the end of summer?

It was a windy, rainy, cold, sometimes half-warm day here in Hof. The temperature was around 53 degrees at its warmest and I saw people wearing jackets as in Autumn weather. The front page of the local paperhad an article that read like this . The word for Brr in German is the same as brr in English. It means the same thing. Remember that it is computer translated German and the last sentence reads that people in the alps area had to have chains for their cars in order to negotiate the roads. The people told me that after the hot July was over the entire August has been cold and unseasonable. I took a quick picture of my garden today as I brought an umbrella to make shade that we really needed in July, in order to sit outside in the sweltering heat and sun. Not today however. The tomatoes are mostly still green including those in the greenhouse but the plums and blackberries are in full array needing only a few days of further ripening before picking. Maya my garden partner has been working the entire summer while I have been away in the States and had two bags full of preserves in jars for me. They consisted of green tomatoes, blackberries, gooseberries, red currants, zucchini, and cucumbers. She picked the first plums including some pretty golden plums that are in a tree near our garden belonging to no one and some fresh cukes that are so tender you don`t need to peel them for salads. We have a brown/green salad growing in the garden since early spring which is starting to shoot but what a great source of salad well into the summer. I recommended that we always plant this type as it doesn`t bolt..

All this seems important but it pales to yesterday`s call from my son Nate that his wife Kellie had delivered a beautiful baby girl named lauren Eva and here is her picture

Here is also a picture of mom and dad with their new baby carriage about a week before the birth.