We’re in the last month of summer, that sweet spot when the light has shifted but the heat of summer is still on. Flame bushes tinting red, the occasional leaf change, and some pre-dawn runs that need long sleeves.
August: stone fruits Shiro (yellow) and red plums are metamorphing with a little help into pretty blush and crimson jelly, whose subtle sweet-tartness is a pb&j natural. And after some rumination, one warm night as I took the Côtes de Provence out of the frig I realized that was the color the Shiro plum jelly reminded me of. 
The blackberries are early, it has been a pretty crazy growing season with unusual latenesses and earlinesses that keep us hopping in the kitchen with an array of fruit simmering, hanging, and waiting their turn in the frig.
Blackberries are a transitional berry for me, late summer but with a hint of early fall in their deep purple seediness, producing a juice that makes one of the densest, winiest jellies. You can see my post from last September about this king of berries here— and see that, sure enough, blackberries were about three weeks later in 2014.
The next fruit up at les collines is the mighty Concord grape, still pretty green now but beginning to deepen. And the wild grapes that appeared last year on the back fence are looking fairly prolific. When those beauties are ready there’ll be no question: fall is close.
So however long the day’s work and overflowing the bushel baskets, time to savor every drop of juice, of sun, of crickets and peepers and all windows down drives before the snow flies xo