Garden: late July 2015

 (Another post I forgot in the drafts folder.  Oops).

Most of the trees in the orchard died years ago and were never replaced, but there's a few types of apples and pears left. The plums are all gone, sadly. We do have one younger plum tree, and for the first time ever it has half a dozen plums on it, but it's been there for 20 years and it's never had plums before.  It needs another tree to pollinate it.  Maybe someone else planted a suitable one?  We can hope.  And whatever it was grafted to is now a thorny bush the size of a truck, and sending up thorny suckers all over the backyard.  That tree was not a success.

Apples on the older tree.  They're fine for cooking or sauce, but they don't taste nearly as good as the apples on the bear tree.

The two pear trees are very old and the fruit isn't that good, but it's fine for juice or canning.

 The bear tree.

A bear tried to climb this small apple tree to get at the fruit a few years ago, so now it's propped up by a stick.  But it's still covered in apples, and my brother said they taste the best out of all the trees.

It was a hot day and the cows were all laying down.  The goldenrod is starting to flower.  I couldn't get any closer because there's a ditch in the way and the ditches here don't fool around.  The ditch is big enough that there are cattails growing in it.  And there's a fence on the other side, so even if it was narrower, jumping the ditch wouldn't work

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Left: Buddleia.  I haven't seen any butterflies on it, but the bees love it.

Right:  Sunset on the night of July 23 2015.