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!

Happy Independence Day!

This year's 4th saw much more pleasant temperatures than last year's.
I looked back at my blog-entry from around that week in which I'd pasted the weather forecast for a day later and it showed a whopping 98F for the 6th and a 101 for the 8th! 
It 'only' reached 96F on the fourth ...

It was so much better this time around with only 76F on the day itself. 
We're up to 83F today but it looks like it's still not getting crazy hot for the near future ..



Unlike other years we didn't  do a lot this time around, mainly because we already went to the St Paul Rodeo two days prior.
We'd been there once before, in 2012, when we were camp-hosts in Gold Beach and drove up for a couple of days to visit James' family in Newberg.


As far as rodeos go this is a big one, complete with a big carnival, many vendors, lots of food, drinks and live musical entertainment.
We had tickets for the Wednesday night rodeo which featured bare-back and saddle bronc riding, barrel racing, steer wrestling, and the legendary bull riding.

                                    

When we got there at around 4pm the place was already packed (they sell out for every evening) and we spent some time checking out the carnival and all the cowboys and cowgirls strutting their stuff while getting a (way overpriced) bite to eat in the meantime.

                                                     

These bulls were looking very peaceful, chewing their cud and just lounging around. 
How often a bull 'bucks' depends on the length of the event weekend and previous day's buckoff time. 
During a two-day event, a bull normally bucks at least once and they could be finished after that day. During three-day events, a bull could buck twice in the weekend with a day of rest in between. No bull will ever be forced to buck back-to-back riders or days.

                                   

Every rodeo opens with a prayer said and the National Anthem sung while different flags, among which the U.S. flag (often referred to as "Old Glory") carried into the arena on horseback:

It's always a rather emotional moment ...

After which the evening competition started with bare back bronco (left), followed by sadle bronco (right):

   

After which it was time to wrestle some calfs:

And finally ... the top event ..  bull riding!



Needless to say it was a great event and we enjoyed every bit of it!
Every evening ends with fireworks but we left before that since we already had plans to see the firework show in Willamina.
Besides, it's always smart to leave these big events early. That way you beat the crowds going back to their cars and you have a fast and easy drive 'out of dodge'.

                                          

Anyways, by the time the 4th came around we weren't very motivated to participate in any other festivities. Next year!
So James went golfing and I spend most of the day reading.
We did whip up a traditional BBQ in the evening ... ribs with potato- and a green salad, and I'd made a (huge) blackberry crisp for desert!

We also went to Willamina around dusk for that firework-show I mentioned.

It seemed that there weren't as many people as last year, but that might very well have been because instead of  80F-something back than, it was only a chilly 56F at 10 pm now!

The show lasted for 30 minutes and was absolutely fantastic again, they do know their fireworks around here!

Back on the ranch more of the fields have been mowed and the hay bailed ..

                                                                   

We've stopped mowing the grass around the RV, it all died down since we've not had any rain for weeks, but the wildflowers are OK with that and are still growing and flowering.
I love this 'wild' look of the Queen Ann's lace and camomile ..                                 

         

Also, the grey barn has been taken down.

Brett had hoped to save some timber but in the end it was not worth the effort and time, so he decided to just rip it apart and push it over:

Our view from the front porch greatly improved. Here's the before and the after ..

And this is the view from the other side looking towards the RV .. before and after

    

This is how we look now from the end of the property ... no more barns next to us:

Of course this won't last, only until the new barn will be raised, but it's a fun look for a while ..

One of my two blueberry bushes produced a handful of ripe berries this week and there's probably a few more to come.
Not much, but apparently it's to be expected for only a second year plant ...

Which reminded me to go and look for some cheap fruit to get us through the winter. Since we switched to smoothies for breakfast we're going through a lot of it!
I found a U-pick (self-pick) farm that grows about any fruit you can think of and for reasonable prices, so tomorrow we'll drive the 20 minutes to Dallas for a visit to Perryhill Farm.

They should have lots of ripe raspberries and peaches at the moment so hopefully we'll bring some home!