Last year we had this as our first harvest from our garden plot...in late July....

This year we have........................

....................................

a whole lotta nuthin'. sigh.

I have a lot of tomatos coming along, but they are only a bit bigger than a half dollar. We had 2 sunny days last week, but also 4 inches of rain. More is coming today/tonight, too. I am so lamenting our lack of putting food up. I love my salsa, and spaghetti sauce. This year is my year to conquer my fear of the pressure cooker so I can put my spag sauce in jars, not freeze it. Well, guess I'll be canning into October, this year!!

Xcrossing fingersX

Yesterday was Ken's memorial service in Maine. It was a beautiful service. He was well loved, and many great stories were told of his life. He had a tough early life, but he made his dreams come true, and became a Unitarian minister despite all adversity. He had a long, full 96 years, and we wish him well on his journey onward...blessed be, Ken...

colors to end July

kinda looks like a campfire, right? It's the last blaze, and I do mean blaze, of sunlight around 820 last evening. I shot through the Japanese maple branches towards this screaming orange fireball just dropping beyond our visable horizon...and when I turned and looked eastward...

Holy cazow!!! Streetlights and a double rainbow! You can barely see the 2nd one just at center.

Most amazing is that we got to see the entire arch of the rainbow...something we rarely see in our location. This rainbow lasted appx 10 minutes, it was still dripping rain a bit as I shot this series...and then ..Poof! ..the sun slipped beyond the horizon and it was over. Over the the garden however, was a brilliant orange spectacle too....

We got this daylilly last summer in a last-second frenzy of flower buying to spruce up the backyard garden before the big birthday party for my Dad, brother and Lee's mom (combined 190th party...75, 40 and 75 respectively!) so I don't even know the variety. The flowers are HUGE, bigger than my hands,which I admit aren't all that big to begin with but the color...oh Goddess...it is so intense. It just so mirrored the other images...what a sendoff for July. July ended the way it began, btw, with lots of rain! We got over 2 inches from 10 a.m. until sunset when it was winding down. With the first day of August upon us, and SUNSHINE, we're hoping to have a wee bit of summer this summer, before we head back to autumn!!