I broke out the good camera to take pictures in the garden this morning because my cell phone just isn’t taking the best quality photos these days. I don’t know if it’s because I need to do a better job of cleaning the little lens or if my hunch about the picture quality degrading with each update is the reason why.

Maybe it’s both. Either way, I got some not-so-blurry shots of the happenings out there.

I noticed that the sunflowers next to the corn seem to be feeling how I’ve been feeling all week – like it’s hard to hold my head up.

They are getting plenty of water and otherwise look healthy so I may have to stake them to ease their burden.

The tomatoes are still going crazy and we’re able to harvest some almost every day with no end in sight.

We are finally getting some beans to go with the peas. The poor bean plants really struggled with the heat it seems but are doing their best now to make up for it.

The corn is coming in nicely now, and should give us a good harvest.

Of course I can’t eat corn thanks to my wonky mast cells, but I’m sure my family will enjoy it. The bees sure are enjoying pollinating it!

The other sunflower bed is coming along nicely and doing a great job of protecting the baby lavenders I’d planted earlier which seemed to be struggling in the heat. I wasn’t sure if they’d be okay with all the shade since they are a sun loving plant, but they seem to be quite happy tucked down in their little sheltered spots for now.

I may thin out some of the sunflowers to give them more sun even though I hate to pull healthy plants. Sometimes you just have to make unwanted sacrifices in the garden.

Speaking of unwanted sacrifices.. this morning when I went to feed the critters one of the younger pheasant escaped and flew off!

And headed right into the dog pen!!

I’m sure you can guess what happened next…

So needless to say, Nico, who happened to be the closest one to where it landed, had a nice fat pheasant for breakfast and the others watched on with pure jealousy. I made it up to them by sharing the morning eggs I collected. 😄