Harvest feast and a new beginning

At the beginning of the Summer I started my little vegetable patch, and in the past weeks we have finally enjoyed our harvest of sugar peas ...

... and lettuce, and radishes ...

... but the tomatoes are still  green, they had a very rough start in the chilly early weeks of June.

Yesterday we had our traditional (third time already!) summer party/lunch with Mr. K's brother and sister coming to their childhood neighbourhood and meeting all together. The sister lives in Germany so these meetings are something special for them all. We had a lovely but hot day. Lettuce, radishes, parsley, dill and mint came for the vegetable bed, and everything was home made: Two salads, gravlax (fresh salted salmon) by me, two kinds of herring, smoked whitefish and smoked char (from the market place, FIL brought these), smoked ham and smoked venison were the cold dishes, and only the fresh potatoes were served hot. We had a big freezer problem, so we skipped the ice cream for dessert. Later we had a giant raspberry cream pie with coffee. In the evening, when the guests had all gone home, there was the most amazing thunderstorm. It cleared and cooled the air just a little, but today's wind has brought cooler air to this corner too.

This is the beginning of a new quilt, a block  I'm prepared to finish when I'm not cooking or washing dishes or sleeping:

It is the first block for my Raggedy & Friends BOM quilt, I will stitch the pictures in the solid white squares. The next block will be published on August 20th, so there is not much time left to finish this one.

Now I really must go and pack my rubber boots and toothbrush for the holiday. I'll see you next week!