Finishing out the summer!

Having a lot of trouble with Blogger today - uploaded photos 5 times before it worked, and now things are deleting off the page faster than I can control. But I'm going to give this a shot anyway.

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Summer has finally gotten hot and dry - and school is just 12 days away! Even the evenings are warm, when normally I'd be watching the weather closely this time of August expecting our first frost any day now. I'll take the warm evenings and smile - all the longer for my basil to grow. It is going to be a small crop this year because I didn't get it in until half way through summer. Bad me. But this heat spell is helping.

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It really is the first heat spell we've had. The front field is still green - even after being hayed over a month ago. The National Forests have not been above a "Moderate" fire danger, which is something I haven't seen since moving her. And my columbine are still putting out some blooms. I almost never have columbine with holly hocks. But I've got holly hocks now too - here is one of them:

In the warmth of the evening, J and his friend slept outside last night. So fun for them!

They were prepared:

Yep, an abundance of knives is just what you need to survive out in the wilds of our back yard.

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And a fire built in an old washing machine tub.;"

Did you know that this is a way the National Forest Service is recycling. They use the tubs for new fire pits at campgrounds. We don't partially bury ours so we can move it around the property as needed.

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J and his friend had a fire in the evening and then again in the morning - the first course of breakfast is sausage cooked over the open flame. Yummy! Then they came in and cooked eggs too!

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Then I made them do the dishes, which they managed to make into some fun!

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Oh to be young again, where everything has the potential to be joyful!

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We're making the most of these last days of summer!