Blue behind blue

Some days are just perfect.

Morning Glories are blooming!

This year the morning glories germinated and produced lots of vines.  There's a window behind the vines on the side of the garden cottage; it's nearly all obscured by the vines.

The vines have been growing well, but have not had any blooms.  Culprits for this are too much water or too much fertilizer; we had not too much of either one.  So we just waited patiently.  Finally, over the past few days there have been new blooms each morning.  Yesterday (this picture) there were fifty-one blue blooms.

Bald Eagle

This afternoon a bald eagle stopped to visit, just across the river from us.  Have a look (iPhone cameras are so handy).

Bountiful

Considering that there have been many 100° F days in a row-- with no rain-- we have been fortunate with the garden this year.

The idea of  erecting farm fence posts with wire strung across as a trellis for cucumbers and foot-long beans has worked well.  This year there have been fewer of those cukes that grew huge because you didn't see them in time to pick them when they'd be more tasty.

The tomatoes, despite a worrisome threat of blossom rot (ugh), have done well.  Kudos to us for keeping up with weeding and training those vines to stay in their cages.

And the sunflowers, well, enough said.

Today was another harvest day.  Have a look for yourself:

Bountiful

Civilization... and Family Fun

Just because River Bend is in Perry County, the least-densely populated county in Tennessee...

... and notwithstanding the high unemployment here:

There's more to River Bend than just solitude and watching the dragonflies shuttle around the [Buffalo River] water's surface.

For the third year now, every other Saturday night sees 'Music on Main Street' (on the opposite Saturdays, it's held up in Lobelville, Perry County's other big city).  You probably didn't get to be there last night.  Here's a shot of the stage in front of the County Courthouse.

Lots of people have worked very hard over the last couple of years to create the really attractive street scene you see here.  Notice the street lighting, trees and a very pleasant scene.

The County Courthouse is the center of the city square, so common in rural counties.  The transformation  of Linden's downtown has been a great thing.

The courthouse was built in 1928, having replaced an earlier courthouse that was destroyed by fire, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.





























But it is still great to be at the River, just 15 minutes outside of the county's seat.

Sunshine (and hot)

Although it is getting hot and dry now, the Sunflowers seem to be happy-- and huge.

Because it is so dry we're watering the garden from the river to keep stress from our well and protect our well water.  The little pump you see here does a nice job of pumping water up the river bank and all the way to the garden.  It's one of the few 2-cycle engines that starts reliably and easily.