The summer that wasn't

It's the last few days of July and we still have only hit 70 degrees a couple of times. The last couple of weeks we haven't even gotten to 60 degrees. The one really nice thing is the forest fire danger has been in the low to moderate levels all summer which helps for good nights sleep when fireworks have been going off all day.
We got a good start on painting the house before the last rainy spell started. I have the last third of the north side to finish and that will bring us to half way. I does look nice. I just hope we get enough breaks in the weather for me to finish it.
Next weekend Scott is going to come up on his vacation to help prepare for replacing our front deck. Then the next weekend Brad is going to join us to do the actual construction. The current deck is not built correctly and is not safe. The railing is rotting and the decking is just plywood with the supports spaced way too far apart. The support posts are starting to rot out because they didn't use pressure treated wood. So pretty much the whole thing has to come down. Brad has a lot of experience building decks so he is in charge of the job.
I started berry picking yesterday. Things are a little late because of the cool, wet summer. Cloud berries should be pretty much done by now but they are just starting to ripen. I got a nice bucket of black currant berries and there are probably another bucket full left in the patch. Mary got a nice basket full of red currants that we had for desert last night. Looks like there will be a good crop of high bush cranberries in August but it looks like the lack of sun has dampened the blueberry crop.
A week ago I came down with some kind of bug that kept me in bed for almost the whole week. I don't know what it was. I am pretty sure it wasn't a cold or flu since I didn't cough and sneeze and my stomach wasn't upset, too much, so I don't think it was the flu. Whatever it was kept me in bed all week. Mary even had to take care of the goats. Every time I felt good enough to do something I would end up back in bed shivering. Luckily it rained almost all week so there wasn't much that could be done outside. So now I have to quit writing this and get to work on outside stuff before it starts raining again.