Une libellule

I was sitting on the deck reading on Wednesday afternoon when I noticed a small dragonfly go by. It stopped on the tip of the car's antenna down in the driveway below me. Hmm, I thought, I wonder if it'll stay there long enough for me to get the camera?

The background color is the car's roof.

I had enough time to change lenses and take a bunch of photos before the dragonfly moved on. This is my favorite of the bunch.

The grapes are ripening

Our spell of hot, dry weather may have saved the grapes this year. I'm no expert, but the growers were despairing of the wet and cold in June and July. Grape yields are down, we heard. Fewer, smaller bunches all around.

A nice looking bunch of red grapes (gamay? cabernet? côt? I'm never sure) in the vineyard on Wednesday.

Well now the bunches are starting to mature. They're looking good, although I do notice that they're smaller and fewer than in previous years. I hope that decent weather holds through to harvest time. It will be an interesting year for our local winemakers.

Patidou

We have four varieties of squash in this year's vegetable garden. One is courgette (zucchini), a summer squash, and we're harvesting that now. The other three are winter squash: butternut, potimarron (kuri squash), and patidou (a variety similar to acorn squash).

These two are on the same plant. The one behind is darker and much larger, so far.

I saved the seeds from a patidou that we bought at the market last year and put three plants into the garden. Two of them have green squash (photo above); they may get pale or variegated as they mature. The third has oblong yellow fruit. They all have these characteristic ridges.

The winter squashes all have fruit on them now, but they won't be ready to harvest for a while yet. I'm looking forward to eating them.

Down at river's edge

I don't know what they're called, but I saw this bunch of pink flower spikes at the edge of the river the other day. It was the only bunch I saw so I don't know how common they are.

Flowers on the Cher River.

The US Open is under way in New York. I haven't watched any of it yet (it's on live here starting in the early evening and over night), but I will start today. They re-broadcast a lot of the matches (especially the French players' matches) during the day. Sometimes I record overnight so I can see the live feed and have the ability to fast-forward through the boring bits, like excessive commentary and commercials.

Tomatoes

We're harvesting tomatoes now. The garden is doing well, although we had some strong winds on Saturday that knocked over some of the cherry tomato plants. Still, they should do alright, even if some of the branches are now horizontal.

Some of our recent harvest. There are several varieties here. I picked almost as much again yesterday morning.

We'll soon start making sauce for the freezer. The tomatoes are beginning to come in faster than we can eat them. Yesterday I made pizza for lunch and we used fresh sliced tomatoes rather than sauce. Very tasty. I also put eggplant and red peppers from the garden on the pizza. Yum.

A tomato close-up.

I've noticed now that all our squash plants are producing. We've been eating some zucchini. But we also have large acorn squash, some potimarrons, and some tiny butternut squash. I'm hopeful that the crop of winter squash will be good this year. It'll be a few weeks before we start harvesting them.

I'm gonna miss this

Hanging out on the deck, that is. I know there are still many days ahead when I'll be able to sit outside, but they're becoming fewer. And there are more days in between when it's either too chilly or too windy.

A recent warm afternoon. We had just had lunch at the table with a friend. I was finishing up the wine.

Summer is moving toward fall and the season will change. It's time to start thinking about cutting up firewood for the winter. I normally do that in August, but I've put it off this year because I know that I'm not trimming the hedge in September. So I'll cut wood in September instead. It works for me.

Les capucines

Nasturtiums. We have a lot of these in the vegetable garden. I planted some one year and they continue to re-seed themselves in one of the four square plots. This year I transplanted a few of the seedlings to the bed around the fake well and they've done ok.

I don't even remember what year it was that I planted these in the garden. Maybe 5 years ago?

But just ok. The heat wave has taken a toll on them. Still, I'm hopeful that they will produce seeds that I can gather for planting in some new places next spring.

They add nice spots of intense color to the back yard.