Finally! Raspberries!!

 

It's so incredibly hard to not just gobble these all up when they are so big and pretty! We DO eat a lot, but I think I'm supposed to be making jam. But I can't seem to stop eating them!!!

And the breakfast we look forward to ALL YEAR LONG. Well, *I* do, anyway. So yummy .

The little peaches came from Nancy Johnson 's tree. I only have about 20 on my peach tree this year. I picked one this morning, but it's just not quite ripe . Yet. Getting close....

Shower in Herriman, Hip woes, More Garden

 Double meaning here. They DID have rain showers in Central and Northern Uah.  We  We still have none here in the south.

Nick screwing in the Green board in their soon-to-be-finisbed basement bedroom and bathroom.

Nick has done all the framing down there on his own. Mike has the bathroom expertise he needed for next steps. The shower, mostly. And some plumbing question. 

Mike and I drove up to Herriman to spend a day at Nick and Kaylee's house. It was the kids' first day of school! But we didn't get there till 11pm, so we didn't see any of the kids. Kaylee is teaching at Emily's preschool MWF this year.  Jane was excited to return to elementary school on day 2, so that's good. Emily is in preschool, Jane is in First grade, Logan in third grade and Rachel in 6th grade. 

We left Cedar city so late (7:30 pm) because I was hosting our August Relief Society sisters here for dinner Wednesday at 6. We ate Eggrolls in a bowl, two kinds of green beans, bell pepper and cherry tomatoes with ranch dressing as our salad, with rhubarb/raspberry cobbler and ice cream sprinkled with more fresh raspberries for dessert . Yum yum! Garden fruits and veggies😀. 

I didn't tell them I was waiting for them to leave so I could go. But Mike got our truck packed while we were eating ( I did bring him a plate of food back in the bedroom so he wouldn't have to leave hungry), I got everything all cleaned up, and when the last person was gone, off we went! Nice, uneventful drive, our favorite kind. So blessed.

I didn't sleep worth beans on Wednesday night, though. I was awake a LOT. Mike went for a walk Thursday morning after we saw grandkids and had some breakfast. I went with him, but he was going too fast for my still-sore hip. I told him to "press on, walk your pace" and I took a cautious, slower route just through their neighborhood. 16 min. That's all I felt comfortable doing. 

I don't know what I did to my hip joint last Friday, whether it was a twisty move at pickle ball or an exercise I tried ( for hip strength, ironically), but it hurts to step up with my left leg. Stairs have to be taken one at a time. 

So I rested all day Saturday last week ( read a Mrs. Pollifax mystery, did laundry). Took ibuprofen. Such a wonder drug. It's been a week and sometimes it's better, sometimes it's not. I can walk with no pain, but I'm nervous about making a wrong move since I'm not sure exactly what I DID to injure it.

In Herriman on Thursday the 21st, Mike helped Nick with materials shopping, I came home from my walk, read the newspaper a bit online, and took a nap. When I ventured upstairs ( with much help from stair railing and the wall!), nobody was home, so I just read and petted their sweet puppy, Roz. Kaylee had taken Emily to her "Upstart" online preschool program orientation. 

Emily loves pickles so much she will lick the plate clean of pickle juice. I sent this photo to my pickle-loving niece, Elizabeth Ashwood.

Emily also did a little fashion show for me with some new costumes they'd acquired through a clothing swap. Here she is as Snow White.

AND Snow White with some really cute and snuggly "Frozen" Slippers! 

We just had a relaxing time with Emily. We ate lunch together and played some games. We visited briefly with the other kids when they came home from school. Played one and a half games of "Happy Salmon". That was silly fun.  Mike and Nick worked hard. We left at dinner time(5), stopped for a great burger at Apollo Burger and had another wonderfully uneventful drive home to cedar and were home by about 8 :30 pm or so. We DID enjoy gorgeous sunsets going and going home.

This morning I picked our bountiful harvest. And now I'm tired🥱

Green beans, cherry tomatoes, bell peppers ( kind of small) BIG cucumbers. There were raspberries, too. I thought Anne Diekema from the Library was going to come and pick them on Thursday, but it didn't look like she had. She came to our RS Dinner on Wednesday night, too. She requested to see my garden, so I took her on a tour, gave her a cucumber and gave her instructions on how to pick the berries. I picked about two cups full this morning. So, if she came, she took a cup and then left.

Sorry about the Google links. I don't know how to make them go away.

Sunflowers in August

We have Sunflowers. The bees and birds really like this big bush. It's so fun to sit on the deck and watch the little yellow finches, sparrows. They are all quite competitive and bossy!

 And then we have A Sunflower. I picked off all the other flower buds so just the one bloomed above the fence.

And then we have. . . .

THE SUNFLOWER (bud). It hasn't even bloomed yet! It's a giant already. I'd planned for it to bloom above the top of the fence, but not THIS far! I planned to tie something around the middle of the plant to lend support to what I hope will be a nice, large head of sunflower seeds. Now, instead of having a fabric tied around its waist or shoulders for support, it'll likely be more like around its knees!😁

Oh. My. Goodness. "Giant Sunflower" indeed!!

FYI, the dark green vegetation blob on the fence top to the right of  the sunflower is the neighbors honeysuckle vine. 

Garden and cat

 It was a good .. .no, GREAT harvest this morning. The best looking corn I've ever grown. Sadly, that's about all there is. The rest will most likely be puny and sparse.

This cat has been meowing at our door for a couple of days

 I think the neighbor fed the stray. The cat is really sweet and friendly and purr-y. And hungry. The neighbor posted it on Facebook, but apparently no one has contacted them about ownership. 

Kitty is so sweet MIKE is tempted to keep her!

Moonlight and roses

 

There's a half moon over the trees.

The roses are Levi's,  our  neighbor to the South.