Smoky Peaches and Clover

I don't think I've ever been so thankful to see bluish skies as I was on Friday morning. We've had a horrible stretch of smoky weather; I guess it was only since last Sunday night, but it seems like months. The sky was overcast with smoke and it was suffocating outside. It's been pretty hazy the last couple of days, but nothing like it was. When you could see it, the sun was a vague, reddish glow in the sky, even in the middle of the day.

Given the weather, we got pretty much nothing done all week outside. We didn't go outside, period. But there were still things going on outside, even though I wasn't about to go and check them out up close. Things like this...

 And this, which I did a few weeks ago when one of the peach trees bent over under the weight of all the fruit.

 We are going to need a peach management plan, and soon.

Nothing's ripe yet, but I don't think it can be more than a couple of weeks away before we find ourselves buried in peaches. Yum.

This was happening in the garden. I went out to snip a few for my office early one morning when I was feeling depressed about the smoke.

 These too. I have some sitting in one of Mom's old pitchers on the kitchen table...

 Here:

Post-Bartlett, this is what the backyard looks like. Barren. Also dead, except for some weeds that are impressively resisting my repeated Round-up attacks. That big pile of brown is mulch from the ground-out cedar stump. 

 My blackeyed susans are blooming beautifully. Someday this whole bed will be full of them, once they've naturalized.

Today, I worked my way through some zucchinis from the garden and using my favorite zucchini bread recipe made 12 zucchini muffins (eight of which are still intact. They're about three bites each and so yummy),

eight mini zucchini loaves and two normal loaves. I used almost 10 cups of grated zucchini. It was a lot. I'd intended to use some chocolate chips in a few of them, but they'd mysteriously gone missing. Next time.

Lastly, there is clover. In my garden. Or on the edge of it. I decided I just didn't really feel like waging war on it today, and it's ended up making a rather cute little bouquet for the kitchen windowsill. It's nice when things work out.