I awoke to the sound of thunder at daybreak. The forecast called for rain until nearly noon, with temperatures then popping up to the high 80s with high humidity and a lot of wind. Not completely miserable, but getting close to it. I took Patti over to David’s to continue working on the chicken coop, and headed back to the house with the kids.
The ground was as soggy as a mud soaked sponge when I got out into the dirt in my yard. No helping it. I finished planting the front yard. Just another 5 tomato plants, Rumi Banjan this time, as well as 9 sweet basil and 4 Takanosume peppers.
In the backyard I weeded pots, fertilized the garlic, and planted 4 lemon drop peppers into large pots. More rotating of seedlings I have been hardening off, and I potted up 22 Joe Lauerer tomatoes that have been promised to other people. There are a bunch of black cherries I need to pot up too, but I didn’t get to it.
Mid afternoon, when temps were peaking near 90, we headed out with our neighbors to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. I packed a lot of water along. Good thing too.
The kids emptied my two quart water containers 3 times (of course I was drinking it too) over the course of two and a half hours of playing there. They have a fun maze made of hedges, and a sculptured home made out of willow branches. 
We finished the time there looking at a series of waterfalls in the shade while we cooled off. Nice and calming there. Mostly making sure our neighbor’s daughter didn’t fall down into the water trying to follow my kids around while enjoying how beautiful it is there.
When it got to 530 we hiked back to the cars. The kids and I headed to David’s to do dinner there. Everyone was pretty hot and irritable by then, but I did a quick dinner up for everyone, plus helped David put in 30 feet of purple podded pole beans, and 25 tomato plants before we left at 730. I dropped Patti and the kids off at home, grabbed Piper dog, a bag of Zuke seeds, and another pack of speckled romaine seeds, and headed off to the Ness farm. I had promised Lance and Heidi I would go over the gardens with them, and had planned on spending the afternoon there, but due to the rain, and a need to just do something fun with the kids, this was the only time I had. We went over everything there while Piper and his yellow lab Emmet played and romped in the tall grass. Plans had to be modified there due to a variety of circumstances, and since the ground has been too wet to keep up with the weeds with a stirrup hoe, he is going to get a cultivating tiller that Heidi can handle. That will work well. We also went over beds that have already been laid out, what seeds I had given them for the beds, and how to plant them. By now it was after 9 pm and my feet were dragging. Heidi gave me a chunk of a perennial creeping thyme she grows there to transplant to my yard, and then Piper and I headed home.
