Coming home from a vacation is always kind of a downer, especially when your vacation is at a place so removed from everything else, surrounded by thick trees, a secluded lake and a broad, wide-open sky.

Still, one has to do it and barring a surprise win of millions of dollars from the lottery, no other plans can be made to the contrary. You could always try to expand said vacation I suppose, or maybe plan another in the hope it conjures the same anticipation, but the inevitability is you always have to come back, so you make the best of it.

It’s tragic is what it is.

However, make the best of it is really the only option and the “best of it” for me these last two years is the oddly surreal enjoyment I get from seeing how much the garden grows in just the week I am gone.

I’ll be honest, I don’t think much about it while I’m on vacation, just like I don’t think much about anything.

I’m on vacation. The rules, as such, are to forget your everyday worries and stresses.

That’s the whole point of vacation. To get away, let your mind wander and forget about the hassles of adulting.

Let’s be honest at this point, the garden is a major part of my stresses, especially if you are a long term reader and can understand the surreal ease of getting myself into a mess.

Or perhaps the squirrels and rabbits are the cause of these headaches, although on that front, we seem to be winning.

Mostly, it’s trying to avoid the mess of last year that takes up a lot of time, which also seems to be coming along nicely. It was nice to come home and see things coming along so nicely.

Aside from a rogue cucumber vine trying to choke-out a carrot, everything was in its place.

A surprise really.

The weeds were relatively inactive and the mini forest caused by the rain of helicopter seeds from our tree were few and far between.

This is in stark contrast to the tomatoes that were tipped over last year and the beans roving all over the place creating absolute havoc.

It’s pretty clear that I won’t have the abundance of veggies I had last year, however. Things just aren’t turning out like I would have rather seen them. I’ve talked about those things before and in short have realized that just after your carrots come up, stepping on them does no good at all.

That’s a master gardner tip right there for you — free of charge.

So for this garden report we’ll just concentrate on really the only lesson I’ve learned to date— don’t judge raspberries.

A while back I was ecstatic when the raspberries took off. I’ve got a nice thick grouping of vines right off the house, with another group on the other side of the house.

They grew so thick and so quick I began bragging about how many there were and how many berries I would get, complete with the young ideas forming of maybe even being able to can some.

I was a little nervous though, when we left on June 29, having not seen any blossoms, but I was aware of how much my garden would change while gone, so I simply applied that to the raspberries. I admitted that perhaps the odd spring we had would contribute to the slow berry production.

At the same time I conveniently shrugged off the fact that raspberries will take a year off, as well as shrugging off the DNR press release on how it was coming up on peak berry picking time.

Not so apparently, at my house.

Again, let’s speak truth you — we — probably all knew what was coming next.

We pulled in the driveway last Saturday and still no blossoms or berries. Sad, sad day.

So apparently this is an off year and once again it was proven that I should not be so cocky about what I’m doing in the garden.

And maybe there’s still something I’m missing, which is nice that I have all of you. My 20-something readers (coming up on 30 possibly — so exciting) have been really good over the last two years in giving me tips and pointers, so if anybody has any further ideas as to what might be happening, I’m all ears.

In the meantime, I’ll just keep waging war on the beetles that continue to treat my plants like a buffet.

Learning really stinks sometimes.