I hear ya! Every night I swear I won't spend all evening in the garden, but then it's like hmm it just got dark. It's so nice now that I can put the kid to bed at 7 and she stays asleep.

You guys obviously don't have the voracious mosquitoes, blackflies and no-see-'ems vying for a bit of your blood! LOL Call me a wimp, but they drive me indoors long before dark!

Not until just this week. The mosquitoes just popped. It was too cold for them until now.

They're enjoying the heat and humidity too. Not that i want another cold snap, not by a longshot - i'm just hoping for hot and dry enough to slow them down.

Ginny, we live in a climate of such extremes, both in day length and of course temperature. In years such as this, spring takes forever to arrive and we are forced to plant out late, getting the stuff in the ground just in time for the summer solstice. I love and cherish the long days, I just wish we could insert two more months of such extended day lenght, have things plateau out and hold there! I've never met a northerner that does not love the long long days of summer and hates to see them shorten.

The weather has been beautiful and ideal for growing. Thankfully, there are few mosquitoes due to the dry weather and we don't have biting black flies to contend with .... there's the occasional horse and deer fly, but it's not till late summer that the nats and no see ems come to bother a person. I live in an area in which there seems to be few flying insects and it's rare to get a fly coming into the house.

Terry

Not many bugs around here yet. A few bees desperately looking for flowers and of course the odd big black beetle bug that Jack follows all over the yard until it finds a safe haven under a plant pot. Of course that will probably not remain for too long after this rain.

Rain, rain, beautiful rain! I am here in front of my open window at 1 am listening to the rain and just inhaling the "fresh". Jack and Painter, my boy dogs, are sleeping on the floor at my feet with smiles on their mugs. They must be feeling as content as I am or just glad to be cool for a bit! I still have so very much to do outside and am more than busy with my business but I can't resist this opportunity to just enjoy the rhythm of the rain. Let's hope we have more coming now that summer is almost here.

Ginny

I woke up to the sound of rain this morning as well and everything was fairly wet when i was outside following some waxwings around the yard trying to get a picture. Elusive, they were! The mosquitoes, however, weren't. :) Not wet enough, though - we need a bit more to get the veggies growing.

Terry, someone around here observed this spring, "What's the use of daylight savings time? We just get an extra hour of rain!"

Ginny, you were fortunate to get the rain, not a drop here, neither had I even seen any threatening clouds. Some areas are becoming very droughted out, it's always one struggle or another for the farmers and those who live off the land.

Marcia, I sure wish we'd get an extra hour of rain! Here one never knows if it shall rain all summer or not at all?

Oh, I take back what I said about the no see ems ... they were out in force this evening, small clouds of the buggers.

Terry

I need to get a suit of armor or something like that to deal with the bugs. :) They're terrible here - there are ponds in the back that are great breeding grounds (waters?) for mosquitoes and they sure take advantage of it. Plus at this time of year, it's really difficult to keep the grass mowed all the time, so they have a lot to hide in.

I have this weird "paper" rainsuit i should put on - they can't bite through it at all! So, that and a veil and heavy gloves - i'll be laughing! Or somebody will.... LOL

Marcia - You will probably be the envy of the garden community with your suit of armour! Mostquitos are not too bad here yet!!! Last summer it was wasps for me!!

Terry - The forecast for Edmonton area is rain for the next couple of days. Hopefully you get a huge share of that. It has been off and on cloudy here all morning but no rain drops yet. I still have a few things to plant and at least a couple of new beds to dig so maybe I can get that done between showers. Only 2 more days till summer solstice and I'm still planting! Weird!

Ginny

We have a mesh beekeeping suit at work because we have to work outside and sometimes the bugs are killer. It has a fancy beekeeping hat too, LOL. It would look nice over Marcia's pyjama robe. ;0) No the robe will never die.

Well, i've been shrinking so that robe is going to go one of these days! Trouble is, i've never found another one that i've liked so well, so i guess we're stuck with it until i do. :>