showers

Oh, I liked this day! Yes, it was cloudy and cooler (72f, that's 22c for a high). Yes, I got caught in a sprinkle, more than once. Yes, I had to hurry through lily snipping (only 278 today). But the day was full and it was fragrant! Really fragrant.

It is one beautiful aspect of living in the country: the seasonal scents are pronounced and you notice them every time you step outside, but especially after a rain shower. Most often I'm not sure which flowers are responsible for the summer fragrances. Certainly the lilium are powerfully scented, but the day lilies, too, have a delicate smell. But what I'm picking up now is not just the whiff of garden flowers. The scent includes grasses and clover and pine needles and the mint that's growing out of control by our front door. It's the entirety that I love.

My morning walk is a sensual awakening: overnight, a mass of lilies had decided to finally join the chorus of summer blooms. It's never easy to photograph these girls well. Their faces bend this way and that, the leaves of their neighbors often get in the way of a good frame. 

Still, one tries, because these beautiful flowers, so short lived and ephemeral, are really stunning and surely deserve to be seen by more than just the two of us here, at the farmette! So, here's what's blooming:

(excuse me, little frogee, but shouldn't you be doing a better job at hiding? like maybe inside a lily bloom?)

Morning breakfast? Not on the porch and not in the kitchen, but with my visiting friend, at Grace Cafe. Sure, we sit outside (and retreat under an awning when the showers come)...

... but it still feels like a cafe moment, with a cappuccino and fresh stuff from their bakery. (Have you ever had an "everything" croissant with cream cheese inside? Sort of like going to Shelsky's in Brooklyn and Les Editeurs in Paris, all at the same time.)

 I'd forgotten how much I love spending a whole morning in a coffee shop!

Since I was really close to my daughter's house, I popped in to see the kids afterwards!

(Sandpiper with mommy)

(...then with Gogs)

(the older two)

In the afternoon, I take out my moped and scoot over to pick up my CSA summer flowers (fuller this week, with a distinct fragrance of mint sprigs!). Yes, I get caught in a light shower, but it hardly matters. The moped is a summertime joy. You can smell everything around you as you zip past fields and prairies at a modest speed.

(this is one of my favorite prairies and it happens to abut a corner of the farmette lands...)

I do hope that these passing showers turn into a more substantial rain tonight. The plants need the water. And of course, we would love more whiffs of all that's growing and thriving outside.

wood pile

For as long as I have lived here, there has been an enormous pile of cut wood behind the big willow. It's where we load sawed off branches and fallen tree limbs. Winter snows and the passage of time compress the heap, but of course, each year, we add to it. The farmette has many many trees and sometimes they need to come down and oftentimes, limbs need to be removed. We've learned to hoist them up high and flick them to the top of a pile. There's a method to it. We have lots of practice.

Every once in a while Ed has wondered if he should get a wood chipper. You load the machine with branches and it shreds them. Sort of like an office shredder only you get piles of chips rather than shreds of paper. This weekend, after watching countless videos and reading endless reviews, he finally decided to buy a machine that would do the job. The super sale at Harbor Freight pushed him to move on it. He lugged the machine home two days ago.

Yesterday, he was about to set up operations out back (it will take many many days to feed it all those branches: our woodpile is very tall and very wide). But at that moment, I happen to look outside and I see them: the big groundhog, followed by two chunky little ones. 

We have had groundhogs living underneath the woodpile for years. Oh, they have other homes too -- we have holes up and down the farmette lands to prove it. But could it be that the wood pile is their principle residence? And if it is, would they be disturbed if a machine slowly ground up this place of refuge?

In other words, should we return the machine and ignore the ever growing mountain of rotting wood for their sake?

Neither of us has a good answer to this. We talk about the pros, the cons and come to no conclusion.  

(chatting over breakfast...)

(meanwhile back in the garden: see those thin stalks to the right? garlic, with long lovely scapes. somehow the garlic got started in the courtyard and we find garlic plants attractive enough to leave alone even the ones that grow right by the flower beds)

(let's see how many lilies will sport a tree froggie this summer!)

(the Big Bed is filling out; 335 spent lilies snipped today...)

In the afternoon, I ask if Snowdrop wants to go swimming again (she has daily swim lessons in the mornings). Yes she does! We meet up at our local community pool. 

 

It's a day for it: hot and humid. Like so many others this summer. Our timing is a little off though. As we enter the pool area, there is an announcement that the pool will close for twenty minutes (they have mandatory breaks throughout the day). That's okay. It gives us time to layer on the sunscreen!

Okay! Time to play! Predictably, the pool is a tiny bit crowded. I'm still into social distancing, even outside, so I steer the girl around to pockets of quiet. But of course, I would do that anyway, even before COVID.

My does Snowdrop love water play!

And then we retreat to the farmhouse.

When it's nearly time for me to take her home, I coax her into a small walk in the flower fields. 

 

 

 

I let her choose the path and the pace, though I do tell her that I want her to get closer to the flowers. 

 

 

 

She likes to put her nose to any flower within reach. To her, every bloom deserves a big whiff. She has her favorites!  (Phlox, lavender... I don't disagree.)

 

Back at her house, I have a quick visit with Sandpiper...

And then I hurry home to work on a frittata for supper. All local stuff: CSA broccoli, market mushrooms, Farmer John's cheese, cheeper eggs. I could have added garlic scapes from our yard, but I'd grown lazy by then.

At the end of the day, we're no closer to having an answer to the wood chipper question. I'm so focused on keeping the flower fields tidy in their big month of bloom that I can't seem to be able to weigh options and make decisions about other farmette issues. Do we know, for example if we are to be tilling the land around the newly planted trees? Or whether we are to transplant some of the raspberry canes that I'm about to mow down? 

Can't think about any of that. This is July. Stuff is blooming. In the garden, that's all that matters. 

retired

That is how I felt today: retired. And I say this without intending to load that word with positive or less positive overtones. The point is that when you are very busy -- whether you are gardening or taking care of grandkids or traveling or doing whatever it is that you put off until the day you stopped going in to work -- life feels like one long continuum of activities. I've heard people say that this feeling of constant engagement is actually necessary to maintain good physical and mental health in your advanced age and I guess I agree with that because I surely have kept myself busy. Kids, travel, gardens, cooking, writing, photography -- great stuff, filling my days so completely that when I finally sit down with a book to read at the end of the day, I always zonk out. My progress in my novel lately has been to go from page 101 to page 102 Thursday, 102 to 104 Friday, stay on 104 Saturday, put it down at 106 last night. And it's a pretty good book!

But today, I front loaded my garden chores (325 spent lily heads, snipped before breakfast!)...

(garden photos, comin' up! It's July!)

(in a far back corner of the Big Bed, these beauties!)

(they're tree frogs, I think, and they love my lilies! All frogs are carnivores and they eat a ton of bugs each day, keeping my garden free(er) of pests!)

(a clematis, going overboard!)

(Breakfast)

And I don't fuss much with dinner...

And I spend a good chunk of the day couch-sitting, reading and napping. With the occasional genteel stroll through the garden, as if I lived in a hoity-toity place where ruffled sun parasols are de rigueur.

Yes, I did break out of my stupor to bake blueberry muffins. I have a hankering for them and we surely have the blueberries and the recipe from Smitten Kitchen sounded so good! [Verdict: they are, in fact, perfect. None of that greasiness or heaviness you'll find in the average muffin. Light, with a whiff of lemon, not too sweet, and of course, no fruit paucity here. Plenty of blueberries!]

And Ed did convince me that we should do another round of disc golf toward evening...

(on the ride there: our fellow comrades)

 

 

 

... but all this is nothing! When I think of the day, I see clouds rolling in on gusty winds. I see the temperature rising to 91F (33C) by mid morning. I see my lilies, and my flower fields. 

 

 

 

 

 

And I see myself stretched out on the couch with a book. 

I would not do this every day, but it surely felt good to be so fully engaged in retirement on this hot hot day in early July, seven and a half years after I made my last trip down to my office.

the fourth

When Independence Day falls on a Sunday, things get tricky. You learn perhaps that your community put on a fireworks show on Saturday because I suppose it's easier to recover on a Sunday from late night booms and bangs. Our neighbors did the same: we heard pops and sizzles yesterday. 

So does that mean we're done with celebrating? Not necessarily. You can still put on your blue and white striped shirt,  add a dash of something red to your outfit, and display in this way pride of country. Or, you can bake something that has those colors popping at you. I do just that.

But first, I get up early, smiling at the sound of our overnight guests' voices. Or really one little girl's voice. Primrose is eager to start the day.

 

Okay, little one! I have to run over to the feed the animals and do a quick check on the garden. Be back in a minute!
 

The young family isn't staying long, but there is time in the morning to play, to go outside for a little walk...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

... to eat a leisurely breakfast (in the kitchen, where it's cooler), to catch up on all last pieces of missed information, to hatch plans, toss around big ideas. And to eat lots of good fruits!

It's hot enough for us to limit our outdoor play. Next weekend maybe. As we get closer to lunch time, the young family takes off. They have a bit of driving to do today. One last romp...

Lots of hugs and kisses and happy smiles...

And they're off and I return to my garden, which is looking July good right now!

I snip spent lilies and return to the kitchen. I have another baking job. This one (thanks, Ina Garten):

And then the local young family is here for dinner.

(relaxed...)

There was a time when I would have grilled on the Fourth. Everyone grills on the Fourth. But interest in grilled foods fizzled and my own interest in lighting up a grill out on the porch while also tending to foods in pots on the kitchen stove fizzled as well. So what to do for a Fourth dinner? I'm sure you'll think this to be weird and not at all fitting for this particular holiday, but I decided to finally cook something the kids keep stumbling upon in books but have never had -- spaghetti and meatballs.

("spaghetti and meatballs??")

Was it a hit? Well, out of the seven at the table, two were enthusiastic, one was polite enough not to commit one way or another, one changed his mind halfway through, two were strong "no!" votes, and one abstained (from pretty much everything). But no one will forget that we had spaghetti and meatballs for Fourth of July dinner in 2021.

I hope you had a happy holiday. Wait, let me say this really loudly, because the neighbors in the new development are really popping those fireworks loudly tonight: I hope you had a happy holiday!!!

With love...