mid-July

There's no question but that I plant a July garden. Oh, I love what comes before and I like what comes after, but when I check the flowering time of perennials, I'm most likely to succumb to picking ones that bloom in mid summer. I feel that this is the season's glory. It's what we think about when January rolls into February and the growing season seems so far away.

And so it is no surprise that I came back to a garden that is arguably at its peak.

Returning from the coop just before the sun jumps over the horizon, I pause to take it in.






The main largest bed that stretches from the sheep shed to the farmhouse always gets the most attention (and the huge new bed  by the road gets hardly any) because it's positioned in a splendid way and so the camera just naturally wants to shoot it all. But let me not neglect the side beds. The one to the west:





And the bed that was newly planted last year, to the side, by the other old willow. Here's a corner of it just as the sun comes out of hiding.






And, too, of course, the first bed that I planted here -- the one just by the porch. And I do want to spotlight an occasional day lily. My loyalty to this flower is unwavering.






Here's a whole bunch of them, right by the porch.






... where of course, we eat breakfast.






It is Monday and so Snowdrop comes over for the day. It has been a while since she has spent a whole day here and I can tell that specific memories come bouncing back to her. I say -- raspberries? -- and she immediately heads down to where she last picked them






I was concerned that the bugs would be too irksome, but in the heat of the day, they're subdued and we have a wonderful few minutes picking warm berries off the canes.






I tell her that the blueberries we had examined a few weeks back are now ripe as well. Here, she has to brave our neglect of the terrain around them and, too, she has to reach for the ones that are accessible outside the deer fencing, but she manages all this just fine.







Inside again, she spends a lot of time surveying her play space. So familiar, yet slightly new, too. Within a few minutes, she has taken it all in. Ed comes in and they do their usual.






She watches as he eats his lunch...






Hoping maybe for a handout...






And so I suggest that she eat hers and we do this on the porch, where the fan helps move the air around creating those gentle breezes of summer that are so very magical.

I do an experiment after her main meal. I give her a bowl of delicious, creamy frozen yogurt (which is rapidly becoming very unfrozen in the heat) and a bowl of just picked raspberries. Which does she gobble down?






Even when I coax her toward the sweet dessert, she turns away and reaches for the berries.

I make it more complicated. I add a bowl of other favorite fruits: Blueberries, strawberries, cherries.





And still she reaches for the fruit.

A girl after her own grandma!


In the late afternoon, we go back to her neighborhood and her mommy and I both take her out for a quick walk.To the coffee shop! Oh, the familiarity of it all!






And as always, she wants to walk back (rather than be pushed in a stroller). We indulge her.  She'll eventually change her mind. She understands us, we understand her.





Here we come, world!

It is so good to be home again!