Thursday

We waited for rain. Looking up at a graying sky, we expected rain. It surely looked like rain.

But no rain came.

Once you have the mindset that tells you -- it will rain, you plan your day accordingly. You spend a lot of time on first the Adirondack chair, typing away, and then you move indoors and do the same from the couch. You glance outside, you sniff the air, you wait for the patter of drops on the glass roof and then, when no rain comes, you feel the disappointment. As in -- I could have walked. I could have biked. I should have watered parts of the garden. Instead, my Fitbit kept telling me to get up and I did not get up. I sat and waited for it to rain.

In other news -- well, there was the early farmette walk. Ed joined me for parts of it, claiming that he was in the mood for a peachy morning. Right now we have a ton of peaches ripening on our two productive peach trees, and they are very good peaches -- freestone, juicy, sweet. But they have a puckery thick skin and Ed doesn't mind it, but I do. I'll eat the peaches pealed, but not straight off the tree. So, he eats, while I take care of animals and garden snipping.

So long as we're out together, we may as well check on the new orchard. We have two pear trees that are promising a great pear crop this year. We admire those and, too, we admire the beautiful meadow that's sprouting lots of prairie flowers, despite the absence of rain.

My little camera springs into action.

We spend some time removing Queen Anne's Lace (aka wild carrot). It's the kind of weed that you might actually like -- its lacy white face is pretty in a wildflower garden. But it is also an invasive and if you leave it alone, it wont leave your space alone. It will dominate. So we pull at least a portion of it out. Well, we do a best effort. The ground is solid dry clay right now. 

Queen Anne's Lace looks awfully much like Poison Hemlock, but I've heard that the latter smells disgusting and Queen Anne's Lace smells carroty so I'm fairly sure we're stuck with the former and not the latter. In any case, the meadow is now a lot less white and feathery.

(walk back, past the Big Bed...)

(In the lily bed, the Olympic froggie aims for the gold!)

Breakfast, together, on the porch.

Later, much later, we hop on Ed's motorcycle and take two dozen eggs over to Farmer John at the Farmers Market. We are now really swimming in eggs and he gladly takes them home to his family (in exchange for cheese). Ed threw in a bag of peaches for good measure. 

We noticed that even though the market is outside, people were wearing masks. We live in a sensible county that does not want either to get sick or transmit viruses to others. I was thinking how we could be living through a cataclysmic crisis with bombs dropping and grenades exploding and we would be forced to do superhuman things to protect our families and now, all we are asked to do is get vaccinated and wear a mask. Such small things in the scheme of things. Tiny, tiny efforts to save ourselves, our families, your families. May we do them with enthusiasm and humility. Rarely has so little been required to accomplish so much.

Our CSA box had so much corn! So much corn! I'm freezing the kernels for soups and such, only tell me, why should I steam the corn first? I've always put the kernels in the freezer raw. Sort of like you get in a frozen bag of corn, no? But our farmers sent a message -- steam it first! Anyone have any idea as to why? 

For supper, we're eating vegetable corn soup. That stock made from corn cobs is just too delicious. I cannot have enough of it! An August delicacy for sure.

And if we are lucky, sometime after midnight, it will rain.