It's an abundant year for Sweet Peas, the road sides are covered with their bright-pink flowers!
I picked some on my walk a couple of days ago together with some daisies, they look so summer-y.

                       

The (bumble)bees love them as much as I do:

                                                     
  

The Hollyhock I got last year, which is living in a big pot on the front porch, opened it's first buds as well!
Since it didn't flower last year the color was going to be a surprise ..  it turned out to be a beautiful dark red, almost burgundy:

    

They buds will open from the bottom up, so there will be a lot more coming! (hopefully the netting will keep the deer at bay!)

The blackberries keep on growing, there's just no stopping them! 
Although James cut them down aggressively a couple of weeks ago, he needed to show them who's boss and tackled them with the big lopper and hedge-trimmer again  ... right.

                     

At the bottom of the bird-feeders, the ground-squirrels have been digging for seeds thus creating a hole bunch of holes, and since they unearthed the prongs of one of the poles, he filled all of them back in as well ... it's probably a never-ending story, they're just born to dig.
But they're so darn cute!

       

This morning we had some unusual visitors to the bird-feeders ... Acorn woodpeckers! 
The cages around the feeders, which are supposed to keep the big birds at bay, are obviously no problem for them at all ...
They're big bullies and chase everybody away, even the black-birds won't take them on.

As I mentioned above, I picked some flowers on my walk so yes .. I'm walking again, albeit short distances and with a heavily bandaged ankle!
Since I hadn't been to the far end of the property in a while, the view looking back to the RV is quite different now with the red barn gone. 
(it was in the spot on the right where all the debris is laying around )

Work has begun on dismantling the grey one (the one in the middle ) ... we'll have quite a view for a while when that one's down as well!

I did some new-to-me baking this week ... since I couldn't find any Ciabatta-bread/buns at the Winco (my go-to grocery), I decided to try to make them myself .. using sourdough of-course.

This turned out to be very easy, there's really nothing to it, although (as usual) the oven didn't perform as it should. 
But I managed to mickey-mouse my way through it and the end-result was pretty decent .. if I say so myself.

And to satisfy our 'sweet teeth', I baked a Lemon-Blueberry Bundt-cake as well:

                                               

Although it was a little to airy/cake-y for me (I like this type of cake a little denser, like a pound-cake), we nevertheless managed to eat half of it over the weekend (tsk, tsk) and the other half went in the freezer.
(We went on the scale this morning, like we do every Sunday, and I lost half a pound so hey, no problem! James on the other hand ...)

I finished the Butterfly puzzle. I loved making this one .. not too difficult, big pieces (and only 500), and so pretty!

I haven't started a new one yet but that will probably happen soon since we have a couple of very hot days coming up (high 80s/90s F), which means I will spend some afternoons in the RV with the AC on high!
As I said before temperatures have been very 'do-able' so far and even though they will rise for a couple of days, the predictions are that they will return to the 70s again for the rest of the week. I take it!

The evenings have been very comfortable this weekend where we could sit outside for happy hour on the sun-side (next to the pond) without being too hot:

Followed by dinner on the other side, in the shade ...

    

Grilled salmon with asparagus and a pasta salad. "Bring it on", says Samson ...

Despite this rather nice sunset on the 20th, the summer is off to a rainy start here in the PNW.
It was cold, grey and nasty and rained most of the day on the 21st :


                               

Although some things look very pretty with a few rain drops: 🎵 raindrops on (my) roses 🎶 (and whiskers on kittens) ...   

                                   

We didn't exactly wash away but it was a steady rain and we accumulated almost an inch .. (my rain gauge has a tiny crack in the bottom so it shows a little less than it actually got).

                                                                                      

Meanwhile ... at Stonehenge, they had beautiful weather:

... and how about the sunrise behind the skyline of midtown Manhattan and the Empire     State Building in New York City ... gorgeous!

Oh well, apparently they're going to have a heatwave in the coming days over there (temps > 100F) so I guess a cloudy and cold mid-summer might not be so bad after all ..

Anyway ... happy Summer Solstice!

(The summer solstice by the way, has a little extra special meaning for James and I since this was the day of our first kiss ... 26 years ago ... wow, time, where has it gone?)

It has been very quiet for the rest of the week, nothing much happening. 
I'm still babying my ankle, which has much improved but will no doubt take several more weeks to be up to par, as in not wobbly or occasionally painful (especially in the evenings).
I'm keeping it taped during the day which feels good and gives me a little more stability.

These two different purple wildflowers are growing all over our meadows and I'd forgotten their names:

           

But than I remembered the nifty plant-app on my phone and voila ... the one on the left turns out to be Vicia or 'Hairy Vetch' (how about that for a name) and the other one is Prunella, aka 'Self-Heal'. 
Now not to forget this ...

        

Here's a picture of what happens when you forget to 'score' your sourdough bread:

It bursts open willy-nilly, to let the build-up steam escape, and makes for a really ugly looking bread!
Fortunately it cut up in surprisingly decent slices and it tasted just fine, so no big deal. 
Note to self; next time .. SCORE!

I finished the hilarious spa-puzzle:

                

                                        ... and started this beautiful butterfly-one:

                                       Only 500, very large pieces and a good variety of colors.
Should be simple, she said ..

(bwahahaha!)

                             

The first of my day-lilies are flowering!
These are the common wild, orange or tawny daylilies (Hemerocallis fulva), also known as the ditch lily. They're native to Asia, but widely naturalized in many parts of the world, including North America.
I found these last year growing wild on the property and my land-lady told me I could dig out as many as I wanted. Which I did of course .. hey, free plants!

The sad saga of my vegetable seeds and starters 'that just don't want to grow' is continuing .. well, let me stay positive here .. the cucumber is showing two flowers, but hasn't grown 'up' at all!

                                                  

And I finally have my first Snow-peas while most people are already eating them for a month!

   

Two of the six (Rattlesnake) Pole beans have emerged. I have to say that they look good but will they ever start to climb?

And here's something totally crazy ... that's the Rhubarb making new a new leaf after it died down completely this spring ... ????

Oh well ...

The pond is teeming with dragonflies at the moment, like this Common Whitetail Dragonfly:

  

Fun fact: Before bats, before birds, before pterosaurs, a dragonfly-like insect was probably the first thing to fly on Earth. 
Just one 'tiny' difference ..  it had a wingspan of about 2 feet!

We also see a lot of these (much smaller) Blue Dashers :

                                                           

They're even more 'common' than the White-tails but much smaller.
Both species are very aggressive predators and will eat hundreds of flying insects a day – which is up to ten percent of their body weight!

I'd set out some of my bee cocoons, when the temps were getting higher about 2 weeks ago, and some are still sitting where I put them but others have disappeared. 
I have no idea if they actually hatched or if they were just blown away or snatched up by birds (despite the nifty cage I'd put around their house) but the 'tunnels' inside the bee-house are already filling up with new cocoons, so I guess some survived or I have new ones coming in!




Talking about houses .. the big, red barn on the property is no more.
After the sides the roof came off, followed by the trusses and finally almost all of the beams:

       

        

The plan was to re-build the barn almost exactly as it was, with the same scenario for the grey barn, but it looks like plans have changed, as they so often do, and most likely they'll build only one barn back, albeit a larger one than the old (red) one.
It will move a little closer to the RV but it won't be in our way, or view, so we're fine.

I'm still pretty much couch-bound, my ankle still smarts and is now proudly showing a rainbow of colors, mainly blue, purple yellow and green.
James picked up a cane at goodwill which helps me move around the RV a little to empty the tanks and water the flowers. You can only sit for so long before you go stir-crazy!
I also made this gorgeous bread:

                                         

Fortunately temperatures have come down some this week, around 70F, which is soooo much better than the 95 of the week before!
It's going to stay like this for a while, just pleasant spring weather .. I can't believe it'll be (officially) Summer next week!

We've been hanging out on the porch this weekend ... we can't really go for an outing anywhere, with me not being able to walk much, but it's kind of nice to take it slow sometimes, just doing nothing .. 

... except for throwing some (thin) ribs on the BBQ ..

                                ... and munching on some corn ..

For comic relief there's always Samson.  After he went for a swim in the pond he tried to drag half a tree with him .. never a dull moment for him!