Summer Thoughts

 

Today the heat and humidity have moderated a bit. The moss roses have loved our hot summer. And of course the weeds. Most annoying is that the grass has infiltrated my flower bed.

 

 

The cheddar pinks surprised me this past week with a few blooms. They hadn’t bloomed after the initial season before. My rose bush in the front yard has lots of buds coming on after a fallow time. I snipped one off this morning, 1 of the 2 in bloom, and put it in the bud vase from my mom.

My sister has a friend interested in my mother’s crystal, but didn’t know how to price it. I did an ebay search and discovered the pattern is Cambridge Rose Point. I suggested a price range for the various pieces based on completed sales.

During the search I saw an advertisement from the late 1930s touting that brides needed this crystal to entertain properly in their new home. Here is a photo from ebay for the vase which maybe makes the pattern clearer than my photos.

 

There will be lots more roses in August. August! How did we almost get to August? I guess the opportunity to download Windows 10 for free for those using certain earlier versions ended yesterday. Monday some big update will show up. Hope it doesn’t make too many changes. I did read that Edge will allow extensions which should make the anti-virus companies happy.

I don’t like big changes. My grocery store is shifting everything again (did that 2 years ago). It claims this is to set up an e-order space for designated pickup. That doesn’t appeal to me. In the process they eliminated some items including my husband’s favorite cereal. I can buy it at Walmart still, but that is a longer drive for me.

My trip to the Farmers’ Market this morning was futile. Nobody had small tomatoes. Maybe next week. The sweet corn stall was doing booming business. We had bought some direct at The Farm Thursday. I didn’t buy any for tonight.

I helped my sister-in-law sort through boxes of Christmas items yesterday. She did a good job of downsizing. I hauled 5 boxes to Goodwill. Seeing all of the work to ready a home for sale brings relief that my house-selling days are over. Of course there might be a move down the road which would require the downsizing and packing up jobs, but not the having to keep everything looking good for showings.

Enjoy what is left of summer. School starts here August 15th. The calendar may say two months of summer left, but we all know that once school starts summer is done.

Refreshing the Home and Porch

 

Whoowhee. It is hot and humid today and will be even more so tomorrow thru Sunday. We signed up with Grace Village to go to the Elkhart County Fair next Tuesday. Hope we don’t regret that decision. They say the exhibit halls are mostly air-conditioned.

Many of my throw rugs have decided to fall apart at once; the backing peeling off and one even has the side of the rug frayed into fiber strands. I bought a replacement for the entry rug at Kohl’s over a week ago, but didn’t like most of the choices. Today I bought a rug at Walmart for the kitchen and put the kitchen rug at the patio entry.

Remember my tale of the wind storm and the damage done. I pulled out the few delphiniums struggling along and planted a new plant. This yarrow really needs more sun probably, but it will get the late afternoon and early evening slants of sun under the porch.

I bought the little bird at Kmart. It will replace the duck that lost its head.

Always something to do to keep a home looking nice. I have refreshed a few things. Time to rest in the air conditioning and out of the sun though.

The potential blog “hackers” aren’t resting. 111 “views” from Mauritius yesterday and 21 from Russia today. The statistics algorithm for individual post views adjusts for known “hack views”, but it doesn’t catch everything so there is some skewing.

We had left-over grilled chicken with spinach, strawberries, mandarin oranges, fresh pineapple, and red onion with poppy seed dressing for lunch. Tonight we take advantage of the Ruby Tuesday BOGO promotion. Haven’t decided yet what I will order.

The lazy days of summer have arrived.

A Summer Saturday

 

What a beautiful day! We will be eating our lunch sitting on the front porch for sure. By next Thursday we will be in the 90’s; have to seize the opportunities when we can.

I went to the farmers’ market this morning. Bought some sweet corn from The Farm. Delicious Ambrosia corn for tonight’s supper. The man whose tomatoes I especially like had none ripe yet. He said about 2 weeks. But there was one stall who had tomatoes, a gamut of varieties which I always enjoy. This farmer said he has plenty coming ripe right now.

I also bought a loaf of home-made bread. We’ll find out whether we like this vendor’s wares at lunch.

Since I was downtown, I stopped at the public library to check out a book I saw suggested in a newspaper article about Indiana’s bicentennial.

When we moved to Texas, I read Fehrenbach’s history of Texas. I grew up in California so California history was what was taught in the schools. This history of Indiana is a lot smaller than the Texas history; should be easier reading. I had wanted to read a history of Indiana when we moved back here in 2007, but nobody had any suggestions. Hoosiers by Madison was published in 2014.

I am scheduled to give a book review on October 5th at the Winona Literary Club. I was thinking about Quiet by Susan Cain which I read a few months ago. Recently I learned the theme for the 2016-2017 club year is Indiana. If the Madison book is decent, I will probably review it instead.

Time to make sandwiches and put the TV trays on the front porch. Have a nice Saturday.

Sharers

I picked two fluffy white hydrangeas from my neighbor’s bush this morning. Thank you, Ann.

My husband helped his sister today cultivating the garden her husband planted. Her husband is in the hospital with an infection. She sent home with him some green beans, a pepper, and some zucchini.

While my husband was gone, I weeded the moss roses. It is only 75 degrees now, was high 60’s when I worked in the back yard. Looks better.

I had a tough time reaching the middle of the patch. My back already hurt some from moving furniture a few days ago; weeding didn’t help it any, but I needed to take advantage of the perfect weather.

Speaking of gardens, have you ever done the Rows Garden puzzle in the Wall Street Journal? It is a nice change from crossword puzzles. I never know all of the row answers. I had to look up who wrote the poem “I’m Nobody! Who Are You?” (Emily Dickinson) and the name of a U2 song used as a title for a TV teen drama. My husband helped me with a few others.

Good thing it is an easy supper night. I am worn out. Cooking brats on the grill, microwaving the fresh green beans, eating the left-over baked beans with pineapple from 4th of July.

Here’s the recipe for the beans:

Baked Beans with Pineapple

4-5 cans Campbell’s Pork and Beans

Large can pineapple tidbits drained (reserve some juice)

For every pound of beans add:

1 Tbsp. ketchup

1 tsp. mustard

2 Tbsp. brown sugar

1 Tbsp. pineapple juice drained from tidbits

Combine all in crockpot and cook several hours until heated through. (2-3 hours on high; 4-5 hours on low)

Humpty Dumpty Together Again

 

My delphiniums have not really recovered from the great wind that knocked them over and beheaded the duck. There are 3 pitiful little blooms. Many of the stems of flowers were bent in the fall and the dumping of the dirt from the pot. I do not have a green thumb, and nature’s wrath did not help.

My moss roses, which benefit from benign neglect, like our current hot humid weather. I always enjoy the various hues: pale and bright yellow, pale orange, bright pink, coral and today a lone white bloom. The plot needs weeding again though. Maybe Saturday when we cool down a bit.

The green “blob” among the moss roses is a cheddar pink, the only survivor of 4 I planted two years ago.

The lovely lavender buds of the hostas became deer food a few days ago. They were almost ready to open. The stalks are way too tall for rabbits to nibble; it had to be deer. When I looked on the internet, it told me this is one of the favorite tidbits of these creatures. It just sent a reinforcing message that when it comes to plants and flowers I am not lucky. The landscaper planted two hellebores last fall. Both died during the winter. Except for the moss roses patch, the plantings around my condo are the responsibility and choice of Grace Village.

My neighbor offered me some more hydrangeas, but I am waiting until Saturday for those. We had our carpets cleaned yesterday. To facilitate the process, we moved lots of furniture to the garage. Most of it we moved back this morning. I am tired. Anyway, one more thing to move (a vase of flowers) didn’t appeal. We squeezed our dining table and two chairs and our two recliners into the sunroom where we “lived” for most of the day. By 10 a.m.today, unlike Humpty’s fate we were able to put things back together.

I even changed some decorations now that summer is here.

Amelia and the whelks and other shells are on display again.

One of the tablecloths I brought home from Whittier I successfully washed and removed stains. It has pretty embroidered flowers.

At least I can’t kill this kind of flower.

Time to do a little knitting before preparing supper. The daughter of a couple in our church heads a ministry in Ukraine that tries to help elderly women (pensioners) who barely had enough to survive before all of the political unrest with Russia, and are hurting with delayed pension deposits, high prices, etc. We have provided toiletries, socks, other things for her to ship or take with her. This year we are knitting scarves and hats and sewing lap robes. Other churches are involved as well, especially churches in Indianapolis area where this ministry is based. As an unexperienced knitter, it will take the next 2 months to finish probably. They are due in September for pick up. Winter can be very harsh in parts of Ukraine, and heating oil is now very expensive. Like other poor folks, these women are unable to keep their homes heated. They need other ways to keep warm.

I hate to think about winter. I am going to focus wholly on our summer days.