Italian plums!? If so, lucky girl. 
As soon as I get my hands on some, I will be making this (there is a reason it is so popular):
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They look a lot like Shinseiki Asian pears, which ripen in August, earlier than most.
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I love them out of hand when ripe. We’re trying to grow them. I’ve used them also in bulgogi marinade.
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Do you have raccoons there? They’re very good with their hands
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Any animal you don’t expect is startling when it’s in your yard! pretty sure I posted about the bobcat that decided to chill in my yard summer before last when it was murder hot and we had no rain. I was out watering and saw a cat. I went over to shoo it out of the yard, and right about the time I thought “Wow, that’s a really big cat”, it turned around and looked at me with that bobcat face. Oops. So I went inside to give her a chance to relax in the grass, which she did. It made watering the yard pretty exciting for a couple of weeks. I saw her on the shop roof a week or so later, but mostly we have javelinas that can’t get in the back yard, fortunately, because they’re really destructive, but I can’t help liking them anyway. The babies are so cute.
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I’ll say! Still, a bobcat sounds more startling than a raccoon. A few months ago we had a bear, which I really didn’t expect. Mountain lions are more common around here, but I have not come face to face with one.
Our first grapette tomato pick of the year. Like everything else in 2022 - LATE. The earliest tomatoes were stunted and I blame the cold summer - I’ll be thinning them out today. What’s ripening now (on the verge of A LOT), is far more satisfying. Variety is Ruby Crush.
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I can’t really decide whether I’d rather see a bear or a mountain lion in my yard. I’ve had to photograph the damage a bear can do to a person, but I bet a mountain lion could match or top it.
I’ve decided- none of the above. 
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Cringe 
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My husband’s heirloom tomato project has reached harvest stage:
Prairie Fire
Black Strawberry
Bumblebee
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So far, my half-collapsed-on-itself purple cherokee is still out-producing all the other tomato plants.
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They know what they’re doing!
Today’s pick. It’s starting to look a lot more like a typical summer harvest basket. I’m making dill pickles - a couple of quarts every few days.
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I will chime in here to say my Sungold just produced its 30th tomato. Which is very nice, but neither the Pruden’s Purple nor the Pink Berkeley Tie Dye is very far along, fruit wise. Plenty of peas and beans, though, at least.
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Lots of lovely tomatoes! 'Tis the season.
The greatly-reduced garden this year is mostly some tomatoes and a lot of peppers used to make hot sauces.
From the top left:
•Rocotillo-the true type, which has habanero flavor but almost zero heat.
•Grenada Seasoning-collected in Grenada, this one has a powerful habanero-type aroma, but is also extremely low in heat.
•Jamaican Red Goat- very, very hot, with a strong, habanero/muttony (hence “goat”) aroma.
•Grenada Hot Red-also collected in Grenada, at a small market. Super hot, thicker fleshed and a little less muttony aroma.
The hot and mild peppers get pickled separately, after coring, deseeding. Since they’re packed tightly in half gallon mason jars, about 100 mls of Essig Essenze, a 25% acid vinegar, gets added to each jar to prevent spoilage. After aging, they’re liquified in a Vitamix, blended to taste, and aged with toasted white oak added to each jar. The last step imparts a barrel-aged flavor to the most popular sauce.
Unfortunately, due to the aging requirements, this year’s batch won’t be ready for at least a year.
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I can wait! 
Or I guesss I could try my own.
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