Here are some pictures, just to update everyone on what’s going on here on the mountain.
In the garden, the garden is growing very well, the peas have run their course and are looking a bit tattered, I left the remaining peas on the vines to dry and I will plant those for a fall crop. Here is a picture of most of the garden.

These are the broccoli, they are just now putting on heads (the GOOD part!), I planted more but they haven’t come up yet.

The lettuce is going crazy, these are over a foot tall, I pick ONE plant, I break it off a couple of inches from the ground and that is enough for 2 individual salads. It’s hard to see, but there are a few okra plants peeking through, they are the ones with the purple stems. You can also see bush beans in the background.

The summer squash is starting to do something, finally! But it seems that I may have more than I can eat…

These are the cutest watermelons I have ever seen! They are small, individual sized watermelons, since we had limited space, I trained them up a trellis, so I had to support the fruit.

We have been having lots of rain, the creek is running here.



This is the creek and in the background you can see a volcanic plug, I understand that we live in a caldera, fortunately the volcanic activity ceased a L O N G time ago…

One of the interesting cacti that grows around here.

A tiny, tiny wildflower.

I was told that there is a mountain orchid growing around here, I have tried to find out more info on them, I thought I had found them only to learn that it was not the orchid, I asked what it looked like and was told, I would know it when I saw it, it’s very unique looking and will not look like anything else.
Well, I think I found it, this was growing between my neighbor’s property and our property, it’s growing up inside a rock wall (no mortar, it’s dry stacked), I have to assume this is the mountain orchid in question, it’s a rare plant and is supposed to only grow here, anyhoo, here are the images, the plant is about a foot tall, the flowers are the size of a quarter. The entire plant is purple, the stem and the leaves(?) are the same color, the flower is a lighter shade of purple.





A distant view of the house. The original (main) part is on the right, the bedroom addition is in the middle, and on the left is the deck.

This is the bedroom addition, this picture was taken on the north facing side of the house, this room has lots of windows and it’s own door to go in …