Southeastern Summers

My parents' pond at sunset

Johnson Farm at the Peaks of Otter on the Blue Ridge Parkway

Otter River

I grew up in the Southeast.  As a teenager, I was involved in a summer tennis league.  Our practices were from nine to eleven in the morning.  I would bike home from practice and turn on the garden hose and soak myself in the freezing water to cool down prior to going in for a shower.  It was that hot and muggy.

When we traveled back east to visit family last week, the weather was unbelievably well-behaved.  It had rained all summer, so everything was verdant.  The temperatures barely reached into the 90s at their worst, and in the mountains, the temperature one morning never exceeded 70.  Perfect.  While I can't say I have any regrets about moving to the Northwest and having dry summers with cool evenings, I will say I do occasionally miss the lazy, warm summer evenings.  And it goes without saying I miss the trees and the flowers and the abundance of water.  I also had forgotten a lot of things about southeastern summers.  For instance, I had forgotten that if you take a hike in the morning, your sneakers will be soaked with the morning dew.  Your feet and ankles will be covered with fresh cut grass snips or leaf bits.  The same dew also makes the really outrageously ginormous spider webs visible.  Except when it doesn't, and you walk right into them and spend the next 30 minutes trying to pick off bits of sticky, hoping against hope that the spider wasn't home at the time you crashed into its domicile.  And gnats.  I had completely forgotten that gnats existed, until they made their presence known via kamikaze runs into my eyes.  But I loved the streams bubbling in late summer, and the squishy ground, and the moss covered trees.  I loved the butterflies and the hummingbirds, and the fact my mom's rosemary looked like a sequoia compared to mine.  Yes, the northwest is home now, but what a lovely southern visit!!  

Well, It's Good for the Estate...

Cool and rainy the last few days.  I love it.  As one of my friends says, "it's good for the estate."  She meant her garden, but she's a sociologist so I think it was also a commentary on American suburbia.  You never can tell with those sociologists.  

It is good for the estate, though.  My gardens are soaking it all in, and it postpones the dusty, dry season and prolongs the green, flowery season.  June rains.  We weeded the tiny flower bed around the choke-cherry tree in front, and the peonies rewarded us by blooming this year.  The rain popped them open.  

Last night I fell asleep listening to the rain through my open window.  If my husband would let me, I'd sleep with the windows wide open every night.  Sleeping with the windows open makes me feel closer to nature, just as I do when tent camping.  But then again, sun and birds at 4 am do not wake me up, even though I'm a very light sleeper.  Hubby is also a light sleeper, but sun and birds do wake him up (although, ironically & annoyingly, the sound of a baby crying does not always wake him up).

Window open or not, I'm glad for the rain.  I hope the rest of summer passes much slower than these first few sunny, fun-filled weeks!

These Long Days of Spring

The longest days of the year are really in spring, you know.   By the time the first day of summer is over, the days are already getting shorter.  These are the busy days, the flower-filled days, the can't we stay up just a bit longer days. We had a thundershower today, so rare on the Palouse, and this one even came with hail.  After watching it for twenty minutes, my husband and I both looked at each other and said, "I hope the plants are OK!"  They were, although the lettuce is looking a little rough.  Fortunately, my hubby doesn't like big chunks of lettuce leaf in his salad, so now it comes pre-chopped!  But rain makes the garden wet and grow-y, and I love walking in the garden after a storm.

Putting my son to bed, it seemed like nothing could be a better finale to the weekend than watching the last, soft light of the day fall across his cheek.  Love.

Our Little Nature Park

Amazingly lovely Easter weekend.  Weather in the 60's, highly unprecedented.  We visited friends--two dinners out!  I'm already making plans to repay the hospitality this summer once we have our large, outdoor dining table out.  Our extra outdoor rooms will soon be available!

Easter Sunday afternoon was lazy and delightful.  Our neighbor's daughter had a Fairy Tea Party in the backyard.  While we were enjoying watching the children play, we spotted a beaver and a pair of mallards in the creek.  The mallards didn't seem at all disturbed by children running up and down the bank chasing them.

It inspired me to clean up the backyard and get it ready for summer playtime.  Today I mucked out part of the creek.  I actually enjoyed it; there is a certain satisfaction in throwing large, beaver chewed logs onto the bank that beats working out at the gym amongst frat boys.  So much more to do, but at least I have my self-imposed marching orders--and a creek that's already pretty beautiful in its own right!

Beaver neighbor!

Mr. and Mrs. Mallard

 

Happy New Year 2013!

I am so excited about the start of a new year!  We traveled to Seattle just after the first of the year to visit our good friends and experienced the most beautiful January weather I'd ever seen for Seattle!

 

 

 

Turkey, Off the Grid

We were invited to spend Thanksgiving with some friends at their cabin on Lake Coeur d'Alene.  In a tiny little cabin filled with the noise of laughter, we weren't really off the grid for Thanksgiving, since we had electricity and plumbing.  But we didn't have wireless or cell phone service, so the kids had to entertain themselves the old fashioned way...playing Monopoly, Chutes and Ladders, Battleship, and Uno.  Oh, and they had to do really boring things such as go on hikes and canoe rides and all bunk out together.  We ate really, really well on a locally raised turkey and all the fixings (have you ever heard of Mama Stamberg's Relish)?!?

Perfect.

 

The Colors of Fall

Once, when she was here at the end of summer, my mother remarked "these are the colors I know how to paint."  She said this as we drove around the Palouse.  A Kansas girl, she meant, of course, the gold of the wheat, the blue of the sky, and the white of the clouds.  Today the clouds were more grey than white, but in the morning, the clouds occasionally gave way to bright spots shining down like gold on the fields.

We spent the morning at Bishop's Orchard in Garfield, WA.  Red and gold and green.  As my four year old neighbor reported, the "apples have glitter on them" -- drops of rain leftover from last night, the first rain we've had in three months. 

Honestly, fall, when we have it, is there anything more delicious?

Smokey, Dusty Days

As much as I love September, around here it does seem to be kind of a dirty time of year.  We typically don't get much (any) rain in July and August, and until it rains in September it just seems to get dustier and dustier.  Harvest dust and forest fire smoke contribute to the overall griminess. It's also about this time of year that I just kind of get tired of watering...and thus forget.  So everything just seems dry, dry, dry.

But of course there is always the harvest!  I've been getting a ton of tomatoes, and supplemented with some from the Farmer's Market to can.  The blackberries this year are AMAZING, and I made a pie from them for a party on Saturday.  The pie wasn't terribly photogenic, but when smothered with ice cream it disappeared fast!

Despite the dryness, and the dust, it's still a beautiful time of year here. Fall on the Palouse really is lovely, all things considered!

July Days

We have been busy around here!  Too busy to do much more with the yard and gardens, though we continue to patch grass in the yard.  I've dropped the ball on the area by the creek, though I hope to be back at it later this week.  Fortunately, all the work we did earlier in the season is paying off, and we are starting to enjoy the fruits of our labor--literally!  

I doubt many of the strawberries will make it into the house before they are eaten!  The rest of the garden is looking well, too!

I'm also excited by how well our flowers look this year.  I think all this summer rain is really helping!

Hopefully in the next few days we can slow down a bit and spend some quiet time in our garden!

 

Palouse Solstice

To say I love the Palouse in the early summer is a bit of an understatement.