Persimmon Festival in Afton, VA

We decided the Persimmon Festival at Edible Landscaping was a good excuse to drive down to Charlottesville and enjoy the foliage along the way. It was very cloudy and drizzly all weekend, but the leaves were nice anyway.

It was fun to tour Edible Landscaping after seeing their catalog for years.


We ate lots of persimmons -- and brought home two trees, including a 2-foot-tall version of this gorgeous variety, Tecumseh.


In 15 years it might look like this:

Jug Bay

Mini-Reunion in Colorado

Dolly Sods Snapshots

Our annual pilgrimage to the land of blueberries, chantarelles, waterfalls, and other wonderful things.

In & Around Our Pond Lately

We put in a little stream with a waterfall at the top. It has become a huge bird magnet, more than the pond ever was on its own.



The dragonflies seem to be finding us better this summer, too.



This frog we raised from a tadpole but we haven't heard it lately in the pond -- we are worried it has left or been eaten. But for a few weeks there we had a bona fide frog pond.

Takoma 4th

2 kids spontaneously socializing with 2 kid-less adults

Ailyn's first watermelon

Lily, Solomon, Riana

NW Branch II

NW Branch

Mushroom Bonanza

In the last week:

Good old oysters

a couple of morels we missed - now way past edibility

Polyporous umbellatus

Some kind of inky cap

Dryad's saddle

Chicken of the woods -- we took home a small fraction of these and they weighed in at 3.5 lbs!