A Beautiful Summer Day

It was a perfect day for walking with Sue. The sun was shining brightly, but it wasn't too hot. We walked out by my place, which I call the McCormick Hill Loop:

This image has appeared on the blog before, but I needed to rework it a little bit. We used to start at a different spot, which meant a little tail of walking on the lower right side of the loop. Now we park at a different spot and walk from where "X" marks the spot at the top.

Wheat fields have replaced the red clover of spring, and they are ready for harvest. One field has already been cut, but this one was still there to enjoy.

And there were plenty of wildflowers to see along the way. This one was new to us.

Just after snapping that picture, we spotted a pair of red-tailed hawks sitting on a power pole. I tried to photograph them, but it was not to be on this day. They were spooked by our presence and flew off. Still, it was fun watching them flying over the wheat field, presumably on the hunt for field mice.

I don't know what this fuzzy thing is, but it made me want to reach out and touch it.

The wild sweet peas are in bloom now, and they were all along the trail.

In someone's yard, we spotted this blue hydrangea just beginning to open. Even its foliage was blue.

There are plenty of poppies in bloom now, and they can be seen all along the roadsides while driving through town.

Here's a pretty lily...just growing wild along the side of the road.

What is this? A morning glory of sorts? There was a whole bank filled with them.

Our path takes us up a rather steep hillside, and then down the other side. If you look at the image at the top of this post, we're standing at the southwest corner here. It's a little difficult to see in the haze, but Mt. St. Helens is at the top left of the image below.

When we reached this point, we spied a bald eagle flying overhead.

From there, it's all down hill and back to our cars. When I got home, I spent some time icing my knee, and then got to work dispensing with the last of the blueberries from the most recent farmer's market visit. Yesterday I made five half-pints of Blueberry Chutney. This is so good with a grilled marinated chicken breast, or else with fish. It's the first batch I've made in a couple of years.

I've made chutneys from all different kinds of fruits and vegetables. This is one of my favorites. I wrote a blog post about making it once. You can find it right here, along with the recipe.

When that was finished, I still had blueberries left from my half-flat. It was tempting to bake a pie, but I decided instead to make a cobbler. For this, I turned to my go-to Baking Illustrated book from America's Test Kitchens. I can't link to the recipe because it requires a membership. Nevertheless, there are puh-lenty of blueberry cobbler recipes online, and I'm just betting you have your own already.

I'm used to making cobblers the way my mother made them, with more cake on top. This one was made with biscuits that were finished off with a sprinkle of cinnamon sugar. Yum.

And I don't know about you, but when I'm dieting, I think it's a good idea to add two scoops of ice cream to my dessert. Oh my...heaven in a bowl, right there.

After oinking that down, the setting sun was casting a pretty glow over things in the yard, and so I went out for one last photo shoot. Finally, the first cherry tomato to appear on the vine is starting to ripen.

This has been the most prolific plant. I'm guessing there are more than a hundred cherry tomatoes coming along.

The mint looked pretty in the setting sun. I'm hoping to get some jelly made from this later on in the coming week.

Also, the lavender. I clipped a handful of stems from this plant earlier, and I have it hanging in my pantry, drying, to replenish our supply of dried lavender blossoms. We use them to make lavender blossom tea for our Bees Knees cocktails.

The real object of my desire on this trip was the daylilies. They were glowing in the sunlight.

And then I noticed something...lookie there...do you see it? Right in the middle of the image below is a little baby zucchini.

Another of the three zucchini plants is forming flowers. I'll have zucchini coming out of my ears soon. But that's okay because I have a way to make a delicious side dish with baby zucchini. When the time comes, I'll share it with you.

There was no sewing yesterday, but there will be today. I want to finish up row 3 on the Shop Hop quilt today. After that, I'm going to at least get started on the June block for Tuxedo Tales. Looks like I'll have to finish June in July, but maybe I'll do July at the same time and be caught up. Also on today's agenda, we're going to use the tractor to pick some cherries from our trees. I'm afraid if we wait much longer, the raccoons will have their way with the cherries. She who hesitates is lost. As for using the tractor, this is quite a production. It involves this guy:

If you want to see two people take their lives in their hands and survive to blog another day, click right here. I noticed in that post that one of our trees wasn't doing very well at the time. Happily, it has recovered from its brush with death, and is loaded with cherries right now. With that said, I'll be back tomorrow to report on our success...or maybe not. If not, you'll know what happened.