What! Its August???

Time flies, does it?  My last entry was in May so that's 2 months of busy work to keep me from updating my blog (I swear busy non-stop...haha!)  Ok, so I may be exaggerating a bit.  We did find a couple of builders that we like but the cost of building with a custom builder seems too high for today's housing market- we have some big concerns that the bank won't finance a custom home because it won't appraise high enough.  I think we will probably end up with the likes of Hallmark or TK homes.  There is also another option we are considering in that we are going to look at existing homes with acreage.  This could be a really good thing since we would have more total acres and we might end up paying less overall.  Anyhow, nothing at this point is set in stone.  We are going to start looking at existing properties and in the spring when we have our down payment together we will build if we don't find the perfect existing home. 
I have a couple of new ideas for a home based business.  One is home orchard management- taking care of existing apple trees in people's yards for the payment of 1/2 the produce.  It doesn't make money but it would give me valuable practice and of course lots of apples and hopefully other fruits.   I'm not ready to share my other idea, I still have much research to do.
The garden has been crazy.  We went on vacation in June and low and behold the skies opened up and rained for an entire week!  My garden looked pretty good before we left but when we got back the weeds had shot up a foot and the bugs had gone wild.  My tomatoes took it the hardest.  It looked (and still looks) like they were hit with blight, hornworms, blossom end rot...the works.  For about 2 weeks I was throwing away tomatoes for rot.  They are recovering and I'm getting some decent 'maters but I'm not sure I'll have enough to do much with them.  The corn also suffered; was stunted and lot of tassels but no ears.  Some patches are doing better than others so we might have some late corn but overall pretty disappointing.  My squash/cukes/melons were getting taken on by squash bugs.  I was tearing off leaves to remove the eggs and eventually I dusted them to kill them off.  I can however seem to grow beans pretty well :)
My son is growing fast, he's 15 months and walks well so when we go to the garden he usually ends up heading for the tomatoes.  Boy that kid can make short work of a 'mater.  He will pick it right off the vine and just begin chowing down.  That's my boy!! Glad I grow organic!