Sunday

Yes, lots of rain fell last night, yes, it's continuing to drizzle today -- a sustained, slow trickle. This is a perfect dose of water for the gardens. But clearly I was not as ready for it as I thought. At around 5 in the morning Ed nudges me -- I see you left out your tray of drying sour cherries outside...

Oh no!

Would you like me to bring it in? And he does bring it in: they're all swimming in water. I decide to ignore the whole mess and go back to sleep. He patiently drains them and puts them out on a fan. And later, when we are both up, he tells me -- I read from a U of Minnesota site that sun drying cherries up here doesn't work. Our air is too humid. They rot before they dry.

Well that's good news then! I shouldn't mind that mine got totally drenched in a heavy rain! Nonetheless, here they are now, drying once again, just without the sunshine. Ed's P.S. to the saga -- when I poured out the rain water, it was pink. I'm guessing a lot of the nutrients just swam right out then.

I love how stupid we I can be with our my projects!

The rain is very gentle when I do finally step out to survey the garden. The flowers are happy, yes, I'm sure of it, but the tall phlox stalks have fallen and many of the lilies are giving us their last blooms of the year. Still, I snip. Like Madame Defarge and her knitting in the Dickens novel, I snip through it all. Clip, snip, discard. 

The flower fields, even in this late stage of summer, still look mighty fine.

Breakfast, in the rain, on the porch.

In the late afternoon, I take a half cooked dinner to my daughter's house. They're still on a strange summer schedule where one is here, one is there, others are elsewhere and so Sunday dinners remain on hold. Sort of. For example, today we eat together, but at her place. With corn, of course. It's August, isn't it?

The older two have friends up the block and the minutes before and after dinner are spent outside, with kid bikes, trikes, balls and all the paraphernalia of summer outdoor play. 

(Sandpiper is too young to hang with them -- something that he finds terribly unfair.)

I leave them to their evening. 

At home, Ed is hoisting up the sagging peach tree. (It's loaded with fruit, even though it grows in a spot that is mostly shaded by crabs and boxelders. Go figure.) The cats are stretched out on the porch and in the sheep shed, the chickens are dozy-sleepy -- some on the barn wall, some in the coop. He picks off the ones on the wall and locks them up with the rest.

Let's make some popcorn.

We go inside.

Saturday

We need to rain ourselves out of this drought -- I thought to myself as I worked the flower fields this morning. Tonight, tomorrow, Monday. We're likely to have rain and that's a good thing. But of course, I cannot say that I haven't liked this summer of warm and sunny days. No mosquitoes, lots of delightfully comfortable mornings and a cheerful glow over the farmette lands -- who wouldn't want this in July and August!

All the hours of the morning were spent on typical Saturday summer tasks: the flowers, yes of course, the flowers.

Then a run to the farmers market for.... well, the flowers! (I bought two large bunches plus additional sunflowers. All together -- under $20.)

And I had a chat with Kay, the farmer from JenEhr Farms. I used to pick up produce and poultry from her in my restaurant days and I asked her why she no longer sells broilers. 

Covid. It depleted the work force. They have nowhere to butcher them reliably. So they gave up on poultry and are concentrating on veggies.

Oh don't I know the tales of woe from those who want to butcher their chickens! Well, no matter. We no longer even talk about our Bresse hens as broilers. We expect that they'll start laying soon. In the meantime -- they're just part of the pack.

From the market, I move on to Madison Sourdough for the breads and breakfast pastries.

And finally home, for a very late morning meal. (Is it morning still? Just barely.)

Because it is hot outside, I concentrate on catching up with emails. I have two sets of Polish friends traveling soon and I do some research for both to help with their planning process. Both groups are experiencing horrendous flight cancellation problems. It seems unavoidable this year. Oh, the misery of getting from point A to point B. (Or the adventure of it! Maybe.)

Very late in the afternoon Ed and I take a hike in Lake Kegonsa State Park. He wants to see if the lake water there is swimmable. I have zero interest in that, but I go along for the walk. 

Looks pretty soupy to both of us (even as the dog appears to like it!).

There are trails in the park that circle a prairie and we're curious about those too. 

The prairie is nice, but our county park prairies are denser, with greater floral diversity. Still, there is a breeze and we enjoy the newness of a trail (and the fact that it is only 21 minutes away from the farmette, so reasonably close). 

And here's something rare: afterwards, we veer toward the lakeside pub, Springer's, for an outdoor supper. It's pretty standard American pub grub, but in between the burgers, we do find a pizza on the menu which, again, is good enough, especially when accompanied with a cold Spotted Cow beer.

I noted to Ed that each component of the outing was good if not spectacular, but the sum total was utterly magnificent. Funny how that works! You throw together many small tidbits and you have yourself a feast. A splendid summer feast.

With love...

Friday

 Good morning, world!

Can I just note this one tiny little thing: I am okay with being done with lilies, snipping and all. I'm okay with moving on to pre-fall golds and phloxy purples. I'm okay with starting the day differently. Clearing spent flowers is peaceful, meditative, pleasant, but by August it also feels like I ought to be done. 

But this year, more than any other year, we have ourselves a prolonged bloom. Not only a July of lilies, but a summer of lilies. Every day, I am still picking up a bucket of spent flowers. And every day beautiful new ones come onto the scene,

It's incredible that the nymphs and shepherds are still going strong. Oh, sure -- I can count. In a few days all the buds will have bloomed, but still, in August? So many upright lilies? Amazing.

And really beautiful.

But such relentless beauty comes at a price. Every day I begin my morning with several hours in the flower fields.

Followed by an exhale, at the breakfast table.

And afterwards? Well, I was remembering what my doc had said to me yesterday: when you have a medical issue, say a prolonged cough or some such complaint, there's usually more than one cause behind it. And if you want to get rid of whatever it is that's offending you, then you have to work at all the causes.

Closing the rings on my watch (meaning being consistent with brisk movement) is something that is vital to good health and so at noon, even though it's pretty toasty out there, I suggest to Ed that we take a walk in our local county park. I didn't have time to do this later in the day. Now or never.

And it is, in fact, a lovely time to be in the park. Without many mosquitoes this year, we can take the time admiring the prairie flowers...

... and the mighty oaks...

I always photograph this bit of path when we ski here in the winter. What a difference a few months makes!

So, so pretty!

And immediately after, I rush to Snowdrop's Theater Camp. The kids are putting on mini demonstrations of what they had been working on...

Oh, this puts me back to years of watching my own two do their various artsy performances -- acting, singing, dancing, playing instruments -- they did it all and now, her I am, that grandma in the audience that just cant get enough of her grandkids!'

From there, we come back to the farmette.

(She claims the scent of true lilies is powerful! She is correct in this.)

... where she asks me to read out loud to her And I do -- a whole book, and I'm reminded that people who lecture in their youth and read out loud for hours on end in their senior years do indeed benefit from getting voice therapy. In the alternative, they drink lots of hot tea. 

Back home  -- the brothers.

How does a day pass by so quickly? And how is it that cherries take so long to dry in the sun? Imponderable questions! Deliciously inconsequential.

With love...

Thursday

A small, really tiny voice inside me says -- you know, you could be working to market your book rather than snipping lilies every morning. I ignore it and snip away.

It grows louder -- you know, writing it is only half the battle. You need to do more than just one TV appearance and one scheduled book event. In January no less. I still ignore it. Snip, snip, clip, clear.

But, but, but snipping lilies is good for my health, right?! Snip, snip, clip, clear.

Breakfast, also good for my health!

And speaking of health, I have another one of those appointments today where your doc is supposed to monitor something, except that my doc for this particular organ (you understand -- no one just goes to a doctor anymore, you go to one for this inch of your body and another for the next, etc.) has been deployed and so I got a substitute doctor. And this substitute doctor said two most amazing things to me, that were so totally unexpected that they blew my mind. First, he said "before coming in here, I studied your chart for about half an hour..."

Can you believe that? This guy spent his lunch break pouring over the not so fascinating tidbits of my chart! And he had conclusions, which, in itself was stunning.

The second thing he said was "while we're studying everything, take a look at this picture of your lungs -- they look like those of a twenty year old." I said "Aw, you're just being nice..." But he insisted that among my few medical virtues, the shape of my lungs was right up there. Now, is that a nice guy or what??

In any case, the visit went well and once again I was told to go to PT, this time for voice training, in addition to the PT I am already neglecting for knee workout, back strengthening, and toe alignment. 

I'm learning that to be 69 requires a full engagement with the Physical Therapy industry. Which I am at the moment neglecting, because I have to snip lilies, and after that I have to sell my book.

Before my visit with this phenomenally wonderful doc, I took a walk by the lesser lake. And it was beautiful!

My doc had asked me if I close my rings each day (that's techie talk for doing enough exercise to make my smart watch happy) and I had to admit that sometimes I do not. Snipping lilies closes no rings. But today's walk counted for a lot! 

(On the other hand, I was dismayed to see this at Bernie's Beach, which I passed on my stroll:

There's no way that the swimming area is healthy and safe with so many geese using it as a bathroom stop on their way to Canada, or, more likely to the next lake and the one after.)

In the late afternoon, after a wonderful Zoom call with someone important to me across the ocean, I motorbiked with Ed to our local market. For the flowers. And for a chat with Angel and Lutecia, the Mexican couple who will be planting stuff at the farmette later this month. Oh, oops! That's a late August story!

For supper I make corn fritters. I have to work the corn more into our menus. Tipi, our CSA farmers, snuck in another 9 ears into our produce box today and so now we are swimming in corn. They suggested a corn fritter recipe and I was happy to go down that path, though I ended up making more than a dozen of them. Possibly too much for a two people meal.

It's a beautiful, warm, summer evening. I hope you had that too. Well, unless you live in Australia. I hear acacias are now blooming there, with the coming of spring. My goodness! The spring acacia in Poland put forth flowers a mere two and a half months ago. How wonderfully diverse our planet is!

With Wisconsin summer love...