white birds, blue fingers, cheesy thoughts

Happy Bastille Day! Meaning, bring on the baguette and cheese, pop a cork of something, and celebrate the end of the rule of monarchs and despots. Or, just celebrate the middle of July.

Oh, did we have the storms at night! Loud crashes, pounding rain. Crazy stuff. Branches fell, tall flowers toppled, our basement flooded, the power flickered off a few times. And it continued thus into the wee hours of the morning, foiling our plans to be up early so we could beat the heat wave that's slated to build in the course of the day. Well, we were up (it was so loud!) before 6, but no one wanted to give the day a push forward. Not until the rains stopped and I finally dared step outside, at around 8. 

I stepped outside to a drenched world. Yes, I snipped lilies. Sure I did. But there wasn't time for a full scale job. I did just half the work, took a few pictures, fed the animals and came back inside.

Here are my few pictures, celebrating the garden beauty that is always a central feature of all my Bastille Days:

By 9:30 we were on the porch, eating breakfast...

And by 10 we were on the road.

Where to? We'd signed up to pick blueberries at Jenehr Farms. I've known Kay Jensen (who farms there with her husband Paul) since my days of market foraging for L'Etoile, but I never knew she grew blueberries and that she opened up her blueberry fields to outside pickers. In fact, I've never picked blueberries at u-picks before. Strawberries -- yes. Raspberries -- yes. Apples -- certainly. Even pumpkins, with the kids. But not blueberries. 

The farm is just a half hour's drive from us and when we got there, the one other group of pickers was just winding down their operation. The whole blueberry field was all ours!

To say that this was fun is an understatement. Though Kay will tell you that this isn't really for kids, as the picking is inhospitable to little tykes (blueberries require a delicate touch and more importantly, the weeds around the bushes are significant!), for us it was a total delight! Add to the sunshine a good breeze (so no great heat, no bugs!), and absolutely an overload of pickable berries -- I mean, we were in heaven!

(six quarts to take home)

On the way back we made two stops: one at the company for which Ed has been designing a new machining option (so that I could see the result of months of effort), and the other -- way more photographable -- at a small parking space by a lake that we had noticed driving up to the farm. We'd never known about this place! Patrick Marsh Wildlife Area. Yet another beautiful expanse of prairie with a lake and some wild pelicans diving for fish.

Such intense serenity is hard to come by these days. Imagine, all this and a trunk full of blueberries too!

At home, I finish snipping lilies. 616 today (without the front bed, which will remain unsnipped this summer... I can only do so much!), so holding steady now at this new peak. More than last year, less than the year before. 

(It's getting hot out there!)

And in the afternoon, we set about making blueberry jam. 

 

 

Inspired by our newfound love for the flavors of the homemade concoctions, we're once again guided by a recipe that is lower in sugar than the average jam would have you use, that has no pectin, and that will be frozen rather than stored in the pantry. (With blueberries, we go by the three threes: three pounds of berries, to three cups of sugar, to three tablespoons of lemon juice.)

As soon as this is finished, I move on to prepare dinner for the young family. They'd not been here for several weeks now so it's especially great to have them for a Sunday meal.

(arriving in dry weather...)

(for the love of that French cheese...)

(leaving just as another storm, with a significant downpour, comes in...)

And now I am officially in need of a snooze! But hey, not yet. Much needed couch-time first. With Ed. To end a beautiful day celebrating, well, life! And summer and flowers and pelicans and little tykes and blueberries. And no more monarchs in France.

With so much love...