Friday Photos From Umbria ~ August 7th, 2015

We are now already into August, and so far the temperatures are still soaring. Having just experienced one of the warmest July’s in recent history, I am looking forward to fall with its cooler temperatures. July for us means family, as our family comes to Umbria each July for a nice long visit. This year we had a house full, but before everyone had arrived, we had a few days with just my daughter and her family. One day we visited Madonna del Bagno, a small sanctuary close to our farmhouse that is famous for its ceramic plaques. These plaques are created to thank the Madonna and are quite unique. The entire interior of the church is plastered in these plaques, each telling a different story.

My husband and son-in-law are both avid cyclists, so one day my daughter and I drove to Montefalco with my grandkids where we met the two crazy cyclists for lunch at our favorite restaurant. On our way to Montefalco, we stopped along the road to take photos of sunflowers. July is a great month for sunflower lovers, and this year we had more sunflower fields than ever. Unfortunately, the sunflowers are at their best for only a few short weeks before they begin to dry up and turn brown. It has become a family tradition to take lots of photos in the sunflower fields each year which we did again this year.

While the family was visiting this summer, we added three new chickens to our coop, and our grandchildren had lots of fun trying to socialize them. I called my grandson Matthew our “chicken wrangler” as he took the job of keeping the chickens away from our vegetable garden very seriously while they were free ranging.