Look closely, we have baby fish!

Yesterday I found some cattails on the side of the road and I wrapped them into a very amateur basket. Turns out that it's better to let the leaves dry and them moisten them before weaving. After one day, I noticed that things are shrinking noticeably. So...I turned it into a planter. For now, I'm attempting to see if the cattail seeds produce anything.

I wish I had more pictures of the good fireworks, but my camera battery died just before dusk. It was a beautiful, perfect day for fireworks, even though we didn't have that many to set off this year. We set up camp in the front yard mid-day and the boys played a lot of soccer, danced with sparklers, ran through smoke bombs, and pigged out on leftover pizza from last night plus all the hamburgers and hot dogs we grilled for dinner.

I made another pit fire and roasted some vegetables. And we made good use of the fire to make some absolutely perfectly messy wonderful smores (good energy for emerging soccer players).

Picture of the tree above me

Smoke bombs:

Hot, tired and waiting for the big fireworks:

Miscellaneous herb photos:

Thai Basil

Sage (my favorite textured leaves)

I at least got large areas of the garden weeded yesterday.

Can anyone confirm that this is a stray tobacco plant that showed up in our garden?

Mint

Various herbs

Flowering Chamomile

Before Sundown

In honor of the soccer World Cup, we've been making good use of the freshly mowed lawn:

A few sparklers couldn't wait for nighttime:

Last night I made a pit fire and roasted some chicken breasts with fresh-picked basil. Can't you just smell that smoked juicy sweetness?

Today, I used the same pan and stir fried / smoke roasted some fresh zucchini with new potatoes, green beans and onions (the only thing not grown here), brushed with butter and simmered in sage and basil.

** Extra credit if you go back through this post and find the picture where Brent is riding an invisible pony.