There were a couple of mornings this last week when everything was covered in dew. Looking towards the hills this band of fog/haze could be seen, probably the cause of all the moisture.
Which is interesting since it hasn't rained since my sister visited us in early June and everything is as dry as can be ..

                                              

                                               

 

Of course I'm already on the lookout for Fall-colors and yes .. here and there the trees are starting to turn, especially at the tops!
This huge Mountain Ash will turn a brilliant yellow in a couple of weeks:

 

              

Along the edge of the treeline in front of us, these pretty orange and red leaves have appeared on some of the bushes that make up the undergrowth ..

                 

Pretty, eh? I thought so too and took some time to pick and choose the prettiest ones to bring inside and put them in a vase.
Unfortunately, this turned out to be Poison Oak (!) and by the time I realized this my hands and face were already covered in patches of red, raised welts.
As most Americans know, under no circumstances you want to touch poison oak since the oil on it's leaves and in the sap, called urushiol, causes an extremely itchy rash!
There's even a classic rhyme saying: "leaves of three, let it be,"

Needles to say I had never encountered the plant, although I had heard about it, and I've been utterly miserable and insanely itchy all week long!
I've been slathering myself religiously with hydrocortisone cream in addition to swallowing anti-histamine and finally, after almost a week of agony, it's slowly getting better ... phew, I won't do that again!

                

I did much better bringing these little beauties into the house! They're from one of the two pear trees we have on the property.
One of the branches had broken off and the pears were starting to go bad so I rescued them and took them home.

Where I made them into some lovely pear-jam:

                                             

And a delicious (french) pear 'Tarte-tatin' (a sort of upside-down cake but with puff pastry):

                 

                                               

Lets see, what else .. our landlord has been 'discing' his front yard/meadow in preparation of the 8000 more (!) Christmas trees he's going to plant next spring:

 

                         
 

I myself sowed again some vegetables for fall ...

 

This is my third try getting some vegetables to grow. So far it has been a big failure this year. (Almost) nothing grew ... sigh ..
Besides it being too cold and too wet for too long this Spring I think I got the wrong soil?

Now it has been warm for so long, the ground is at least warm enough so I have some hope I'll get some Arugola and Lettuce to grow. We'll see ..

                                                                   

Although these pole beans surprised me by all of a sudden taking off!
They're Rattlesnake Beans and so far I got a hand-full of them and there are more to come.
I'm saving them to accompany the meatloaf I'm thinking of making in a couple of days when the weather is supposedly taking a turn and it will get a lot cooler. Maybe even rain!

                

And although it's more of a winter dish, we enjoyed another cheese fondue this week.
I think it works very well in summer as well since there's almost no cooking involved and we're using a lot of different veggies and even fruit (pear) for dipping!

Here's a last picture of another nice sunset this week.
I just like the pattern of the clouds in this one ..