July Days: A Year Older, Garden Surprises and Hot, Humid Rainy Days. Lots and Lots of Rain.

 Here we are nearly two weeks into July and things have heated up with temps in the upper 90's nearly everyday and often rain at times heavy rains, this is Summer in north Central Florida.  

I turned a year older on the 1st day of July, I celebrated my 68th birthday going out to lunch with my son and daughter in law to the Floating Boat where I had a lovely Elderberry Hard Cider, something I wanted to try since I saw it on the menu when the kids asked me where I would like to have lunch.

I don't normally take photos of foods when I eat out but I just couldn't resist. The little tapas style servings on the plate are crab cakes, red cabbage and pickled red onion. In the bowl is burnt ends with a dipping sauce.  The blue can is the the Elderberry cider which my son grabbed a 4 pack for me to take home since I liked it so much.  I don't usually drink alcoholic beverages but hey I'm a year older it's time to mix things up.  Lunch was a wonderful Blackened Mahi sandwich, no photo. The food was very good.

After lunch we stop at in indoor flea market for a stroll and then downtown to the Solis bakery for a slice of cake.  I had a 4 layer salted caramel cake which was delicious, I had to take half of it home it was too big, I should have taken a photo, it was a wonderful birthday.

As I mentioned above the rains have been quite heavy and to my delight and surprise the gardenia has begun to bloom again.  The surprise is because this spring it barely bloomed at all which I am sure it's because some of the roots have grown out of the ground, I keep covering them with soil until I can move it.  At the end of June we had nearly a week of non stop rain so the soil washed away.  But the rain also caused it to bloom again I'm sure.

Above are the exposed roots and below the few blooms that have been sprouting this week again

Another surprise came earlier this week while I was watering the herbs I am propagating in my kitchen window, the pink crepe myrtle tree is rapidly blooming.  I'm sure having the trees cut back, all the rain we have had an the sunshine has really helped.  I had totally forgotten this was in the backyard.

It's quite scraggly so in the autumn I will prune it back quite a bit, here is a photo taken the week before from my kitchen window not a crepe myrtle in sight.

I walked around the back to take a look at the crepe myrtle tree/shrub it appears I have several growing

There are quite a few growing close together so I may be able to move one or two, I can see where someone at one time cut down several.  There is a lone little one coming along so I will try to keep it shrub size and not tree size.

Here is a photo I snapped at how a healthy crepe myrtle should look at shrub size, its growing at the local post office.

I will do what I can with the crepe myrtles in my yard and hope by next summer they are thriving.

The last few sunflowers from my birthday bouquet are just beginning to droop, I have one in the flower press while it was still open fully.

I love sunflowers and hope my body is well and healed enough next spring so I can plant them in my yard.  One of my main goals this year is getting this body into better physical condition so I can garden and do other things. Recently I noticed my mobility isn't what it was a year ago and my knees have both been going out on me so I began doing chair yoga at home and some balance exercises for women over 65. 

Simon enjoying his new tunnel he received on my birthday, we have a variety of cat tunnels this one is just straight and has two peekaboo windows.  After a few weeks I will pack this one away and take out another.

Today I picked up A World of Curiosities by Louise Penny from the local library.  I am also reading

Kitchen Witch by Sarah Robinson which I am enjoying, its not a cookbook, it's more of a brief history

of the Kitchen Witch.  I love the cover design.  In fact, this year I have noticed the covers on many of the books I have read and have chosen them to read based on the cover, I just love all the colors.