Bugs & Bees

The bees & bugs were plentiful around the anise hyssop Wednesday--perfect for them--hot & humid & sunny! They all move from flower to flower rapidly, so some of these photos are a little blurry--these are the best of the 20 or so I took. Will try for more on another day.....

I just happened to be passing by

and saw this heron & for once, I had my camera with me!

Along for the ride.....

One day last week this beautiful butterfly landed on my sneaker when I walked down the driveway to get the mail.......

Usually I don't have my camera, but I did this time & it paid off.....was able to get several pictures before it flew away!

The tomatoes are growing.....slowly!

Thsi is one of the varieties of tomatoes I am growing--it's a Carmello, a variety that's supposed to keep growing even in cool weather--we are testing that! And a Cuban Yellow Grape--these are less acidic than red tomatoes --I usually just stand at the plant & pick & eat! Hopefully some will ripen before a frost!

Blueberry pickin'

Over the weekend I went blueberry picking in Glastonbury CT with one of my friends. She lives close by & goes fairly often. This photo only shows a small portion of the farm. They have blueberries, raspberries & apples--probably other fruits, too but that is what I saw. They take you out to the fields on a wagon type conveyance with seats on either side & drop you off at whatever field is being pick at the time. Then they show you down a row & tell you what bush to pick! I picked over 4 lbs off of one bush!

The clusters of berries looked like grapes! And many of the berries were at least quarter sized!

A look down one row-I only picked for about 1/2 hr & got 4 lbs. Jenny picked a little longer than I did & picked 7 lbs.!

I will be making at least one batch of blueberry jam tomorrow!

Feeling a little domestic....

Wednesday I realized we were almost out of cookies, so I whipped up a batch( 5 dozen )! Called Cowboy Cookies--had the recipe since I got it from a neighbor around 1960.Similar to a Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookie.....Yummy!

Thursday I decided to do a little canning--had the fruit to make several kinds of jam , so I started out with Blackberry. Here they are in the pot ready to add the sugar & start cooking.

Below is the finished product. Wanted to do blueberry also , but realized I was missing a key ingredient ( no, not the blueberries! ) The lemon juice; so I'll do that over the weekend.......What do you think about lime/blueberry instead. I'm of the opinion that everything is better with lime!. Hope to have at least 6 or 8 kinds made to enter in theFair. Last year I made 6 in one day--way too much work!

Just googled Blueberry Lime Jam & found several recipes--here's one--will try it next week!

4 1/2 c. blueberries, washed & drained

1 tbsp. grated lime peel

1/3 c. lime juice

6 1/2 c. sugar

2 pouches liquid pectin
Place blueberries in a large saucepot. Add lime peel, lime juice and sugar. Mix well. Bring mixture to full rolling boil, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in pectin. Yield five 12 ounce jars.

Finding shade where he can....

Was walking up the steps beside our house & stopped to look at these lilies that have just bloomed.... Went a little further & noticed Squeak snoozing underneath the fronds ( not sure what they are called). Gave him some great filtered sunlight!

Another view!

Thinning out the forest.....

Every 5 years or so we try to thin out the trees that surround our house--to let a little light in & let the grass grow again. So we hired a friend's son to come over with a chainsaw.......Before After...still many small saplings that could come down, but enough for now. All the cut trees & limbs were piled up to make homes for all the critters that call our woods home.

So nice to see the sunlight through the trees again! My herb garden was totally shaded & not growing much at all...hope this will help. And as you can see in the next photo, hopefully some of the lawn will come back! ( Yes, we spread more grass seed!) All across the bottom of the photo is where grass used to be!

Update on the neighborhood bison....

When I drove by today, the buffalo were where I could see them, albeit in the distance. The herd is now up to 14. I think that's all he getting for now. Another shot. I hope to be able to get permission to get a little closer & take more photos.

Goshen Fair premium books are out!

This feels like I just gave birth again --and it takes about the same amount of time to put this together! From start to finish it usually takes about 8 months or more--we start at the previous years fair taking photos to use in the next years book. Love the cover of this year's book--done from a photograph for the 1st time--Thanks, Stacie!
Usually we use clip art of an animal ( any of the ones that we have at the Fair). This a photo of the book & a t-shirt--obviously the cover of the book is reproduced on the t-shirts. The books were mailed last Wed. to all that entered last year & by Sat. we had our 1st entry!

Lots of these around......

Pretty awful, aren't they? Not something that you want to see, but they are around when you have lots of rain. Spotted a few on the lily fronds so I thought, lets try out the macro!
Didn't think I would get quite as good a close up as I did! Then I picked them off & poured salt on them & watched them shrivel up....

Odds & Ends

Took a few last photos of these roses before all the petals fall to the ground.....

I love Black-eyed Susans! Found these growing at the fairgrounds on one of my daily walks around the grounds......Picked a few & brought them home! So pretty!

Wet & Dry

We had a bad rain storm Sat. night with lots of thunder & lightning, but it makes for great photos in the morning with all the rain droplets still clinging to the flowers! And then I went back out a little later and took some photos of another rose, but dry..... they are still beautiful without the water drops, too!

Cutting Hay

Monday when I got home I heard the telltale sound of a tractor in the field above our house. So I got my camera & went to investigate. They were doing the 1st cutting of hay--it's very late --usually they've done at least 2 cuttings by now, if not 3! All that rainy weather......

I guess the deer are hungry, too!

Went out to look at the progress of the raspberries (here's an unripe one) and found that 2 of my beds have been munched on...by the deer or the turkeys! I didn't think that turkeys could reach that high ( 4 ft.) but Alan said they could! You can see the tops eaten off all these canes.....luckily they only did it to one side of 2 beds. the other ones seem ok for now. Of course, they're the beds that give the biggest berries! But I've been picking lots of black raspberries in the past few days...might even get enough to make a batch of jam ( usually have to supplement with store bought).

Oh, the places I have been.......

I saw this map on another blog & thought it would be interesting to fill in--the link is on the bottom if you want to do one yourself.....I did some travelling in my 20's ( with a friend & her '63 Falcon & a pup tent--I think we covered 20 states on that trip alone! How many have you visited?
visited 36 states (72%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or vertaling nederlands duits?

Soaking up the sun....

Tuck loves to curl up in the solar room & bask in the rays of the sun. Quite often he's out all night hunting & then comes in to sleep the day away. But he's 15 years old and has slowed down a bit.

Early Morning rays.....

Interesting angles

These are new geraniums buds on the flowers I planted along our back wall.
They look almost like rosebuds.....

I know it looks like Squeak is sniffing the flowers, but it's a trick of the angle...or the camera--he'd never be caught dead sticking his nose in a flower!

A little manipulation....

Decided to play around with a few photos today. I'm not too inspired with them--will have to find some others to do, too. We're supposed to have another day of rain & heavy thunderstorms so I probably won't be on the computer! The original.... the enhanced.....

First time blooming!

A few years ago my brother brought me a buch of lilies that he had thinned out of his yard. We planted them along the edge of our front lawn. This is the first year that any of them have bloomed. These 2 mark the entrance to our pet cemetary ( look closely & you can see a pile of rocks marking a dog's grave)

Another view.
A close up. I always thought they were probably too wet in this spot, but considering how much rain we've had, maybe they were'nt wet enough!

One of the few things good because of the rain.....

Our wild berry crop will be exceptional this year because of all the rain we have been having! Just walked down the driveway & saw they were starting to ripen--may be able to pick later this week!

Happy 4th of July

We celebrated 4th of July in 1994 in San Francisco--they shoot off the fireworks from a barge in the Bay.....

Alcatraz from land with all the haze from the fireworks..... Going off from the barge.

Happy Independence Day to all!