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... 

 

forget about the flowers

That's right: forget about summer blooms. No! Not forever. Just for a few minutes. Is there something else that exquisitely belongs to summer, something that makes you feel so good it hurts? Indeed, if someone were to ask you to list things you absolutely love about this season, would that list be long? 

It struck me this morning that my list would be very lengthy indeed. And here's the weird thing: though I've long said that I love spring best, my list of beloveds for summer would be longer than for any other season. Flowers, yes, of course -- all those lilies in the company of so many blossoms. But they don't stand alone. I love that summer gives us endless breakfasts on the porch. I love summer fruits: peaches, cherries, blueberries.  I love feeling the warmth of the sun on me. I love watching fireflies at night. I love long days with plenty of daylight hours. I love that at least kids and sometimes adults are on vacation. I love wearing shorts and summer dresses. I love cool showers after sweating outside in the garden. I love biking over to Stoneman's with Ed to get some of their just-picked corn.

I can go on of course, but I'll stop there, because even these few bits of summer magic filled my day today. In other words, summer can pack in a heck of a lot of good stuff into a short space of time. What's there not to love? I know, I know -- the bugs. The humidity. The frustration of losing a crop of whatever you planted to bad weather or pests or predators. (SPeaking of predators, today we found a dead possum in the shed/garage. Oh, the smell!) I don't have to tell you that life is full of disappointments and irritations, year-round. But isn't it just a little easier to feel good anyway during a season that offers so many opportunities to be happy?

I do start the day with flower work. Even the animals had to wait! And it was still a big haul  -- 764 snipped lilies.That's over 200 more than yesterday -- who knows why. But there is sunshine outside and I find that working in the non-shady spots keeps the bugs down. Mosquitoes prefer shade. In any case, I feel at peace with my snipping work. It will end soon enough and in the meantime, my flowers look the better for it.

(one with, two without)

(again one with, two with out, plus the bonus of a gladiolus murielae, a.k.a. an Abyssinian gladiolus, or a peacock orchid)

(This year, just for the heck of it, I planted a bunch of standard gladiolus bulbs. I wont do that again. As they come up, their thin stalks are barely visible and I have trampled over more sprouting glads than I care to recall. But, to commemorate my summer of glads, let me include this photo of a trampling survivor: Gladiolus Princess Margaret Rose.)

(Sunshine is great for the soul and good for mosquito control, but not so good for flower photography!)

(well, there are exceptions!)

(taking in the Big Bed from the back)

We eat breakfast on the porch, but I know that's as a favor to me. It's starting to feel awfully warm out there.

And because we know that it will really heat up today, we do our one outing early -- right after breakfast. Despite his now full blown cold, Ed wants to do it with me: bike over to Stoneman's for the first corn of the season.

If you did a taste test, perhaps you'd say that other corns would be in close competition with the deliciousness of Stoneman's. We've had Eugster's and Alsum's and Natalie's this year and they were all good. But Stoneman's is special. Perhaps some of the warm feelings I have toward their corn come from the fact that the Stonemans are such a nice family. They work on selling corn from their farm together -- all three generations, with many kids and grandkids helping out. It's always a pleasure to go there and to watch them unload, check and sell the cobs. 

 

 (It's a family project...)

 

You know, too, that they just picked the corn a few hours ago and that you can have that unique experience of eating corn that is fresh off the stalk.

Because their farm is so close to us (2.5 miles away), we nearly always bike to it and that, too, is just plain fun.  

Places like Facebook have helped them: they post occasional photos of the grandkids picking and sampling corn and so you feel connected to the farmers as well as their product. The comments there are full of praise and admiration. It's just one lovely summer moment: to pick up and eat that awesome corn!

And we have reason to pick up a dozen ears today -- the young family is here for dinner. 

(coming down the secret path...) 

It's not really porch weather in the evening. We eat in the coolness of the kitchen. (Without Ed though: he doesn't want to share his cold with the others.)

And still, it feels like a summer dinner. It's a bright day, a bright evening, and of course, there is the corn. And peaches and ice cream. What a stunning day!

with so much love... 

Saturday flower care

If garden work was putting a drag on my mornings (the wetness, the humidity, and most of all -- the bugs), then something needed to change. If I am to stick with cleaning up the flower fields, then something else has to give. Going through the beds with clenched teeth isn't cutting it. 

I thought of a simple realignment: how about a new route? Instead of plunging into the thick of it all from the get go (which stirs up the bugs from the very first minute of lily snipping), how about starting easy and working the edges first? There are three benefits to this: the already mentioned deferred bug confrontation, but furthermore, it should keep my clothes dry for at least the first half of my time among the flowers. And finally, if it is a particularly difficult morning out there, I can stop and let the mid-sections go. I'm nearing that time of the season where the hardships of gardening start to mount. I can't keep up with the weeds, I'm recognizing poor planting decisions, and of course, there is the sad state of true lilies -- consumed by the red lily leaf beetles. None of it causes me to give it up for good, or even for the season, but I am looking for ways to make it once again a joyous enterprise. 

I'm not the only one feeling the sting of wet buggy weather. I talked to a farmer at the market today -- a friend who grows exquisite blueberries -- and she warned me not to come out to pick in the afternoons. You'll get eaten alive! Hmm. We may skip the u-pick this year. It's enough to have to fight the bugs here at home.

 

It was once again a wet morning, but the adjusted attitude and the changed pattern of lily snipping helped. Too, the lily count is really going down. I was at 577 today. That is entirely manageable! I can do it in a few secs more than an hour, picture taking and all!

(this is one of my favorite lilies; the froggie agrees -- wet, but beautiful!)

(you learn that lily blooms like to face the sun; this field is probably the richest of them all and very beautiful if you stay on the secret path to the south of it)

(the orange trumpets before snipping)

 

 

(a cleaned up bed)

 

 

( one that I love...) 

 

 

 (Big Bed and a chicken)

 

 

 

 

 

By 9 all my morning work was finished: animals fed, lilies clipped, spot weeding accomplished. I went in to check on Ed.

His cold is just starting to recede and though we'd planned on going to the farmers market together, I told him to reconsider. Stay in bed! Of course, he makes up his own mind in these matters and today he insisted that he'd tag along. 

I have to say that it was wonderful to have him there -- we did the whole market and picked up flowers for our table and also for my daughter, we stocked up on lots of carrots from Bill (it may be the last week of the good ones!), blueberries from Kay, and maple syrup from a couple of different vendors. No corn. Our farmers down the road (the Stonemans) are finally selling theirs and we are part of their fan club. We'll bike over there tomorrow!

A few fresh croissants from Madison Sourdough...

... and we're home again, just as the rain comes down. A late but awesome breakfast on the porch.

A heavy rain does bring down the phloxes. Some will shake off the drenching water and get back up. Some will not.

 

 

 

Next on my schedule: a side trip, to deliver my daughter's flowers to this carrier-person (at the end of her drama program):

You wont ever guess what I did then: I sat down at my computer and looked at the bulb listings, selecting several hundred daffodils, tulips and crocuses for Fall planting. This is the time to get the ones you like and at good prices. They wont come until late September (if then), but at least I'm demonstrating my enduring commitment to growing things! (And the good news is that when it comes time to plant the bulbs, the mosquitoes will be history.)

The sun finally came out in the late afternoon. I did some flower pot feeding, and porch plant maintenance. Good stuff, to remind me that working with flowers is actually quite lovely. I really do believe that. 

 

 

with love... 

frustrations and fundamentals

I so love to preach patience, resilience, and gratitude (to myself; I promise you, I do not like telling others how to live their lives). Sometimes one fails and the other two win me over. Sometimes all three fail. The good days are ones where I can shake off adversity, stay calm and thank my lucky stars for being where I am right now. 

Today I got one out of three right. That's a pretty low score, considering the effort I put into the enterprise.

Sure, I had my reasons. Every person who fails at maintaining a level head has his or her reasons for losing it. I can't say that's much of an excuse. But they do reassure me that my lapses belonged to the moment. Tomorrow I'll do better!

What happened?

Well, I did spend the afternoon at the clinic undergoing a GI procedure that everyone loathes. It was fine, and I've had it so often that I don't particularly mind it. They drug you nicely, and not being a drug user myself, I always think the rare times I'm forced to be made happy artificially are kind of pleasant! But the fact is, I couldn't eat my usuals all week and I couldn't eat anything for a day before and I couldn't sleep last night, and to top it off, both Ed and I have been steadily sniffling for 24 hours (no, not Covid, not anything serious at all, just an annoying summer cold). So physically, I was off.

Nonetheless, at 7 a.m., I'm out there snipping lilies. I can't remember how many. Fewer than yesterday but more than 700. 

The cleaned up flower fields, with a few favorite lilies spotlighted:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was supposed to be a pleasant morning in the garden, but I had no breakfast to look forward to and it was humid and the mosquitoes! Oh, the mosquitoes! We had just agreed to a spraying yesterday and  it was to be a weekend of very enjoyable outdoor work. No such luck. Ed and I had to admit it: the "natural" spray may not scare away the pollinators, but it also does not scare away mosquitoes. Though I did comment that perhaps it's like the United Nations: it may not be effective in preventing wars, but we'd be far worse off without it. Maybe the mosquitoes would be unbearably awful (we've had such years!) without yesterday's spray?

Still, it was a challenging set of hours, and honestly, after snipping about 125 flowers, I was tired of it all. In good weather and with few bugs it is an awesome project. The clean garden that emerges is breathtakingly beautiful. But today I was sticky, and wet, and bitten from all sides, and I swore that this would be my last lily snipping day. So what if for the rest of my living days all spent lilies dangle limply? They'll fall to the ground eventually.

I did not mean it of course. But clearly my patience and resilience were hovering at low levels. 

But then there followed my medical interlude. Ed came along because they make you have a designated driver. I stretched out comfortably on a bed and they wrapped me in warm blankets. I thought about people who endure sickness and pain in war torn regions of this world and here I am, in an air conditioned clean room with a warm blanket around my shoulders and a concerned medical staff hovering, and Ed snoozing at my side. I closed my eyes and forgot about the grumpy morning. (And no, the drugs had nothing to do with it -- that came later!)

When I was done with my visit, I received a nice clean bill of health and I thought once again how much life would have changed for me, for us, had the outcome been different. Earlier, I had said to Ed -- listen, if I am sick, I am not snipping a single more lily! 

Really? -- he asked, genuinely surprised.

I didn't mean it.

So yes, I'm grateful. For a good medical visit -- yes, of course. But also for the drudgery and chore of the morning session in the garden: the tiredness, hunger, achiness, the monotony, the humidity, the wetness and stickiness and messiness of the whole thing, and yes, the bugs. I appreciate the lesson and challenge that comes with it. I like that I stick with it, despite everything. (I wish I would stick with other projects with equal dedication!) 

And in the afternoon I rested because 1. they told me to do that, and 2. because I had done my chores for today and now could put it all aside. For now. Tomorrow, you'll likely find me in the garden again. In a better frame of mind. I'm betting on three out of three then!

with love...