Things are looking good despite the heat. There are a couple of baby cantaloupes! (See direct center of the photo):
A lovely okra flower.
And the Mexican sunflowers are blooming. These are so high up I could only get a shot of their backsides. But there should be more coming all up and down the plant.
Things are looking good! The zinnias are prettily lining the fence just like I'd pictured.
The baby cucumbers are growing up.
We even got an umbrella that (by luck) goes with the lovely picnic table Eric's parents got us last year (thanks Roberta and Ron!). Sadly it's about 50 degrees too hot to enjoy them lately. And, to be fair, I'm not sure my stomach fits into the table any longer. But they're nice to look at, in the meantime...
Just in case there was any doubt as to whether I'm in "nesting" mode: I made jam tonight.
Eric brought home a huge batch of blackberries from the garden. 90, by his count! I took one look and decided I had to make something. I thought of cobbler but it kind of reduces the healthiness of the whole fresh fruit thing.
I've always been scared of making jam because I thought it was really complicated. But I looked it up in my "How to Cook Everything" book, and it appears that making preserves is what's complicated - you have to have sterile jars and seal them and all that. If you're just making small amounts of jam to eat within the next few days, you can just make it and refrigerate it. And you don't even need pectin or anything special to make it jell - just fruit and sugar (the recipe called for lemon juice too, but we only had lime, so I threw that in). I also used a bit of apple to expand the volume and, as the book promised, make it jell better.
That and about 45 minutes of stirring got us this! I couldn't resist putting it in a glass jar (with the remainder in a less charming tupperware). I did refrain from tying a ribbon around the jar and writing something french on it.
