Still hot................

The heat continues............................................



.......and the boys are drawn to the "cooler" concrete of the garage floor. These hot days are interspersed with heavy downpours and thunderstorms. After the storms abate the heat gets worse due to the humidity. This really is an awful time of the year.

I had a new visitor in the back garden the other afternoon.....................



.........in the form of a Groundhog, a pretty big one too.

I also picked my first...............



.............Brandywine Tomato and treated myself to a Cheese and Tomato roll for lunch.

This year I made a concerted effort and got to the Peaches before the birds and squirrels.



This is the first year that I have got any sort of decent crop. Saying that, the tree didn't get the best start in life when a huge limb broke off one of the Black Locust trees during the ice storm in December 2007........



....and split the little tree in half.



The severe damage to the lower trunk seems to have healed well after treatment with sealing tar. Two and a half years on and it now looks like this...................



A little misshapen yes but it has survived.

Here's the Fuji Tree after the same storm................



and here it is.......................


.....now.

This will be it's fifth year in the ground and we got our first decent crop of apples.


And very tasty they are too.

Evening skies of wonder..................


..................and the promise of more storms to come.

I think it's here..............................................




Dinner tonight is......................

Amalfi-Style Shrimp

Full recipe here................

http://range-warfare.blogspot.com/2009/06/amalfi-style-shrimp.html

Enough!!