The MidPoint of Summer

 July feels like it's smack in the middle of Summer. When in reality it is the downward slope. Our minds fight with the calendar perception of summer being June, July, and August, while the garden and crops are just getting truly in July, and while the sunlight hours of the day start to plummet.  While it does manage to get quite warm in June, July is the barometer for the impending heat in August. In which case, July was already telling us that August would be brutal. The rains and storms were still coming on a regular basis, but were slowing down.  The storms were violent, beautiful, and came mostly at night.

The heat index would routinely hit over 100 and reached 117'F on a regular basis. Smoke from Western wildfires hung in the air like a dirty yellow blanket. Day and night the skies offered only filtered light, and little clean oxygen to breathe.

After the 4th of July, we seemed to skip July altogether and go into the drought and oppressive heat normally reserved for August. Tomatoes and plants enjoy the warm nights but brutally hot days and ridiculously hot nights stunted them I was looking towards a lower than average harvest season in a year that had seemed perfect for them.  The grapevine was still going gangbusters and I was enjoying documenting their quick progression.  

The zinnias, cut flowers, and sunflowers took off and were enjoyed by not only the pollinators but also the local small songbirds.

By the 3rd week in July we brought in our first basket of tomatoes and the grapes were turning deep rose. Canning season had started!  

Last year I crossed a black corn with an orange corn and came up with the center corn. FUN!

Tomatoes and Blackberries

These are giant green June Bugs, and we
were up to our eyeballs in them in the 
chicken garden. They especially love to lay 
their eggs in poo, which the chicken garden is
planted in. The chickens LOVE to eat the tomatoes
AND the beetles.

The littles started sleeping inside, but didn't quite understand
they were to use the perches. Instead they slept on the nest box 
edges and the fan mount, which resulted in a few clipped feathers
and toenails.

The cutflowers including alfalfa, Queen Anne's lace, and