Where did all the flowers go?

another busy week to add to the fire. I'm a bit sad that all of our spring flowers have climaxed and are now looking old and dejected in the field with weeds creeping up around them. It's been so cool here that none of our early spring planted flowers have started blooming yet; campanula, statice, bee-balm or monarda, rudbekia, cosmos, scabiosa....ladies, it's time to put forth your best effort and bloom. I don't really know what to do with myself when there are no flowers blooming...I kind of wither up on the inside and my pulse slows, my color fades; people start asking me what's wrong. For solace I turn to squashing potato beetles. They've gotten out of hand and have begun eating our fingerling plants now. The gall. It's too bad we can't bunch up squash blossoms. They are shockingly vibrant. When we put them on our market table people slow down and do double takes, running into other customers and market tables as their eyes are glued to the color. We have no idea how to price them and we have to pick them around 5:30 Sat. morning so they still look fresh and, like picking squash, you have to bear the squash leaves scratching your arms and making you itch. Most people stuff them with a saute (ricotta, onion, a thinly sliced and diced veggie--you could even use squash) and then batter the flower and saute or fry that. We have one customer that puts them in a soup, but that seems like it diminishes their status a bit. They should be the highlight of the meal if you ask me. And can you believe this radicchio??? YUM! I wish we had a grill. Although if that were the case I'd have to abandon farming and just cook all the time. Why is grilled food so freakin good? I guess for the radicchio we'll have to saute it (boring) and pair it with some gluten free pasta for Stuart's sensitive tummy. It should still be delicious.
So to end this blog I have to post a pic of the cool old house we're living in. Built in the 1860's, the original kitchen was separate from the house. There are five of these HUGE oaks right around the house. They make it worth living here. We had to do a serious clean up job to ge the house in order. The kitchen took a couple days. I think it had been around ten years with no one living here. I got completely disoriented when I first went in the house. Up one staircase and down another and I had no idea where I was. Whoever owned this house was well off back in the day. There is a ping-pong table all the way from finland and Stuart and I only got one game in before we utilized it for a greenhouse table. I hope to bring it back out eventually because I will win at some point.
I've also been thinking about what I can do to save the planet. I'm thinking a tree planting party sounds fun. We'll make a map of our property with all the sites people can go to, and we'll have to transplant trees and have them ready for everyone. I guess we'd also have to figure out how to get everyone out here by carpooling since we're light years away from town. And then we'll record who planted what tree and it'll be AWESOME. I'm still brainstorming though. Any suggestions on how to save the earth will be well received.