Summer

This is what we have been up to this week.

The weather has been beautiful here in Oak Hills. It slightly cooled down to the 90's compared to the 111 degree's we had last week. Enjoying the beautiful clear blue skies, having breakfast with the kids outside, and doing a little bit of harvesting in the garden. I have been using this Fish fertilizer, it contains seaweed and fish bones. It smells really really bad, but my fruits and vegetables must like it. This is the first year we have such an abundant garden. My hubby made me the raised vegetable beds two years ago. It's not that big, but every inch of it is being used. Since we've been fertilizing every week, we can barely keep up with eating all those yummy veggies. We try to stay away from meat mostly during the week, and have been cooking up more healthy vegetarian dishes this summer. The kids love it, especially when they get involved with the process of growing seeds, watering, and then picking their own dinners right from the garden.

My little garden.

The Orchard.
It has been 5 years since we planted all the trees. Last year the birds and the squirrels beat us to all of the fruit, literally. We had to put these white pipes around the stems, so we finally can enjoy our own fruit. Now we have about 60 Fruit trees, different varieties.

This Tree called "Mirabelle de Rheine" It is a cross of an Apricot and a Plum. It's tiny, but very yummy. I remember, when I was a kid, my cousins and I used to claim these huge trees in Germany, were you can find all kinds of Plum, Cherry, and Apple trees growing wild along the roadside in the villages.

My kids love figs. Usually they never make it into a bowl, because they get eaten right of the tree. These are Honey Figs, and have a pinkish fruit meat inside.

We picked so many Cherries and Apricots that I had to make Marmalade and Preserves. It was a lot of work getting the seeds out, but so worth it. It reminded me of my own childhood, when my Aunt and my Mother cooked up Marmalades. These will definitely not last very long in our house, so I've been giving some away already to our nice neighbors, friends and family.