Summer time!

So the season marches on and we are finally getting some "real" summer weather. I have been thrilled with the cooler-than-normal temps and low humidity, but all good things must come to an end.

I harvested the first thin green beans and made a yummy salad.



A couple of homegrown tomatoes from the framer's market and the first snips of fresh basil!



As usual, salt, pepper, olive oil and balsamic vinegar finished it off!

I have only harvested a small handful of strawberries from the new bed, but they are the sweetest I have ever tasted! Sassy thinks the garden is quite the buffet and actually jumped into the strawberry bed to get a bite of mine! She knows better, but I guess the sweet smell was too much for her!

I started noticing that my fruit orchard wasn't looking very well in spots. Some online research (thank you, Google!) tells me that I have fire blight in the pear trees and to a lesser extend in the apples.



The branches look like the have burned by fire, and the leaves don't fall out like they do with other diseases.



The fruit, that was recently growing plump, has shriveled and mummified. And the only recourse I have at the moment is to prune away the dead limbs and hope for the best with the rest of the tree. There are treatments, but most seem designed to be applied before the fruit sets.

I had a visitor the other day come strolling up the drive! The dogs were going nuts, so I thought I would try to move him off to the forest. I got a pair of gloves, but as I got closer to picking it up, it wouldn't pull his head in!! Now, you can't expect me to touch a critter if it's staring at me!! "Nature, nature, it's all over me! Get it off, get it off!" (Name that movie!)



Instead, I screamed like a little girl and flapped my glove-clad hands in the air, as Studly laughed at me through the window and the dogs barked. In the end, the turtle wandered away himself and I didn't have to touch the nature!



And finally, I am off on Thursday to go visit my girls in Reno for a few days. I haven't seen Almost Grown since last July, Practically Grown since this past January, and that is just too long for this Mom! It will be a short trip, and both girls have heavy work schedules, but life wasn't gong to open up the schedule any time soon, so I'm going! I can't wait!!!

Hope you all have had a nice weekend!