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Sorry you didn’t have better Peach Luck, today!

Beau ‘inspected’ our peach tree today and is calling it a total crop failure. They went straight to ROT without even ripening! Too much rain, not enough sun, too much heat (even without sun; Thanks, Canada Wildfires!) and too much humidity.

I’ll get another good crop from her next year, I’m sure. Seems every OTHER year works out fine for ‘Miss Peach.’ I’ve still got Peach Butter and Peach Salsa in the larder.

Pears are ready to pick tomorrow (two trees, ‘Clapp’s Favorite’) and I’ll be making Peach Butter and Beau wants to break out the dehydrator for dehydrated pears, which is fine with me. Those can be added to yogurt or cottage cheese, used as a pancake syrup (with water to re-hydrate and cooked down a bit) or just eaten as a snack.

This evening there are a ZILLION (at least!) Dragonflies cruising around eating mosquitoes, as well as dozens of Barn Swallows doing the same.

I did battle with Wasps this afternoon - they have built nests in both the smoker and one of the grills, as well as BELOW the deck (that we just re-stained last year!) and they were coming in and out in the small openings between the deck boards. The can of spray (I already used one!) is on Beau’s La-Z-Boy so he remembers to go out and spray those @#$%^&*!-’ers again when they settle in for the evening...and before HE gets to! Supposedly, they are ‘pollinators’ but in my opinion...WHAT was God thinking?!?!? Let’s make an EVIL SOB that ruins outdoor Summer Fun? And comes AT YOU like a Bat out of H#ll when you accidentally stumble upon them? Yeah. Thanks. Not.

I wish we used our back deck more - we just don’t. We are ‘Front Porch People’, it seems. It’s got me thinking about having a Four Season Room out there; it would double the size of the Family Room and the cats and (lots of!) houseplants would like it as much as I would. ;)

Supper tomorrow night is the LAST Tenderloin from our butchered hog from last Fall. After that, all I have left are RIBS. Darn! ;)

I have everything on hand, especially Green Beans (froze 8 quart bags of them, today; plenty more to pick) and I got a bag of those little ‘fancy’ potatoes at the Thrift Shop/Food Pantry for FREE last week.

They are attached; if there is food left over in the Pantry, they put it in the entryway to the Thrift Store (which SUPPORTS the Food Pantry) and pretty much tackle you and MAKE YOU TAKE SOMETHING before you leave. I love it!

https://www.thisfarmgirlcooks.com/pork-tenderloin-sheet-pan-dinner/#recipe

So, a VERY inexpensive meal for us that’s still impressive and delish. Can’t beat that! :)

I tried calling the orchard before we left the house specifically to see if they had peaches because the weather has been so ‘awful’ for so many crops. No answer - I figured they were too busy to have someone answering the phone. I did send them an email & pointed out the hours of operation on their website - to rely on that info & drive 30 miles only to find out they were closed was “very disappointing”. Based on the prices of peaches in Walmart, I suspect there are peach supply issues: still too early, failed crops, or both.

Thought about making dilly beans, but green beans (packaged) were expensive IMO. The local produce stands don’t have them. I have never had luck growing them - flea beetles eat them up early ... might try next year with a straw bale garden. The way it’s set up, it’s easy to use row cover.

I have a wasp nest in Clyde! Before I moved Clyde out of the main barn & under the lean-to, I noticed a wasp crawl under the deck height adjustment knob. I wondered if there might be a nest. Now, when I take Clyde out, I have not had a problem, but when I bring Clyde back in, several wasps are flying around & head for the knob. I looked under it & do not see a nest so it must be deep. I don’t want to spray anything down in there. Once it gets cold, I’ll poke around more extensively. Next year, I’ll have to find a way to keep wasps out of that spot.

Less rain tomorrow, but still ‘warm’ & muggy. I am missing those cooler, low humidity days of last week. I have a trailer load of dirt to shovel & another trailer load of mulch to haul after that - between the humidity, heat & gnats it’s miserable work. When I think I can’t stand to lift one more shovel full, I go look at the raised beds with the zinnias blooming, jalapeño plants loaded with peppers, the thriving herbs & try to focus on how good the end result will be.