June first brought summer with it. Hit 90 at my house yesterday and I relented and turned on the air conditioner in the afternoon but not until it got near 90 in the house. All of the additional insulation I put in the attic last fall slowed the climb to uncomfortable until about 4pm and the new A/C quickly brought the temp back down to 80. It didn't help that I was baking bread and had the oven rocking at 450 for about an hour. I might have been able to resist turning on the cool if I hadn't heated the kitchen with the oven. We'll see today what happens as we are expecting a repeat and I won't be doing any baking today. Rain and cooler temps are due for the last of the week so maybe the A/C can go back to standby. Once you turn on the A/C for the summer it makes it really hard to get outside and get your work done.
I had to quit my gardening chores early as well. The heat wasn't that bad but for some reason the flies were murder and I just gave up.
Some good/bad news on the missing Air France plane this morning. They believe they have the wreckage spotted but from what I can tell from the rather sparse reports the two areas of suspected wreckage are some 60 miles apart. If that is the case then it appears the plane broke up at a fairly high altitude. It was last reported at 31 thousand feet. If, in fact, the weather caused a catastrophic failure of systems and eventual destruction then it must have been quite a storm. Those aircraft can take quite a bit of rough air without trouble.
On a more positive note, I have been finding quite a few new ways to use all the peas from the garden. The English peas, snow peas and mange tout (sugar snaps) are all ripening at the same time. Yesterday I cleaned out one of my raised beds where I put all of the extra onion plants in the spring. They were crowded and stayed very small but were perfect in a saute with the sugar snaps. Regardless, there are only so many days you can eat peas in a row so it looks like some blanching and freezing are in order.
Other than the garden it is pretty quiet here at Monk Manor and before it gets too much hotter I am off for a few more garden chores. Nothing heavy today though...tie up a few tomato plants and pull a few weeds. We have the son of some of our English friends and his new bride coming in this weekend and I need to make sure the garden is pristine. This is the couple who's wedding we attended last spring in the U.K. and this is Charlotte's first trip to the colonies. We'll show them around Atlanta and North Georgia and they have a short side trip to Florida planned as well. She'll at least get a taste of the South.
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