St. Andrews Cross Spiders

That is a St. Andrews Cross spider and it scared the hell out of me when I was picking cherry tomatoes...my first thought was "run, that thing probably eats humans", fortunately my rational mind kicked in and I stood there looking at it for a while.  It is a really cool spider, the way they legs are split and the cool pattern on its back; even the web has this cool reinforcing zigzag pattern in the middle.  John did a little research and told me that they are not poisonous and are even considered beneficial to gardens because they make such large webs for catching lots of flying insects (like mosquito and deer flies). 
A few days later I was back in the hoop house picking tomatoes and I found this one...I think they are sisters or at least good friends; they probably get together for dinner.  Needless to say, next time I am picking tomatoes I am going to check and then double check before I reach through the tomato plants.

As for tomatoes, they are looking good.  We are picking more and more each week; John and Lissa told me that I will hate tomatoes by the end of the summer.  I don't believe them but I will let you know...
The cherry tomato plants are officially touching the top of the hoop house.  I will be picking tomatoes with a ladder very soon. It is a pretty impressive sight to see these huge tomato plants.

You know you are a farmer when you get excited about a new hose attachment.  The old hose attachment was run over or dropped or a combination of the two, when we got the new one I spent a little bit of time playing with all the new features.  I love a good hose attachment.  This one is definitly deluxe and I look forward to using it.

Bummer.

Deluxe

The grapes are starting to plump up.  These grapes will be red but not edible; they are very tart which makes them excellent grapes for jam and jelly.  They also make decent wine, nothing to write home about but it works if you want to get a buzz.

 While picking raspberries, John found some baby birds.  They are very cute and here you can see they are just waiting for mama to come back with some food.