Busy and beautiful August days....

 August 16, 2026

Enough with the cucumbers! I'm calling 'Uncle' on the pickling, although I am saving a couple of big, ripe cucs to make Hubby's favourite relish. I marked them earlier with some flagging tape so I wouldn't pick them by accident.

The first harvesting of green peppers, other than the random ones we've been eating.

They got blanched, sliced and dehydrated, their tops and tails cubed and frozen. There are lots more, as well as the red guys that are maybe starting to colour...

You have to look really, really closely! There are lots and lots of peppers, a really good pepper year. They love to be planted together. I have 16 plants in a 4' X 4' grid.

The paste tomatoes are colouring...

and they seem to be out-pacing the ripening of the beefsteaks.

Pumpkins are out-growing their slings on the fence, popping right out of them. I think they are sturdy enough to hold on without the slings.

Other squash are growing, 

some winter squash and acorns, 
 

and always later to the party, the butternuts. 

I'd been saving a good swathe of more or less weed-free lawn, cut and raked it up on Friday, then layered it into one of my compost bins with the dry, mulched leaves I've been saving in the barn from last fall. 

Making the layers here, and the result, this morning! 

Compost making is magic!

I've been blanching and squirrelling the celery away in the freezer. Bags and bags for winter soup making...what a luxury! I will be totally self-sufficient in celery this winter. 

There have been several afternoons of late, when there have been big rolling white clouds in the sky, giving us light, intermittent showers. One could get totally lost gazing at these beauties. 

The next picture was taken in the evening, and the white edges on the clouds in the picture, were glittering gold, as the sun was in the western sky behind them. It didn't come through in the photo, but interesting none the less.

Bald-faced hornets decided to build a nest on the solar array, sorry guys, not a good place,

and one of the pictures on the trail cameras was kinda' cute. Mama and young 'un having a snack.

Finally, my glads are starting to open.

Pretty nasturtiums, one with a Bumble bee's bum.....

 

Take time to.....

 August 10, 2026

...smell the roses phlox. Hey Foxy, glad you enjoy them! It really does look like he/she is having a sniff, but I doubt it.

Up here on the hill, it is not unusual to have a fly-over by the military. One hears the unmistakable, rapidly increasing volume of sound of approaching aircraft practising low level flight. You have very little time, but seeing as the doors are open, a quick dash through the screen doors and out onto the grass, to witness the low flying plane. There are usually at least two, one after the other. I rushed out and could look up at the belly of the big plane, seeming to just skim the ridge line of the roof and brush across the tips of the trees on the edge of the clearing, while it's roar is all-encompassing for a brief moment. It is always a thrill to hear and see them. (forgot to grab a camera)

On Friday past, I had a summer get together of my crafting group. We take a break from the end of June to the first of September, but in the summer, one or the other of us hosts a craft circle at our homes. We had a lovely day, the Hummers, butterflies and pollinators in the flower bed in front of the verandah kept us entertained while we chatted and knit/spun. 

On Saturday, Hubby and I braved the crowds and explored the 'Taste of the Valley',  https://www.totv.ca/ which made a stop in Barry's Bay. There are always so many interesting vendors to explore, and I came home with a fat bag of combed fleece to spin. 

 Back on the home front, the large amount of precipitation we received a week ago, has soaked down to the water table, and the water level in the pond has risen. Every growing thing is appreciating the moisture.

Today I began digging up the celery plants to process for the freezer. 

Cherry tomatoes are ripening just fast enough to keep us in daily snacks. 

The 2 vertically supported zucchini plants are getting a little ahead of me with their fruit production. 

I've picked two blushing beefsteak tomatoes, but the paste guys have not shown any colour as of yet. There are certainly a lot of them, but that's OK, because I have plans for all of them! 

The onions were harvested yesterday, their spot smoothed, compost added, and few fall things planted; lettuce, bok choy, radishes, green onions and two cabbages. We'll see how far we get with those. You never know unless you try! Protective screening is in place to thwart curious skunks, raccoons and foxes. The onions in the foreground are big, sweet guys, which will get much bigger as summer progresses.

We got a nice surprise on Bird Cam when we checked the chips over the weekend. Here is a Black and White Warbler posing in front of the camera. 

There were also many pictures of the flying squirrel going back and forth to the ball of nesting material. I'll bet there is a nearby nest box for birds being retrofitted for his winter quarters!

Almost had to build an ark.....

August 3, 2026 

A weekend of pretty near continuous rain, at times practically a monsoon....170mm in the gauge. The grey overcast skies slowly cleared this morning, and now the sun is out in a blue, blue sky, with big fluffy white clouds.  

The 'monsoon' was too much for one of our old apple trees, and a big, apple laden branch broke, so sad. I had been thinning apples as far up as I could reach with a step ladder, but it is an impossible job. Here is the trailer load of fruit that fell with the branch.

In other news.... the igniter in my stove called it quits, and to replace it would cost more than half the price of a new stove, so new stove it is! This one has electric ignition, (vs battery ignition in the old stove), plus it has a glass door!! and a light!! Small luxuries, like fresh, sun-dried sheets on the bed, some of life's best things.

Someone has been getting naked in my garden...

A garter snake has left his old garment in the garlic patch, found when I cleared out the rocks holding the mulch down, and dug the bulbs. 

 

 Peter Piper could easily pick more than a peck of peppers in my pepper patch. Green bell, 

 and sweet red.

 The celery is a beautiful green forest.

Pumpkins are growing on the fencing with some Scarlet Runner beans, and I've been slinging the fruit up in pieces of old T-shirts for support, although they seem sturdy enough without. They are small sugar pumpkins, so they won't get too big. 

Cucumbers are really starting to take off, and despite rigorous pruning, I am beginning to be inundated. Note to self: plant fewer vines next summer! 

In the tomato department, the cherries are ripening slowly, 

and there are lots of beefsteak and paste guys growing.

This year I have tried to refrain from taking off the suckers, just pruning out some of the lower leaves for air flow, to see what, if any difference it makes for fruit production. The jury is out. 

 

 

The rewards......

 July 26, 2026

There is a big up-tick in the amount of produce coming in from the garden now that we are near the end of July. The beans are from the first sowing in June, zucchini, greens, cherry tomatoes, broccoli side shoots, young root vegetables, and soon cucumbers big enough to pick. Let the pickling begin! 

Cabbages are harvested, and a couple have gone from this,

to sauerkraut.

In their place, the soil has been loosened and a couple of pails of sieved compost added. This is hopefully where the winter supply of carrots will grow, and hopefully they will be the perfect size for root cellar storage much later in the fall when things cool down.

The white strips are a gel of corn starch and water, into which I mix the seeds, then put it into a piping bag. After sitting overnight, the mixture gets piped into rows, then more sieved compost nestles them in. The gel holds moisture and gives the seeds a boost. 

There are more Monarch butterflies around now, although I haven't succeeded in finding any eggs or larvae. They are loving the swamp milkweed I've established around the edge of the pond. Six or more Hummingbirds are visiting the feeders, and the flowers. They absolutely love the red Bee Balm. So does the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.

The bird chorus in the bush is much diminished now. The Song Sparrows from the nest in the cedar tree have fledged, as have the Cat birds in the lilac bush. The young Catbirds hung around in the lilacs for quite a while, but have since dispersed. Here is one trying out the branch in front of Bird Cam. The young ones are much less sleek than the adult birds, looking kind of scruffy and unfinished. They also do a lot more "mewing".

The Frog Orchid blooms are opening up quite a bit. They are tiny, but so obviously an orchid. 

There is another orchid coming into bloom now. It occurs quite commonly along our trails wherever more sunlight penetrates, and even comes up in the gravel along the sides of the road. Research has shown that it is a Broadleaf Helleborine, an introduced plant from Europe.

I managed to get a not too bad close-up of a bloom.

The weather gods have blessed us with sufficient moisture so far this season, but if the rain in the forecast does not materialize, I'll be getting out the hoses to give everything a good soak, as it has been about a week since the last good rainfall. Temperatures have moderated to quite pleasant summer days, after the suffocating heat and humidity earlier in July. One can very comfortably leave all the doors and windows open, perfect timing for beginning to process produce for storage.