It's been extremely hot here the past few days (102 yesterday, about 98 today), and even though we have central air, we can't just hibernate inside all day. It's summer, and even though I'm not a fan of the extreme heat (which for me is anything above, like, 80), we need to soak up a little sun.
And for me, drinking sangria on the patio. Out of a quart-sized canning jar. Classy!
We had a ton of artichokes, and all of them were infested with ants, which made them difficult to prepare and eat. We ended up cooking up 2 or 3 after soaking the cut 'chokes in water overnight. Honestly, it was more trouble than it was worth. I'm planning on reading up on how to successfully growing artichokes that aren't crawling with pests. In the meantime, they're starting to bloom.
One of my favorite shrubs in the yard is now in bloom. I love Hydrangeas for a few reasons, but the main one is how you can change the color of the flowers just by changing the acidity of the soil. This one, our largest of 3, is a pretty standard blue. I noticed the other day that a few of the clusters are more purple.
And finally, the ground covers we planted in between our patio stones are filling in nicely. We planted some Scotch Moss, Corsican Mint, Creeping Thyme, and Blue Star Creeper. Here, the thyme and blue star begin to commingle.
