showers

Oh, I liked this day! Yes, it was cloudy and cooler (72f, that's 22c for a high). Yes, I got caught in a sprinkle, more than once. Yes, I had to hurry through lily snipping (only 278 today). But the day was full and it was fragrant! Really fragrant.

It is one beautiful aspect of living in the country: the seasonal scents are pronounced and you notice them every time you step outside, but especially after a rain shower. Most often I'm not sure which flowers are responsible for the summer fragrances. Certainly the lilium are powerfully scented, but the day lilies, too, have a delicate smell. But what I'm picking up now is not just the whiff of garden flowers. The scent includes grasses and clover and pine needles and the mint that's growing out of control by our front door. It's the entirety that I love.

My morning walk is a sensual awakening: overnight, a mass of lilies had decided to finally join the chorus of summer blooms. It's never easy to photograph these girls well. Their faces bend this way and that, the leaves of their neighbors often get in the way of a good frame. 

Still, one tries, because these beautiful flowers, so short lived and ephemeral, are really stunning and surely deserve to be seen by more than just the two of us here, at the farmette! So, here's what's blooming:

(excuse me, little frogee, but shouldn't you be doing a better job at hiding? like maybe inside a lily bloom?)

Morning breakfast? Not on the porch and not in the kitchen, but with my visiting friend, at Grace Cafe. Sure, we sit outside (and retreat under an awning when the showers come)...

... but it still feels like a cafe moment, with a cappuccino and fresh stuff from their bakery. (Have you ever had an "everything" croissant with cream cheese inside? Sort of like going to Shelsky's in Brooklyn and Les Editeurs in Paris, all at the same time.)

 I'd forgotten how much I love spending a whole morning in a coffee shop!

Since I was really close to my daughter's house, I popped in to see the kids afterwards!

(Sandpiper with mommy)

(...then with Gogs)

(the older two)

In the afternoon, I take out my moped and scoot over to pick up my CSA summer flowers (fuller this week, with a distinct fragrance of mint sprigs!). Yes, I get caught in a light shower, but it hardly matters. The moped is a summertime joy. You can smell everything around you as you zip past fields and prairies at a modest speed.

(this is one of my favorite prairies and it happens to abut a corner of the farmette lands...)

I do hope that these passing showers turn into a more substantial rain tonight. The plants need the water. And of course, we would love more whiffs of all that's growing and thriving outside.