caprice

I read that soon after we left Europe, the continent and especially France in the Loire region and in Paris, got hit by major storms. The city's metro system flooded. Trees were uprooted. Some streets had a foot of water streaming across. 

You can't count on good weather when you travel, or when you want to spend a day outside, maybe pulling weeds out of your flower beds. Storms will come without consulting you if their timing is right. Heat waves will make you sweat, downpours will soak you, winds will knock down heavy limbs in your yard. You adjust and accept your fate and thank your stars if your travel destination or your own back yard escape the caprice of turbulent weather, or as the airlines like to call it -- rough skies.

I may call this a hot and sticky day, but in fact, I don't dislike it. We have air conditioning (set at 77F/25C) and every two hours, I come in to cool off and drink a gallon of water. How really grand it is to be able to live this way -- sheltering in a cool house on hot days or in a warm house on the coldest of winter days! We are a privileged lot!

Once again, I start in on garden work early. Even before feeding the animals.

I do some random checks and adjustments on the already cleared fields, then take the big wheelbarrow over to the roadside bed and begin my cleanup work there.  Once more I am stunned how much has grown in the last two or three weeks. As one farmer said yesterday at the market -- our weeds have done really well this year! Yes they have. But the rains have given us something else as well: robust perennials and a soft soil. Removing weeds from a parched earth is terribly hard. Not so after all the rain: I get most of the roots out as well, which means I'll have less work as the summer progresses.

I'm still rather obsessive about it and once again I work too hard. I've never done such a thorough job of weeding on all the beds before. And the more compulsive I am about it, the more determined I become to get it all done in the next couple of days. (I do finish the roadside bed; all I have left are the two beds by the sheep shed.)

The gardeners among you who have watched me plunge into flower work in the past may wonder if I'm snipping spent lilies yet. As you can see from the photos, the lilies are just starting their blooming period. But today I did begin counting: I snipped 130 spent lilies. My flower fields are so big and so many in number that you can't really appreciate the blooms yet. Indeed, you might ask -- where are these lilies any way? Well, spread out! Each bed has only a couple of lilies blooming right now. But they're starting to add up!

We eat breakfast inside. Ed isn't a fan of the humidity and after working outside, I'm not objecting to a meal in a cool house.

And so the day continues, until the afternoon, when I give it up for the day, take a much needed shower and start in on Sunday dinner. For these guys:

(Sandpiper is now joining the big kids in their big chairs at the table)

And yes, we eat inside. When the temps hit 90F/32+C and the sun hits you from above, when the air is still and humid, we're better off keeping the door to the porch closed. There will be plenty of dinners outside this summer. Today is not one of them.

I wont see these kids in the next week -- they have a full agenda of summer fun. One last photo of them then...

Evening. The fireflies are tremendous this year! It's such a perfect summery day that I say to Ed -- maybe we should move to a place that lets us work outside all year long. (I'm not tempted; it's just my way of saying -- this is so very grand!) He responds as he always does -- New Zealand, gorgeous. And I say -- could you have picked a farther place? Ireland then. Though a bit dreary there in the winter. How about Vancouver? A moment of silence follows and then I laugh. We love it here. We'll never move.

with so much love...