My tomatoes are all green or puny and green and only the summer squash is ready and it is getting dark and then some bozo is gonna steal another hour and make it even darker.

But the brassicas are happy.

We still have lots of birds. Herons scouting out the pond; black-capped chickadees still around, blue jays, and many hummingbirds at the feeders. Many of the hummers will leave, but there's always a few that remain all winter. Many's the time when I've forgotten to bring in one of the feeders and they're both frozen! Then there are little angry birds circling the feeder, while I try to defrost the other under warm water. Quickly!

How funny Jan. But how nice to have the little hummingbirds all year round. They leave here and do not return until warm weather does. We have fat little snowbirds here during the winter and the redbirds stay. The redbirds will sit on limbs in the middle of a snow storm and look so lovely.

Saw my first hummingbird in several years this summer. Nice iridescent green one. So beautiful, going to plant and plant and plant stuff to bring in more of them in next year.

I had a humming bird who would nest in one of my clematis each year, leaving me such a cute tiny nest, but last winter that one died down to the roots, and had to start over so it never got thick enough to hide a nest. I'll have to check my other one near it that was thick, maybe they moved a few feet. I did see a quite a few of them around this summer.

Like Bonnie we get lots of snowbirds. So much to eat around here but still people are feeding them year round. Fat birds and even fatter squirrels from the feeders!

You could not pay me to feed a squirrel!!!! Red, grays and even a few very black ones chasing each other around and around the trees, running across roofs and fences and if you set in one particular yard swing, under a hickory tree, one nasty squirrel will drop nuts on your head. I have watched him get a nut, walk out over the swing on a limb and drop a hickory nut on someone's head. I have to keep a patio umbrella over that swing even though it is under a tree.

A neighbor of my father-in-law lived in a crowded neighborhood but still loved "home harvested" squirrels in stew! No one in the area had any squirrel problems.

As a kid growing up, we used to have lots' of wild game, and gray squirrel was one we had sometimes, although in the Northern part of the state where I grew up, they were somewhat rare. Down here we call them tree rats.

Here, too, Tom ! The neighbors cats are helping with the ground squirrels ( Lunch !), and the "tree rats" (they can't catch them, but they do scare them out of the yard, and into the trees........down side is the cats like my beds for a litter box !...............Arlyn

We use suet with embedded red pepper to keep the squirrels off the cakes.

I don't even want to talk about ground squirrels right now. More irises are disappearing , while others are being dug up out of the ground, or out of their pots.

I would be banned if I typed what I call them....

Oh that's what that faint rumbling from the West was! I thought it was thunder.

Just picked a couple apples off my 'Empire' trees today and the quality is going to be outstanding again this year. One of the trade offs of a cool summer. They still have a couple weeks to go... but they have excellent crisp,tart flavor right now and exploding with juiciness.

Yum!!!

I've picked 4-5 gallon buckets of apples so far.. I've lost most of my Macintosh to Fireblight.. Got about a third of the Gala today. I've got a friend with a press, so I'm sorting as I pick.. I'll start saucing soon too, I guess... Last year, I made apple curd, which was well received. Thinking about apple pie with a crumble topping...

My apples are a bust this year, along with everything else in the orcard. Only got a few cherries, and not many of them. Lost one of my peach trees. Maybe next year. I am getting a lot of tomatoes now though!

Apple pie with a crumble topping..............YUMM!!!!!