Harvesting

Sunflowers are blooming!

I planted eight little red potatoes in the spring. My only goal was to replace them with new potatoes. One of the 8 plants died back inexplicably, as the others are still green and growing. My curiosity got the best of me, so I dug that one up.

This one plant replaced most of the ‘seed’ potatoes. Now I can’t wait to dig the rest up in about a month.

Caring for the caterpillars is getting to be a chore so I won’t bring any more in. They are a marvel to watch though.


This is Chikory when he was just about to fly off. I love how my garden hides all the neighbors homes so it just looks like an endless flower meadow.

I didn't get to the pesto yesterday, so today is pesto day. I cut a huge bunch which commits me to the process. Esther brought me a box of little jars so I can store the pesto and give little random gifts of it. It makes me so happy to share my garden bounty.

After a string of nice summer weather, today was absolutely tropical in terms of heat and humidity. Thunderstorms with torrential downpours are completing the tropical theme.


This morning promised to be another hot and humid day, and I needed some exercise and outdoor fun. So an 8am bike ride it was!

This little fawn was curious about me.

It's mother was not terribly interested in me at all.

There is a lot of wildlife on the trail that early, including several deer/fawn combos, woodchucks, butterflies, even a porcupine. All too fleeting to capture when I'm traveling at 12 mph on the bike.

The horses were clustered by the trail. I completed 23 miles.

It started to get really hot on my way back to the car. As I was packing up my bike around 10 am, another man was just starting his ride - I wished him luck in the heat. It was already well into the 80's.

I planteded a new variety of sunflower along with the usual - I really like this color.

This variety came right out of my birdseed mix.


My cherry tomatoes are coming along so well, I have to eat them daily.

In order to use up my produce, I cooked my remaining snow peas, some green beans, and the potatoes with pesto for my dinner. It tasted especially good since I grew most of it. Then the evening thunderstorms  ended this third steamy hot day.

Day four of the same pattern - hot and humid morning, followed by thunderstorms in the afternoon and evening. I'm sorry to say that my goal of under ten days of air conditioner use has been defeated. I have to turn it on if I want to get anything done at all. I really want to plant up a bed of salad greens which means I spent an hour mixing my compost with some peat and garden soil to make a fertile mix. Hopefully the heat will break soon so the greens don't bolt to seed right away. 

I had lunch with Dale and Janice today, up at Janice's home which I'll call a farm. She has four active bee hives, a large raspberry patch, 20 or so chickens, and many other little plantings. Of course I came home with 18 fresh eggs. I met Dale part of the way, and drove us the rest of the way because she is having trouble recuperating from her septic kidney stone procedure. I offered to pick her up at her home, but she would not hear of it. We had a nice visit even though she had to cut it short due to fatigue.

The pretty rooster keeping watch over the flock.


Now I'm home making all my medical screening appts, because I tend to procrastinate and they will call me on it. They are good friends for certain.

My hibiscus has finally bloomed with its giant flowers.

The usual late afternoon rain storm is about to begin again today.





 

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