Saturday

Oh, it's a hot one! A fly zigzags through the kitchen and I alternate between thinking it's like the flies that made their way across the verandah in my grandparents' village house in Poland, or in the alternative, like those scenes from the Godfather where everyone's in Sicily, the sun is beastly hot, the air is still and the silence is interrupted only by the incessant buzz of the flies. (Before all hell breaks loose.)

Well, we knew today was going to be hot and humid. When I got up to open the coop, Ed, who had stopped work and gone to bed only two hours earlier, nonetheless said -- let me go out with you. We can get some things done outside before the heat rises.

(The cheepers follow.)








(Scotch's plan of attack: should I go after the emergent buckwheat or the blueberries? In the end, she settles for the bugs.)






We work for several hours pulling weeds and we also add a few feet to the front flower bed (I know, these additions are giving the bed such length, that it's beginning to look like a flower border, stretching (almost) from one end of the property line to the next.)






(What's blooming? Let me spotlight the often neglected gaillardia. It'll always remind me of my grandfather. He planted not a small amount of these at the edge of the strawberry patch back in Poland.)






Breakfast is on the very late side.






And the rest of the day is spent on periods of work, alternating with a bit of rest. The ground is so soft after the rains that I feel compelled to weed the raspberries. Ed thinks that's pretty bold, considering the heat, but I'm not tired of the heat yet. Summer is just beginning!


In the evening, Snowdrop comes over with her mom for a brief visit.

(I can't think of a time when the little girl is here and she doesn't get a bowl of fruit.)







And today surely is the perfect day to try out the new little piece of plastic that the sellers affectionately call a "kiddie pool." (I tell Ed: you could buy half a TV for the price of this thing, which, btw, costs nothing to make. He does not disagree.)






Oh, does she love the damn thing!
















She does not immediately want to go into it, possibly because the well water used to fill it still feels like melted ice. But she splashes herself so thoroughly with it...






... that eventually I convince her that it's not that much worse inside.






Back in the farmhouse, Snowdrop snitches the ear of corn I had saved for supper. Who can blame her? Water play surely works up the appetite.





It is a grand evening here, at the farmette. I hope it's grand where you are as well.