July's full moon, aka the Buck moon, was a very big and very orange one!

The name refers to the fact that this is the time of year the new antlers of male deer (bucks) grow more rapidly, often reaching their full size by late summer.

The weather seems to be done with it's gently-sliding-into-summer days and has gone into full blast 'extreme heat-watch' mode with temperatures into the low 90s!
The mornings are just cool enough (if I go early and don't dilly-dally) to squeeze in a walk and my ankle is allowing me to walk as far again as the little waterfall in the river ..
(it still swells up some in the evening but that also has to do with the heat)

                 

I think with going to Holland for 3 weeks, coming back sick for another, followed by spraining my ankle and not being able to walk for a good four more, I missed the hatching of the Osprey-chicks.
I'm pretty sure these two I photographed this week are the parents ... looking sort of forlorn, maybe suffering from the 'empty nest syndrome' ..?

  

After the yellow of the buttercups, the red of the clover, the white of the daisies and the (still flowering profusely) queen Ann's lace, this week some more pink joined that of the sweet peas along the road-side .. 

      

That's Clarkia on the left, aka 'Farewell to Spring', which the bees particularly seem to love, and Common Centaury, aka 'Gentian' on the right, believed to help against fever.

Chicory and False Dandelions are very happy in these hot circumstances as well ...

As I mentioned in last's week blog we needed to stock up on fruit for the freezer to get us through the coming winter, so we drove to Dallas for a visit to Perryhill Farm:

                                                      

This beautiful farm is a 'U-pick' and we decided to go for the raspberries and the peaches:

   

     

And although we weren't the only ones there, there was enough for everybody. Look at that gorgeous fruit!
They sell some veggie plants, jams and jellies, cookies and dried fruit and eggs as well ...

We went a little overboard and picked 7 pounds of raspberries and 50(!) of the peaches but they have to last us through the winter so it's OK.
One little problem is that we only have a small freezer, so storing it all will be tight!

         

Of course you also have to peal and pit and cut everything ... 

    

Some of the peaches got a little too bruised in transport, so some of the mushed parts I'll use for jam and with the rest I filled up my muffin and brownie pans and froze them in small (about 1 cup) batches:

        

Perfect size to use (thawed) in a smoothy!
The rest we cut up for pies and cobblers and crisps and ... well, you get the picture!

And since we seem to go through bread like their is no tomorrow (I never realized we ate so much of it) I had to bake some more. 
This sandwich bread created an odd bulge there on one side .. it tasted fine of course:

    

I usually have some sweet bread in the freezer as well, most of the time in the form of store-bought English-muffins, the raisin ones, and since we were also out of those I decided to bake something similar myself.

This is Irish soda-bread, but contrary to the Irish version which is quite dense, this is the American version, which has a more tender, slightly cake-y crumb:

 

 

Can you say delicious? So Yummmmmy! I'm afraid it's not going to last long ..

Last but not least, I emptied one side of my tumble-composter. The other side is almost full so I needed to make room for the next batch. 
It pretty much works out this way, that by the time this needs to happen, the compost is 'done' on the other side.

                   

I thought it was a little too wet, so I let it dry for a day on a tarp, after which it was good to be bagged. It made for 2 full sand-bags of good looking compost, if I say so myself ..

I'll save it for the Fall when I'll top-off my raised beds with it.
Cool!