Hey, don't rush things! We're not done with summer, not so completely, not yet, say the last lilies standing.
No, not done yet, say the phloxes with their pink and purple faces.
Not yet, gusts the summer breeze, bringing with it the next wave of warm air. And the hummingbirds -- not done finding juice in yet another salvia bud, and another, and another.
We eat breakfast on the porch.
Afterwards we go local. I mean really local! There is an artist who works with glass and he opens his pseudo barn-workshop-gallery to the public on the weekends. It's just up the road from us.
We could walk there - Ed suggests.
It's not a big walk: fifteen, twenty minutes each way. And it's along a rather trafficked county road. At the same time, it's not unattractive.
And his art? Well, it's serious stuff. Lots of glass decanters. Or are they urns? Maybe just tchotchkes. I would not like to own any of it (and Ed would not like to own anything at all), so we are poor visitors with no intention of actually supporting his craft with real dollars (though Ed does whisper to me -- we should have brought him a pear from our pear tree... One pear??).
Still, it's fun to see our neighbors engaged in doing something so creative.
And he (they?) will remain in the "neighborhood." We looked at Taos to relocate, but it's too expensive. And the medical care in New Mexico!... Another visitor nods in agreement. I lived in Taos, she says. After a few years it gets really old.
Glad to know Wisconsin remains a draw to these talented people.
In the evening the young family is here for dinner.
(Sparrow, running to catch up with his sister)
(Hook's 5-year cheddar, followed by a cracker)
(no cheese for Sandpiper yet...)
(dinner)
("hey, I do not need help holding up my head!")
(proud sibs)
And this is when the temperatures start to drop. Swiftly, toward autumn-like levels. And it is wonderful. Windows wide open. A perfect late summer/early fall night.
