There might be more Sri Lanka pictures later, but for now, as per Dad's request, some updated ones of the garden!

Here's the whole thing. In front are the strawberries; then the line of tall, bushy things are parsnips; behing them (from left to right) are broccoli (invisible in this picture), rhubarb, cabbage, and (tallest of all) collard greens; then the grass-like things are leeks; then where it looks like there's nothing, those are our pitiful peppers (Peter Piper picked a peck of pitiful peppers) (actually, they're starting to grow for real now); then three types of tomatos, almost all collapsed on the ground because we haven't gotten around to buying stakes yet; then a bountiful row of lettuce, and finally (also invisible) some spinach. We planted some sweet corn in some unused spaces (just kidding--but places where they might maybe have room) a few days ago, and, though you can't see them, there are small raspberry plants along the right and a few weed purslanes that we decided to keep scattered around. Not bad for a tiny plot!



It is now a verifiable fact that we have multiple real tomatoes (not quite ready yet, though...)



And after finally finding a way to foil the birds, then giving them the wrong kind of fertilizer, we finally have the strawberries back on track.



Finally, we have some green beans planted along our side fence and some herbs up against the house. Very exciting all around!

Speaking of around:

We're back from major trip #2 of 3 for the summer! We had a great time at Claire's graduation (congratulations, Claire!) and with Sara's family (in the likely event you're heading through Rodney, Ontario, check out the flower bed outside the donut shop--Sara and I planted it). We got back to some happy cats and an amazing garden that I could hardly believe: our parsnips had greens close to 2 feet tall, our cabbage was maybe two and a half wide, our tomatoes shot up a foot or two and grew flowers, and we are overflowing with lettuce. (We'll have to give some of it away. Any takers?) Only our peppers look about as paltry as they did before--hope they take off soon.

But in the meantime I want to share a few more pictures from Sri Lanka. There were a few places we went that were so amazing I want to give them each their own post. I'll keep text to a minimum, and try to let the pictures speak for themselves.

Our first full day there, we got up at 2 AM and climbed Adam's Peak. Thanks to the new time zone and the previous night's exhaustion, we felt pretty good, even so early and without breakfast.

Here is the entrance to the trail (seen, obviously, much later than 2 AM, after our descent), much of which was lined with stalls selling everything from tea to chickpeas to plastic flowers to pictures of the Buddha in soft light. Some were open all night, and we had a nice, comforting cup of tea on the way up.



A pretty plant, surrounded by the steam from a nearby waterfall.



A dog from our guest house, who somehow found us a few hundred feet into the trail and climbed the entire 3000 feet elevation gain with us. (At 2 AM on a bushy trail in a new country, we felt a little safer for his presence.)



The view of the top from partway up. The entire trail is lit by these little glowing lights during pilgrimage season. You can imagine that the photo doesn't capture the magic of this view.



[I'll upload some videos here when I have the time!]

A view down the trail as light begins to dawn. You can see a stupa (dagoba) at the lower level.



At the top.




Heading down.



And to come full circle, the view of the top in the light.