Thursday, July 31, 2025

hazy days of summer

We knew it without even looking at the local numbers as compiled by air quality monitors. We are in the "unhealthy for all" category. It's so hazy outside that I feel like I just stepped back a few decades to a summer in New York City.



A beautiful, sunny day, not to be enjoyed outdoors. 

I have no idea when the Canadian forest fires will let up and stop sending smoke our way. Maybe tomorrow, maybe in a month. For now, we live with hazy skies and polluted air.

I hesitate with lily picking -- a whole hour, outside? --  but only for a minute. It is the last day of July and July belongs to my flower fields. I missed only one time of lily pruning -- the day I went to Chicago. I don't want to end the lily season with a messy garden. I put on my KN95 and go outside. Bugs, smoky air, wet foliage. Am I having fun yet??

Well, you know the saying. all good things come with a price tag. One not measured in dollars or Euros.

601 snipped lilies today. So ends July, the month that belongs to lilies.







(can you find the frog?)

















Breakfast, inside. That goes without saying.



Everything is inside.

There is one outing for us today: the local market. Ed and I both wear masks. The air is that bad, even as the temps are lovely and the sunshine -- a welcome change from yesterday's rains.



I think back to winter days: I worry then that my physical activity slows down too much when it's bitter cold outside. A few walks during the week hardly count for me as exertion. But I tell myself -- never mind, I'll make up for it in warmer weather. And I do -- in spring I work steadily and heavily in the fields. I rediscover my bike. Ed and I check out the awakening world of prairie and woodland in our local park. And then comes summer. Sorry, but lily snipping doesn't cut it. It takes time and keeps me off the couch. What a low bar that is! So I try to fit in bike riding, as does Ed. When the air quality allows for it. And when it doesn't? Here we are, in the farmhouse living room, doing our "living," eyes glued to reading material. 

[Hey!  -- cries the flip side of me -- I do balancing exercises when I wait for my milk to heat up for my coffee! The goal is 60 seconds on each foot, eyes closed. And there's more -- I clean, wipe, cook, water, feed others. Mightn't that count? You're right, it doesn't. Thank goodness for travel. I still push myself each day on the road.]

There's no such thing as a perfect gardening month of course. But if a lily count is an indication of anything, then surely this year has been just outstanding. So much so that, given the work involved, I'm not totally sad to be moving into August.

with love... 


 

Wednesday, July 30, 2025

Sunday schedules

They're made to be broken. Things evolve. Plans change. And the weather can shake things up for you. Luckily your online scheduling calendar can stand many erasures and modifications. So, I went from having a benign day, with lilies and one phone call in the books, to a totally chaotic but ultimately sweet day of rain, bugs, lilies, markets, and morning buns. And some good company and very many hours of reading. Out loud. With cups of tea to keep my voice afloat.

Do you see what I mean?  Only the lilies were there, on repeat, as predicted. All 648 of them snipped in the drizzle and wetness of a morning that had way too much rain for my liking.



(three little girls...)


(three different little girls...)


(first frog sighting...)


(Big Bed)


(second frog sighting...)


 


 

 

 


 

 

(fun fact: meadows like rain)


 

 Breakfast. Out of the rain. Away from the bugs. What a relief.

 


 

 

And what happened next? Well, my daughter asked me if I could fit time with Snowdrop into the day. The girl had time off from her drama program and she was angling for a farmhouse visit. Yes, of course, but I was going to go to the market downtown. I'll take her along for that first. Oh, could I maybe join you? Sure! We'll grab some lunch after and then I'll take her to the farmhouse. 

Great, except the prediction was for rain, storms, and more rain. Could we handle that?

Yes we could.


(she spotted me!)


(Market shopping: veggies, sure. Also flowers for me...)


 

 

(... and flowers for them)


 

 

(Lunch at Madison Sourdough. Though not for the girl -- she prefers the stuff I fix for her at the farmhouse. Which includes Ed-grown tomatoes.)


There follows an afternoon at the farmette... 

 


 

 

(Tomato first...)


 

Followed by reading. For all the hours of the afternoon.

Why a long reading session? Well, we were halfway through The Silver Sword -- a 1956 book about three sibs who survived the Warsaw Uprising during World War II. I've read a lot of World War II books with Snowdrop -- they are not about the war per se, but about families that lived through it, whether in England, France, Denmark, or Poland -- what they endured, how they managed to survive. I think this was the tenth one from this group and it gripped both of us. Since I'll be traveling next week and the week after, she wanted very much to finish it so that we wouldn't be forced to hit a pause for several weeks. Yes of course, she could finish it herself, but where would that leave me? I'm just as interested in the story line as she is!

So we read. And read. And read some more. And I forgot about my very challenging lily snipping morning, and about much of the ills of the world, because the story was that good and the plight of those Polish children was so dramatic!

 

In the evening, it rained some more but by this time I just didn't care. The fact is, most plants love the periodic drenching they're getting this year and as you know, I have stopped trying to keep everything neat and tidy. Bad enough that I snip lilies with such obsessive regularity. I can let other things slide. No one will notice. Right?



with love... 

Tuesday, July 29, 2025

summer, another place, another time

Early this morning I had this thought that stayed with me for a good portion of the day: I have a special place in my in my heart for summer. I give it more value, because when I was a kid, summer was my special piece of heaven. The school year had nothing compared to the warmth, love, and joy of being in my grandmother's village home. Summers in postwar Poland were different than summers for American kids. Here, the average kid goes to camp and does summer programs. (Or  these days stays home and plays computer games.) Fun stuff, to be sure, but for many Polish kids of my generation, summer always came with a special kind of freedom: a freedom to play out on a meadow, to take forest walks, watch minnows dart in a pond, pick mushrooms after a rain, pluck sour cherries from your neighbor's yard. You went to your grandparents' or aunts and uncles -- places in villages, maybe in the mountains, maybe near lakes and streams. And there was music. We listened to and sang songs about summer, most often around a campfire. Sure, pop music may have had elements of pining for love, but it was rich with the poetry of the season. Here's one of my favorites from that time:

 

Konie zielone przebiegły galopem

i spod ich kopyt wytrysnęły kwiaty,

żaby w sadzawce rozpaliły ogień,

na niebie księżyc pozapalał gwiazdy.

Nad brzegiem stawu wsłuchany w krzyk czajek,

owiany nocną wonią tataraku

patrzyłeś w gwiazdy na samym dnie stawu,

mówiłeś do mnie, że przemija lato.

Lato pachnące miętą,

lato koloru malin,

lato zielonych lasów,

lato kukułek i czajek.

 

What??  You don't speak Polish?? Fine, here's a (mediocre) Google translation:

 

Green horses (grasshoppers) galloped past

and flowers burst forth from under their hooves,

frogs lit a fire in the pond,

the moon ignited the stars in the sky.

On the shore of the pond, listening to the cries of lapwings,

wrapped in the nightly scent of calamus,

you gazed at the stars at the very bottom of the pond,

you told me that summer was passing.

Summer scented with mint,

summer the color of raspberries,

summer of green forests,

summer of cuckoos and lapwings.

 

Do you recognize the poetry in those images? To this day, summer for me is about plucking raspberries and hearing birdsong, on repeat, every morning. Summer becomes synonymous with nature's bounty, swaddled in my memories in my grandmother's love.

To be fair, we have summer songs in this country as well. I searched the internet for the more popular ones. Here's one by Selena Gomez:

The heat is blazing like the 4th of July

I got the air con on, and it's blasted on high

So just grab something cool and jump in your ride

Pick up everybody, I'll be waiting outside. 

 

Different imagery, right?  From my childhood, I do remember this one by Chad & Jeremy. It's a little gentler...

Trees swaying in the summer breezeShowing off their silver leavesAs we walked bySoft kisses on a summer's dayLaughing all our cares awayJust you and I
 Sweet sleepy warmth of summer nightsGazing at the distant lightsIn the starry sky
They say that all good things must end somedayAutumn leaves must fall...


And it puts me in the thick of a summer romance, but it does not a whole lot to evoke summer sensibilities, swaying trees and starry skies notwithstanding. Besides, Chad and Jeremy were British, not American.

 

Another beautiful summer day in the making here, at the farmette: and yes, it starts with the lily clean up.


(not all yellows were created equal)




(frilly!)



(no, I do not play favorites! still...)

 

 

(I hope you're having a productive day!) 

 

 

(okay, let me give these glads some time in the spotlight)


 

 

(and not all purple phloxes were created equal...) 


 

 

(yes, the musical trumpets!) 

 

 

 (Big Bed)


 

 

 


 

 

(hidden in there -- the venerable farmhouse...) 


 

 

(with breakfast on the porch)


 

 

 (with this guy... and yes, we like the fan on these hot mornings)


 

 

The mosquitoes are receding (somewhat) as is the lily count: 652 today. Entirely reasonable! Still, I have to say, sometime in late June, while I was galavanting among puffins in Iceland, the weeds in the flower beds won the battle and by now, I have to admit -- they probably won the war. I still do pull out the big ones as I push through the flower fields. By far, the most widespread is Clearweed (so named for its translucent stem) and in this I am lucky since it has to be the easiest weed on the planet to pull out. But I haven't removed even a quarter of this invader. It lurks, it proliferates. I keep a handle on the creeping bellflower, and the creeping charlie, and even the common dooryard violets that spread by the thousands in spring. But there are two weeds that are both horrors and delights. Let me tell you about them:

I'm thinking of the Asiatic dayflower and wild petunias. (Notice how all my weeds are blue!). They are both remarkable and deplorable. Desired and hated. And they love love love my gardens.

The Asiatic dayflower has a characteristic that is all too familiar: it sprouts a pretty (blue) flower, but only for a day. Here's an example, though at the end of the day, the flower is rather puny:



It inspires love: that little flower is a lovely shade of blue. 

It inspires fury. Here's a quote from a gardener:  "I finally have a name for this little beast. I called it Hitler-weed because it invaded everything around it. I'll be pulling this until the day I die. Once established just try to get rid of it. I dare you."

And here's the thing about gardening: you really should grow plants (and control plants) with others in mind. I've read that gardeners' and farmers' use of glyphosate (a common weed killer, aka Roundup) has lead to the proliferation of this dayflower because it survives in places where glyphosate has killed other weeds. If you choose to leave this "weed" alone, or horror of horrors, if you actually want to cultivate it for its medicinal properties (to quote one source: "it is used in parts of Asia to treat throat infections, fevers, and as a diuretic. It also contains antibacterial compounds" ), a neighboring gardener or farmer will not thank you for it.

The second Weed of Great Ambivalence is the Wild Petunia. This one (again, with the somewhat faded flower):



Many do not consider it to be a weed at all, but what else would you call a plant that refuses to give up growing where you do not want it to grow, obliterating all in its path? And the bummer of it is that it cannot be pulled out easily. Use a spade or else don't bother. The plant has the last laugh: it snaps off its root base and comes back with its lovely blue tongue stuck out at you days later. 

Honestly, I've sort of given up on this year's nuisances. I know that they are there (and the bed by the sheep shed is one huge mess), but I choose to ignore many of them. Yes, I'll clean up the edges so that you, my sweet visitor, cannot see them and sometimes I'll plunge (I did that this afternoon) and pilfer what is in my path, but I cannot achieve the depth of purity I had this spring. And that's okay. My friend from Australia, who passed away this winter, said something to me that stays close to my heart (I'm paraphrasing here): you don't want a garden that is weed free. You want to leave a lot of wild spaces. To reflect what nature gives us. To reflect who you are.

 


 

 

 With so much love...

 


Monday, July 28, 2025

July Monday

Remarkable how each day can retain the patterns of its predecessors and yet feel uniquely different. One thing can tilt the scales in a completely novel direction. I can run through the day's highs here on Ocean and you'll read it and say -- well now, isn't that merely a repeat of last Monday? Or Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday? 

No it isn't. 

One outstanding feature of this day for me is that it's the last July Monday. Next week we'll have plunged into August and August, believe me, is no July.

Too, I bet you've had your doubts about the "one day only" blooming period of day-lilies. In the photos, they often look... the same. Oh, but they're not! When you're standing in the middle of a lily field and you have to reach way past your stretch capabilities, you think to yourself -- well, at least I wont have to twist myself into a knot tomorrow! This lily belongs to yesterday.

 

A brilliant and sunny day today. Very warm. In the low 90s (so upwards of 33C). But the mosquito population is receding, I think. (The deer flies? Still with us, but they mostly stick to the driveway. I don't know why. That has always been their hunting ground.) 

I go out and I snip those lilies. And despite the fact that there is a bit of a spent lily surge again (801 snipped), I swear we're heading toward the end of such abundance. I can see that the number of buds is diminishing. Some of the varieties are finished. Just a few late bloomers show up with a fresh bounty.





But very many are on their last lily.



I'm always on the lookout for frogs.

 


... and pretty color combinations.



I planted a perennial sweet pea by a tall stump, thinking of the climbing possibilities. The vine chose to climb the lily rather than the stump.

 


On the other side of the stump: a new rose. The trump is falling apart. The flowers of the rose bush? Doing well. Just a little dusty from the stump.


(One more big, new group)


(And one more frog)


(Big Bed)


(the farmhouse)


Breakfast on the porch, with both Ed and Dance, though you can see neither. I'm too smitten with the flowers and the porch and the warm air and our peaches, mine over granola.



I have an errand to run this morning, but it could not be more fun -- I need to send out something at the UPS store. The bike ride to it (about 25 minutes each way) is one of my favorites. Some of it is on a bike path, some on the road, all of it lovely. So I take out Alpine Blue.  (Ed does not like biking in this weather so he waves me on and goes back to his Very Important Nap.) And after I take care of my mailing, I think to myself -- well, I am almost going to pass Stoneman's. Just a small detour. Why not get more corn for the next couple of dinners?

I bike up on a much quieter Monday (they are busiest on the weekend). Back again! -- this from Jim Opperman, whose father-in-law (Mr. Stoneman) started the sweet corn business more than 60 years ago. 

Of course, I believe in fresh corn so I buy only as much as I need for the day. But I do ask -- after all, he is the expert -- on a blind taste test, could you tell if you're eating just picked corn or day old corn?

Not with this variety. It'll taste the same for a couple of days.

Well now! I stock up with six ears. That'll keep Ed and me happy for three days! 

And the ride back, with corn in my basket is again joyful. Yes, it is warm. But when you bike, you create a breeze. And besides, we're still in the morning hours. Day is young! Summer feels good!



But I don't actually spend much time outside in the afternoon. I give myself the project of reshuffling a forthcoming trip (yet again!). I have one idea, then I work through the details and reject it. I go onto another, and I do this until it's almost time to start in on dinner. August has travel in it. I better start doing something about it now, in these last days of July, while I have the time.

I tell you, this Monday felt good! Every aspect of it. But it is definitely the end of a month.  I'm firming up plans with the young family for after school pickups. The kids are selecting school supplies. It's all moving along as nicely as the corn in Stoneman's fields. A stellar crop for them. A stellar set of days for me.

with love...