the final push

Very early, I began to imagine how this day should look. I haven't family obligations and so whatever structure I give it will be my own. It sounds pretty leisurely and relaxed, but believe me -- I have a lot on my plate for this week. As I was thinking about stuff that awaits me, it struck me that I do not have summer shoes. Or sandals. I wear cheap rubber flip-flops around the farmette fields, and if the weather gets dicey, I have gardening clogs. When I visit my daughter in The City, I wear sneakers. In Scotland, I wore the same sneakers. And in Paris, I wore those sneakers. Mind you, they are very nice Allbird eucalyptus fiber sneakers: a gray tweed, almost like shoes. But not quite. They're sneakers. Honestly -- I do not have summer shoes.

So this day has to include finding a solution to this, because in a few weeks I will be in a city and it will be very hot and eucalyptus fiber sneakers wont cut it. Everyone will be wearing sandals. I should find some comfortable sandals, which is a challenge because a person who doesn't wear shoes does not easily fit into a pair once she gets it into her head that she needs to be in something made of leather.

Between 5 am and 6:30, I search the internet for comfortable sandal type shoes.

My day is off to a weird start.

Ed seems not to have slept much at all, so we bounce around thoughts about the day, about politics, about the economy. Light stuff! But by 7, I have fed the animals and am in the garden. I begin to snip lilies, though I don't get far because the Farmers Market beckons. 

 

 

(good morning!)

At the market, I need carrots. Maybe radishes since my garden ones have already bolted. I need flowers for the table!

And oh, are there ever flowers! 

 

 

Well, in addition to the foods of course. I buy a lot of produce and then a bouquet that has so many dahlias that it threatens to overwhelm any vase I may have. For $15, it's a steal!

From there -- to Madison Sourdough. Ed wanted cookies, I wanted breakfast treats. 

I did not notice until I got home that they confused the order, filling two boxes with just breakfast treats. Am I unhappy? No I'm not. I'll get him cookies later in the week.

Breakfast on our wonderful porch, where the mornings are so very fine and the sun dapples us with just the right amount of light and there are flowers all around us (in addition to the ones on the table).

(let's insert us into the picture!)

 

 

And now I throw myself into the flower fields. The weather is lovely and the mosquitoes are still on the lower end of the continuum. 

 

 

 

I finish the snipping job (415 today, so pretty much the same, for a few days now), and I tidy up the freshly dug up field, and I move some lilies that are blocked by towering phlox, and I weed. Oh, do I weed! I weed the lily bed, the bed around the secret path, the bed by the driveway. I even do a modest weeding job in the front road bed. And here's a big one: I weed around the sheep shed, pulling out dozens of six foot tall rag weed plants and a whole host of other junk that has pretty much taken over that area. Call it a final push to get the beds tidy for the rest of the summer.

I am, officially, exhausted. My arms itch from the ragweed. My feet are dirty. My toes look like something out of a village life storybook. No way will they look decent in city sandals!

And no way do I want to cook supper tonight.

No way do I want to do anything at all.

In my opinion, this is a perfect set up for Olympic watching and for a quick click through to get a pizza delivery. Nah, forget the pizza. We have enough lettuces to make up a decent salad. Add nuts and a cheeper egg for protein and voila! In the meantime, I make lists for the next week and I watch the light filter into our room through tree branches. You can really lose yourself in just watching the movement of branches, as displayed by the shadows doing their wiggle on the carpet of your living room. 

I need nothing more to make this day complete. Maybe an Aperol Spritz. And...

... Hey Ed, can we watch the Olympics now?