Time of plenty

Our summers here in the north country are short, but what they lack in length they make up for in fullness of experience. Here in late July, the harvest bounty of both wild foods and gardens is starting to ripen. We are having an amazing raspberry year — a wealth of lush, sweet berries free for the picking all around the yard. I’ve been gathering handfuls as I work in the garden.

Wild raspberries in the edge of the yard. The bushes are so loaded it’s hard to believe they grew all by themselves; I didn’t have to do a thing!

We’ve had a few projects going on this summer. Our bridge over the creek self-destructed in the ice last winter. This was the second bridge we’ve lost, the first having been taken out in a flood a few years ago, so Orion decided to build a better, stronger, HIGHER bridge this time, one that hopefully is far enough above the creek to avoid the ice and the flooding.

New bridge – better than the old bridge! We hope!

We have had glorious wildflowers this summer, and currently the fireweed is in full bloom all around the yard and along the highway – you can see some of it in the bridge picture above.. There’s an interesting patch of white fireweed (or rather, pale pink) along the highway near our driveway turnoff that’s been there for the last few years. I keep intending to collect some seeds and see if I can get it to grow in the yard.

It’s really striking, a little splash of paler color among the vivid magenta of the normal fireweed.

We also have a lot of multi-branched fireweed growing around the yard, like this complete over-achiever next to the deck.

multi-branched fireweed
That’s just one fireweed plant! Also, I can’t help feeling the deck itself is not really adding to the aesthetics of that photo. It could use a bit of maintenance.

I’m also putting in a new flowerbed at the edge of the woods …

Not much to see yet, but it’ll be more beautiful when the flowers are planted … I hope!