106.7 degrees

We watched the temperatures rise this afternoon.

We stayed inside and made pineapple sorbet.

I have found a new love.

The attachment to the Kitchen Aid worked great.

I hope to learn how to make ice cream too.

The squash leaves found a way to stay cool.

The Tiger Lilies are beginning to bloom.
They seem to like the high heat!
I am staying cool.
Sorbet is my new favorite food.

Tall Grass Prairie

I love the Tall Grass Prairie.

I worry about the future of the wildflowers.
I worry about the butterflies.

Our planet needs the biodiversity of the Tall Grass Prairie.

When the water runs out the farmers will only
 have the wind to farm.

We need the grasses.
We need the sunflowers.

My husband built a bamboo trellis for the gourds.
We have given our garlic patch over to the gourds.
The garlic is drying and will be ready to braid soon.

The gourds will cure on the vines over the winter.
We will take the trellis down next spring.

The green beans are sprouting.

A Fig Beetle was splattered with mud.
When I walk the gardens I think about the flora and fauna that live here in my backyard. I think about my relationship
to the Tall Grass Prairie I call home.
I think I will grow Bird's Foot Violets.
They are the host plant for the Regal Fritillary. I could grow them
as border plants in the gourd garden. I could grow them around the beans. There is room for the wild and the cultivated in my gardens.
There is room for food for the butterflies and the people.
Maybe I could poke in some grasses around the sunflowers.

Where the Deer and the Butterflies play

A young deer is coming for salad.

The lettuces have bolted

but she doesn't seem to mind.

We have an understanding.

I will save some sweet spinach for her

if she will leave some for me.

We will have to fence seedlings from now on.

The wind came up and she trotted off.

I turned my attention to the cone flowers.
I am grateful the deer have left them alone.

The Tiger Swallowtail looked so elegant
perched on top the seed head.

It is here in the gardens I work and play.
I am a gardener.