'round here

These summer days typically start off with a cup of something warm (usually enjoyed in the garden).  Generally, it is accompanied by fruit.  Often, melon or berries.  Cherries, too, since it's their time to shine.  I find myself buying a bag of cherries every couple days and easily justifying all the dollars spent on the glorious little stone fruits based on the fact that they are not available fresh for very long, so I (we, but......if I'm honest I have to admit that I definitely squirrel away the majority of the tasty orbs) have been devouring them quite steadily. yum, yum, yum.

Also, kombucha.  So. much. kombucha.  I brew it for most of the year, but come late fall the temperature in my house just isn't quite adequate for a good fizzy batch and so somewhere along the line, I inevitably let it slide and then scout out a new SCOBY and start again in the spring.  I was the happy recipient of a healthy, happy, newborn baby SCOBY from a friend earlier in the spring and started with a gallon and have been doing all sorts of fun secondary ferments (the favorite this year so far has been blackberry lime and, for me personally, the tulsi-rose-cardamom).  Just before we left for our recent trip I started a four gallon batch and we kegged it upon returning, so now we've got kombucha on tap.  Heck yes.  I feel like we took it up to a whole new level right there.  There is a nice fizzy brew at the ready without having to juggle the refrigeration of so many swingtop bottles.  (the keg refrigeration we have covered because, um...... well.... we have a kegerator on the front porch.  we are so classy.)

Berries.  Berries, berries, berries, berries.  The raspberries started early and had a nice long several week run.  At first, as always, we started by simply eating bowls full of them.  Then we moved onto just handfuls and tossing them into smoothies (and salads, and kombucha batches, and oatmeal...) and then, eventually, I mashed up the rest and froze them on a hot day for later jam-making because I just couldn't imagine all that steaming and boiling at the moment.

There has been a color shift though, and we've since moved on to the blackberries and blueberries.

The makings of a fine lavender-peach jam.  I use Ashley's delicious peach-lavender butter recipe as a starting off point and always set aside some without lavender because the other people that live in my house seem to think lavender in food is akin to eating lotion (silly people), and I use honey to sweeten both batches, 'lavendered' and 'un-lavendered'.

The first time I've kept an orchid alive long enough to see it flower again.  I feel so accomplished, but really, the success belongs to the orchid.  She's so pretty.

Chanterelles!  yum, yum, yum.  A friend posted photos after foraging and I was having mushroom envy and thus was inspired to go out hunting myself and lo and behold, I found a basketful with not a lot of looking.  In this batch though I did collect four False Chanterelles (I tasked Mike with checking for lookalikes while I was in the shower- glad he did, as false chanterelles, though not deadly poisonous, are known to cause a good deal of digestive unhappiness).  The rest we sautéed in butter and put over rice pasta with some crispy kale.  Simple and delicious.  Buttered noodles become adult food when you add wild mushrooms and greens.

Pictured below is a second batch of chanterelles, from the same spot, and some recent backyard garden goodies.

A bit of canning~  Dilly beans and beets, and the aforementioned lavender-peach (and just plain peach) jam.  More pickling and jamming to come soon.  The beans and beets and peaches and berries are calling my name and I just haven't felt like dealing with them lately....... but alas, I know my six-months-from-now self will be so glad that I made pickles and jam, so... soon.  Really.

The other day I got in a bed of fall greens, along with some late plantings of bush beans and squash.  Still plan to add a small planting of root crops and green onions.  Mostly now though the garden calls me for weeding, harvesting.  The planting and seeding has definitely slowed.

Pink and purple blooms, dusky purple gloaming.

Some glimpses of these fleeting summer days~