the last of the hot days...

And yes, it really has been hot. Today we'll hit a record breaking 89F/32C. Sweaty hot. With a brittle landscape of fading colors. By early afternoon, I will have to turn the loathsome AC on and pull down the shades against the brilliant sunshine -- that says it all. 

But the early morning is lovely. I'm up at my usual time, sitting down now at my new usual place, eating my usual granola (determined to make bircher muesli soon!). And waiting for Ed.

He's signed us up to do seed collecting at Pheasant Branch Conservancy -- that vast strip of land that is at one end an 8 minute drive from the Edge, and at the other -- well, slightly more. At this further end, volunteers have been working to restore a prairie. That's a multi step (and multi-year) project. In the early stages, the invasive weeds have to be eradicated. In their place, you want to encourage prairie plants -- rye grasses, black eyed susans, cone flowers etc. So you keep spreading seeds. But first, you have to collect them. That was our job for this morning.

It was wise to do this in the earlier hours, when you didn't feel the heat yet.

We spend two hours among the prairie plants. He picks a bagful of rye seeds, my task is to harvest black eyed susans.  I tell Ed that I feel like I am snipping lilies, only without the mosquitoes. 

A morning well spent. 

Afterwards, we hang out at the Edge. Ed is trying hard not to put the total burden on me (in terms of traveling), even though I know he'd prefer to have the run of the farmette, especially on a good weather day, when he can get small jobs done. I know that push to work there well! I may miss our farmette days, but I don't miss the constancy of waiting work. Though I do realize that I can lapse into the more sedentary lifestyle here, at the Edge, where there is no job waiting for me outside. Tradeoffs. Always the tradeoffs. 

He leaves, I do some apartment cleaning. Amazing how a vacuum can pick up so much in just two weeks! Of course, at the farmhouse, a vacuum could pick up nearly a container-ful in just one swoop through the house. And it took time. At the Edge, vacuuming takes ten minutes.

 

Mindful of the lure of the couch, I take a neighborhood walk. Funny to call the blocks around me a "neighborhood." I do a loop to the south and I pass corporate offices and hotels (or are they modern versions of motels, or is that not a thing anymore?), and day care centers, presumably for the people who work in the corporate offices. Not one residence, not one person out walking on an early Saturday evening. On the upside, there is a commendable amount of greenery. All professionally landscaped. Mature trees, shrubs, and the occasional flower for balance.

What I'm also grateful for are the sidewalks. It's a good place to fit in a half hour jaunt just out the door. But interesting it is not. Up there with having leftover soup for supper. The last of the hot days ends on the cool side of the excitement spectrum!

with love...