of the family. Our four year-old granddaughter helped me with a knitting project that I was silly enough to leave sitting in my basket next to the spinning wheel. Yes, she also helped with the spinning, but I forgot to take a picture of that.

Here is what my project looks like now. It is so good to have a helper!

Then, after we worked with the knitting, we went outside to explore. The chickens are lots of fun to chase! The alpacas decided staying far away from the fence was the best plan of action. Then we cooked a bit, including using the last of our garlic scapes and some of our home-grown mushrooms.

Then we wandered back outside to check out the blackberries — not ready yet, but we are clearly going to have a bumper crop.

Yesterday, we needed to spend some time in the bee hives, then clean the barn, and work in the garden. As we walked up the hill, absolutely drenched in sweat, we realized that we need to pick blueberries and cherries, so that will be the project after work today.

In all of this, we are making sure that all of our animals are doing okay. We know that like the people, Vermont animals aren’t used to this heat. Hopefully it will break soon!