Remembering summer

I started this post ages ago while waiting in a cafe for a bus. And um. It never got off the ground. Now that it's cold out, I get the urge to do a shout out to summer!
:)

We saw some truly gorgeous sunsets in June. Looking out over the lake. 

And there seemed to be an unusual number of rodents and other pests around. Ugh. These dudes were divided up evenly among the cats and dogs, I found out later. :)

There's a portable a/c unit in the wood storage/furnace room....

....which is where we stored the veggies....

....and created a walk-in cooler, Ukie style! :)

I love calzones...and I had a very delicious one at the end of June!

Ukraine is full of poppies in the early summer. The roadsides and fields are gorgeous when they're blooming!

Keeping cool on the bus. Hold 2 straight-from-the-fridge bottles of water to your face. :)

July in Greece on Crete. On the brown side of Crete, the only side I've seen. This is at the historic site of the ancient palace at Knossos. It's one of my favorite places. For whatever reason, it completely captures my interest. I could spend hours roaming here, reading the placards, looking at the stuff, listening to the guides. These earthenware jars were used for storing water, olive oil, olives...and likely anything else that they needed to store. Some are estimated to have held over a ton of liquid.
Links to Knossos: wikipedia, web images, here, here

More of the ruins at Knossos.

again, Knossos

If Ukraine is hot in the summer, Greece is HOTTER. It's a different kind of heat. Ukraine is humid and close. Greece feels like the inside of an oven, sometimes a convection oven. Very hot and very dry. I spent hours on the roof of a house stretched out on a blanket in a narrow strip of shade under this little roof-let getting ready for things to come...and also simply having a bit of a siesta. Almost nothing happens between about 1 or 2 pm and 5 pm- Siesta is a serious business. Well, for one thing, it's too hot to move during that time. Everyone hops up again afterwards and roars on till midnight, though. :) 

Climbing Mars Hill in Athens.

The view from Mars Hill

Greek dogs sort of reminded me of Ukrainian dogs. :)

The Parthenon is in a semi-permanent state of restoration. 

More restoration. Interestingly enough, although construction on the Parthenon was begun in 447 BC, it was intact and in excellent shape for more than 1000 years. The Ottoman Turks had conquered it, turned it into a mosque and then also used it for an ammunition dump. The Venetians bombarded it and exploded it in 1867. Wikipedia, web images

Back in Ukraine. A team of horses; one has its foal along, a very common sight in the summer.

I love this honeysuckle vine. It add so much sweetness to each of the hot summer days!

More pix of the yard I saw every day for most of June. I love this place!