It’s been awhile since I have been behind the camera and I really missed it. I just seemed to hit a dry spell. No creative juices were flowing. Then one day, the creative juice faucet opened up and flowed and flowed and flowed.

Being behind the camera is one of my happy places.

Our summer adventures at our new old farmhouse provided the environment that I needed to pick up the camera and wander around. Lucky for you, I have planned a tour of these blog-worthy photo moments so let’s put on our farm boots and meander the simple outdoors together. Come on…I’ll show you around.

Beware, these photos will show you summer content when it’s now fall. I don’t know what it’s like in your neck of the woods, but in mine, it is definitely not summer weather. I’m wearing slippers and a flannel shirt, not that you wanted to know what I was wearing.

And I do have pants on.

So…above is a hay field next to our property. The morning sun always made the hay bales look so “country”.

Nestled in the tall grass next to the hay field were wonderful wild flowers. The morning sun made them look so “country” too.

If you retreat back a bit from the hay field, you’re no longer trespassing because this is our yard. The hay field is not. Shhhh…

But look at all the goodness around you as you swing on the good old-fashioned tree swing. Doesn’t that just make you want lemonade?

And summer?

And here we are if you sit on the swing the other way.

Being a new old farmhouse, issues come with the purchase. No extra charge. Except when we go to fix them. Then there will be a charge. So, we have not fixed them yet.

Th electric eye light on one of the barns never goes off, so to save electricity, and our bank account, I turn it on at night and off in the morning. To do that, I need to go into the barn for the electric panel box. Most mornings, I was still a bit groggy and dreamy so it was always a huge alarming surprise to hit the doorway threshold and hear crashing around and loud noise coming from within.

Coyote?

Racoon?

Opossum?

Nope. A baby bunny just as alarmed as I was to find another creature sharing the early morning space.

Both of us wanted our mommies.

Heartbeat finally slows…at least for me. I’m pretty sure I can take on a bunny if need be. I know I can at least run faster.

The sky. The clouds. They never fail to make me happy.

The moon too.

What’s it doing out at this hour of the day? Enjoying the country morning.

My grandmother’s house is down in those fields so we like to tell her that we’re using binoculars to see what she’s up to.

Is that creepy?

She tells us the same thing.

Hmmmm…

For some reason, this little back porch with the clothesline and the old door is one of my faves.

We’re blessed to have the sun with us until the last possible minute when it moves behind the mountains and heads west to say “goodnight” to other folks and tuck them into bed too. Being a gal who loves the open sky, this is a gift.

Same view, during day time. But in the nighttime pic, I do not notice the work that I need to do in the garden.

This was my heirloom garden plot that caused me the most headaches. It was tilled and therefore, weed city.

“Yes, Virginia, there is a garden in there…”

somewhere…

Ditching the weeds, we’ll head on over to the back of another barn and our inherited fruit trees. They provided an unexpected harvest and unexpected harvest stress. In addition to the largest tomato crop on the planet, I ended up with apples and pears that we didn’t want to waste. One apple tree. One pear tree. That’s all that produced healthy enough fruit to worry about this year. And I could not keep up with them. Toy baskets, plastic kid shopping carts and garden buckets were gathered to collect the gift of fruit. I did know that we had these trees so I’m not sure why I wasn’t expecting harvest. I guess because they hadn’t been tended to in a while so I wasn’t expecting to eat them, aside from the pears, because I had been told they were the best pears ever. I must’ve thought they’d magically collect themselves.

It is a magical pear tree.

They are the best pears ever. Sweet, juicy. I’m currently still stressed over my harvest as we work into the end of October. Yesterday I took a bunch of soft pears and wondered if you could make pear sauce like applesauce? I traditionally make a pear-applesauce but the need to get these pears done with set me on a new adventure. (Just mentioning “pears” is causing me heartburn because I still have bags to tend to today.)

You can make pear-sauce and it is a-ma-zing! Nothing added. No spices, no sugar. No teaspoon of vanilla. Just the fruit from our inherited pear trees. I’m pretty sure I dreamed about these jars last night.

We also inherited a grape vine that produced super sweet concord grapes. We managed to harvest a bit of those and make a small amount of juice, but I confess that I did not harvest as much as I would have liked to. For some reason, Mother Nature makes everything ready at the same time. She really should have had a planning committee instead of making decisions on her own.

“Consult the users Mother Nature!”

I planted this prairie type flower and I loved how the orange-y colors worked with the old gray weathered woods of the barn. It cast a beautiful shadow on the barn that I tried to capture, but most of the time I also captured my shadow in the pics.

Awkward.

Another fave view of mine is the old end of the farmhouse. Paired with my garden, it was oh so country.

I think I’ve taken you here before…I love my tomato plants against the old style of windows.

Those tomato plants produced well into October and I finally just had to move on. Now, there are baskets of green tomatoes sitting in my kitchen waiting to become some super cool canned goods.

How long will they wait?

(That orange bucket meant doomsday for the pest bugs. It became known as the “bug bucket” and it’s where my handpicked pest bugs went in my efforts to control my pests naturally. It was pretty gross at times, especially when some super huge tomato worms joined the group. Ewww…)

A foggy morning field. Dreamy…

And did you ever realize that burdocks is so beautiful? are so beautiful? look really pretty.

I’ve apparently only noticed it when it was dried up and brown.

It’s beautiful! I ended up cutting some for my kitchen table vase.

I’m going to make you see so many pictures of vibrant green and purple burdocks that you will not forget.

and another one…

Here’s a bonus…a bee enjoying the burdock plant.

Lovely.

A storm is a brewin’. Let’s grab the binoculars and see if grandma has taken cover…

Super cool. I love a dark and stormy sky. One of my fave views too.

Now you see it…

Now you don’t.

We did not get absorbed into the fog often like the valley folks did most mornings, but it was pretty when we did.

Don’t ya love that old scary looking pear tree? It produced a couple of pears and they were delish too. I now have to learn about organically pruning and treating fruit trees. Is there a Dummy book for that?

Fog is gone. Scary pear tree is not so scary after all.

Garden weeds are.

We had the pleasure of corn fields in our backyard.

You can’t see grandma’s house now. Put the binoculars away.

And a Harvest Moon rounds out the tour of our summer in a new old farmhouse. Take some time to pause and look around you today. There are wonderful moments surrounding us, we just have to stop our busy bodies and busy minds for a moment to soak them in.

The pears, apples and green tomatoes will still be there when you come back from enjoying your moment. So will the dirty sheets, the tasks at the farmhouse to close it up for winter, the school dance party treats that need to be made, the bills that need to be paid, and the kitchen cabinet that needs to come down somehow to open up your space. My space.

Is there a Dummy book for that?