Summer Scenes 7.

Last one in the Summer Scenes series.  Hope you enjoyed looking at snapshots of my Summer! 

Edible Jewels.

Mmm, Summer. It's the time of year when markets are bountiful and fruit is at its finest. While I am sad to leave behind the fruits of Summer (peaches, berries, cherries, melons... so much goodness!), I welcome Fall fruits with open arms too. It is good to embrace the edible treasures of each seasons for health, taste, and environmental reasons.

Other related topics: I talked about my love of Farm Markets in this post and I rambled about the berries in this one. Here is a post about the craziness involved when we don't eat seasonal fruits.

Summer Scenes 6.

Orange + Red = Fire Flower

I've really been enjoy the abundance of color everywhere this Summer! I've taken lots of pictures of plants. My walking scenery has been bright and colorful thanks to the flowers lining my path.  I've seen some really unique varieties lately too, like the funky, fiery, trumpet-like ones above.

I'm not a flower gardener myself, but major props to those who are (Hi, Gram and Gramp!). Gardening is wonderful for overall health because it...

1) Gets you outdoors, into the fresh air and sunshine (which boosts Vitamin D levels)
2) Is a form of physical activity, building muscle, moving lymphatics, and boosting metabolism
3) Is a stress-reducing activity, helping the mind to unwind and reconnect with the simpler joys in life, such as flowers

Summer Scenes 5.

Love me some wide open spaces.

Road trip!  

I went on several road trips this Summer.  The best part of being cooped-up in a vehicle is when you finally reach stretches of the road that look like this.  Scenery that is so open and free, that you no longer feel claustrophobic and cramped while riding around in your metal box. Just beyond the concrete passageway, lies acres and acres of untouched, pristine nature. It makes me very happy and thankful that long stretches of wilderness like this still exist here in Canada. 

Since I live in Toronto, where trees are somewhat scarce, these roadside forests made me eager to roll down the window, to breath in the clean, oxygen-rich air that the trees had kindly purified for me. My-oh-my was this air ever so sweet.

Summer Scenes 4.

Summer Tunes. Ooohhh yeahhh.

Have you ever tried 8 Tracks? It is a website that lets you choose music playlists according to two of your moods. One evening I selected "Summer" and "Happy" as my music preferences/themes/moods (see below for images of the 8 Tracks main page to see what I mean by selecting preferences/themes/moods) and the playlist featured above was recommended. Ring Pops and Frappuccinos...say what?! At first I was skeptical, but now I suppose that they do scream Summer, for some people at least, maybe not myself because I don't think I've ever had either of the mentioned products (nope, no ring pops in my childhood, and as for frappuccinos, I don't drink coffee).

Anyway, the music in this particular playlist was fun; I really enjoyed it, so much that I took a picture of my computer scream just so I wouldn't forget this uber creative playlist title and the fun times that I had that night while listening to it with friends :).

The moral of this post? Go try 8 Tracks ...it's fun!

Page 1, 8 Tracks.

Page 2, 8 Tracks.

Summer Scenes 3.

Footprints in the dark blue sand.

Beach! Happily, I made it to the beach this Summer. It may be hard to see in this picture, but the color of the sand is navy blue, with bits of rusty red too. According to my Wikipedia sand search, sands that are darker in color have higher levels of magnetite.

(Elisabeth the Geologist, perhaps you can verify this?)

Summer Scenes 2.

 

Even though I don't eat dairy, I was still able to enjoy cold and creamy desserts this Summer!  The photo above is of some amazing blueberry sorbet I enjoyed one afternoon (complete with real, whole blueberries, do you see that big one peaking out?). In addition to sorbet (which most gelato and frozen yogurt places sell; I've found sorbet even at the big chain shops), you can enjoy coconut, almond, or soy milk ice creams, sold at major grocery stores and health food shops. 

Summer Scenes 1.

White wine grapes!

This photo was taken while visiting wine county, Ontario (aka Niagara-on-the-Lake). If you enjoy local wine, Niagara is the place to visit. Within a 30-minute drive or day worth of bicycling (you can rent bikes to tour all the wineries, but be prepared for a long day!)), you can visit approximately 30 vineyards/wineries.

While you can eat the grapes that make wine, they won't taste as sweet and juicy as the grapes you'd find at the market or grocery store. In red grapes, this is mainly due to their high tannin and resveratrol content.  Believe it or not, but the yummy grapes we eat as a snack would make pretty gross wine if they were fermented (not what you'd expect, right?).

Intro to Summer Scenes.

New series alert:  Summer Scenes!

Summer Lovin' indeed! A smoothie enjoyed at Cora's this Summer.

This new series will span about a week (8 posts in total) and will feature cell phone photos that I took over the course of the past four months that capture the essence of my Summer. You'll see one picture posted per day, plus a caption. It will be very similar to my Health Scenes series from May.