I know, I know I just posted a crazy amount of squash flower pictures. I think they are so beautiful and once I get started taking pictures of them, I can get a little carried away. 

This year the flowers are covered in ants. I wonder why?

 This morning Jeff and Bracken harvested the first two zucchinis!

 Bracken started pretending to eat one for the picture. He thought it was quite hilarious.

 You may be wondering why they are in wool sweaters! It can be chilly here in the mornings. But the days have been really hot lately. (I’m switching back and forth here from some early-morning-light pictures and some sunny-daytime pictures.)

 Pretending to eat them for the picture again.

We usually grow our basil in the greenhouse, but this year we planted it in one of the sunniest spots and it’s really happy.

 We planted two kinds of basil this year. Above is Genovese Basil. (My favorite.)

 This kind is called Globe Basil.

 Jeff’s cucumbers have really been loving the heat lately. (Our cabbage, on the other hand, is not.)

 Every year we grow our cucumbers up trellises because we can get so much more out of our growing space.

 The grapes have been loving the heat also and have been growing really fast. They’ve already reached the top of the grape arbor we built this year.

 The thing Bracken is probably most excited about right now? Finding some blackberries around our place.

This week our friend Mary Lou came over for lunch. But first Bracken wanted to show her the chickens, the garden, and the patch of blackberries down below. She picked with us for a little while before we headed back inside to get out of the heat.

 First thing, every morning, Bracken asks to go looking for blackberries. A few times we’ve gone right away and done that. But most times we wait until breakfast is made and eaten, the laundry is hung on the line, and (on a good day) the house is all cleaned up, before we go.

 We get a handful or so each time. A nice treat (and at the same time not too much for a little mister who tends towards fruit overindulgence.) They’re still pretty tart. I like them best when they are really ripe and sweet, which will be soon with these hot days.

Besides growing down below, there are also blackberries growing over the roof of the greenhouse and garden shed. There are a few chipmunks who sit up there, eating berries and watching us. We love it when they do that.

So, those are some of the sights in our garden lately. And right next to all the garden happenings are the chickens, heading for the shade on these hot days. We do the same thing in the middle of the day. All our watering is done in the mornings and evenings. The garden sure is thirsty all the time, we can hardly keep it watered enough.