In My "Spare" Time: We're Not Out Of Farm Fresh Summer Catchup Yet!

Ah yes, summer, and the living was easy. So I have some more random summer pictures from the farm to show you. Most of these are from late July through August.

My view down the walkway toward the garden, first thing in the morning. It rained overnight.

We had a family of crows that came visiting at some point every day. They were noisy but fun to watch. No problems with them in the garden, they seemed to be most interested in hunting grasshoppers in the field.

My sitting area for midday reading and studying. That white lilac gives ample shade. My little companion dog Ariel often joined me on the glider bench.

I am fascinated with the sky here, because you can see so much of it. At my other house, the lot has a lot of big trees with a thick canopy of leaves.

On a nice summer day, we all feel like singing.

That line of white pines along the highway does screen out a lot of road noise. I'm told they were all dug up as seedlings on the hill above my pond.

Wildflowers are the star of the summer meadows and hedgerows. This is Bladder Campion. It has a pale pink tint.

The garden was well grown by then, even for having been put in late. Not much for weeds inside, but the edges were hard to keep up with. We used a lot of mulch, all grass clipping cut in the fields around the house.

Some Lantana and Million Bells I was late getting in. Surprisingly the Lantana did better sitting in the pots in the shade than it did in a flower box in full sun. I still have one of the Million Bells alive in its flower box along with a dragon wing begonia that is in bloom. They are in the dining room not far from my computer desk.

House sparrows are supposed to be nuisance birds and they are aggressive and quarrelsome. But I find them fun to watch because they are always doing something. They love the mixed seed in the feeder.

A good portion of the field around the garden. The pond is off to the right, buried in the brush. I spend a lot of time walking the perimeter with the dog. I guess you could say that this summer, I was outstanding in my field...

Common grackles. You see them fairly often here. They are a bird of the open land.

The summer squashes to the front right did very well, producing over a long season. The winter squash and pumpkins in the back to the right did too. The melons in the middle produced OK, but had no flavor. It was a rainy August.

The pepper plants are looking ragged, losing their lower leaves to some disease. The bell peppers never did well, nor did the frying peppers or eggplant. Only the hot peppers and some yellow banana peppers at the far end produce much of anything. You win some, you lose some.

The 19 tomato plants were late in ripening fruit and the blight disease killed them early, but they produced plenty and I was able to share. No complaints!

Our cucumber trellis decorated with a male goldfinch. The birds love these high perches in the garden where they can watch for insects and worms. We love to watch them dive in and catch bugs. We were overwhelmed with cucumbers and gave tons of them away.

A bunny on the move. They graze the field quite a bit but gave us very little problems in the garden, unlike the resident woodchuck...

A female house sparrow sitting on one of the tomato stakes.

I am told that a red tailed hawk nested up the hill from the pond. We saw them head up there quite often so that is likely the case. Love to watch them soaring—so graceful!

I think this little male house sparrow is keeping a weather eye on that hawk!

Synchronized feeding.

The tops of those pine trees are another favorite lookout perch.

Eat and poop, eat and poop... What a life!

My little wild corner by the door. No I did not plan that, it's a tough area to mow and the weed whacker was broken. Late summer Queen Anne's Lace, brown seed heads of common dock, wild grasses, goldenrod budding up and in the far background, orange daylilies. Nature likes to plant Her own gardens.

Typical one bowl harvest. The tasty fruits of my labors. I only had two basil plants but they produced amazing amounts of fragrant leaves.

A male house sparrow in an autumn olive bush. That stuff grows wild all over this property and it is quite invasive. It has tons of fall berries that the birds love, so gets replanted prodigiously.

You can't get more peaceful than this.

Basking in those last golden rays, at the end of the day. Robins hunt from sunrise to sunset.

There must be one more bug in here somewhere! Poor little things, they work so hard to feed their ever-hungry brood.

Must be quite a life when you spend half your time expecting something to jump out of the bushes and try to eat you. And we humans think we have stress!