june

June 2024: a month of very high heat and frequent rain.

Most days, the first thing I do when I come in from chores is peel off and throw all my wet clothes into the dryer for a few minutes, so I can put them on again for the next round without gritting my teeth. Because knowing that I'll be soaked to the skin again two minutes after stepping out the door doesn't make it easier to put on wet jeans. 

Or maybe I'm just getting soft.

The morning after the evening when I didn't turn the empty feed pan upside down.

But we've also had some June days of bright blue skies and sunshine and - that icing on the cake of a sunny day - a refreshing breeze. I've tried to take a leaf from Betula's book and not waste a moment of those days:

It's raining this afternoon, but it was quite nice this morning. 

The daylilies are blooming:

And the bee balm is just on the brink:

I'm thinking about making a big bowl of cold tahini ramen, and I'm also thinking about making a big kettle of lentil soup. It's that kind of day.

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while you wait

There's always something to see while you wait at the bottom of your driveway for a timed delivery that turns out to be "temporarily delayed" after you've already been waiting for 45 minutes in the heat and bugs.

First I saw a butterfly enjoying the Philadelphus flowers.

Then I saw a young girl with a dog on a lead, a cellphone in her hand, and socks on her feet, standing on the pavement by a telephone pole. The dog appeared to be one that was posted as missing back in April, the cellphone was being used to call the number on the Missing Dog poster on the telephone pole, and I don't know about the socks. I'm not going to ask a teenager why she or he is wearing anything, because it doesn't seem all that long ago since people were asking me that question and even then I thought life was too short for such discussions.

Anyway, when the owner on the poster did not answer the phone or respond to the 18 back-to-back voicemails the girl left for him (I don't know why), I called our town Animal Control Officer who I know very well, because the girl seemed reluctant to leave the dog with me (I did offer a couple of times) and she had already called the Animal Control person in the next town over (again, I don't know why) but also did not want to hand the dog over to that person, should that person arrive (see above parentheses for developing trend).

Ah, there were many questions in the air, that hour at the bottom of my driveway.

And there still are, because when my friend the Animal Control Officer for our own town showed up, she had big doubts that this was the "right" dog, from the Missing Dog poster. My gosh, plot twist! But she very kindly took control of the situation, assured the girl that the dog would be happy and comfortable while things got sorted out, and popped the pup into her car and out of the sun and biting bugs.

And I said goodbye to the nice girl from up the road who caught - if not "the" missing dog, at least "a" missing dog - and took the trouble to try to get it back to it's home.

And then I saw the butterfly again.

And eventually my delivery showed up.

The End.

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a bit of color

When morning chores are beginning, the spiderworts are usually in the shade and covered in water drops. Rain or dew.

When morning chores are finished, the spiderworts are often still covered in water drops. But where the sun reaches them, the colors light up.

Currently, white and lavender and purple spiderworts (Tradescantia) are providing most of the non-green color in the garden by the barns. Well, the spiderwort and the goutweed, Aegopodium podagraria:

Goutweed is a pretty plant, but I do wish it wasn't so terribly successful at taking over a garden, seemingly forever. I cut and pull out a lot of it every year, but if there's a way to genuinely constrain it, I haven't found it yet. Other plants have to be very quick - and tall - to outgrow the goutweed.

Today I saw the first daylily buds rising above the goutweed, and the bee balm, and the anise hyssop. This one stem is suddenly far taller than it's many daylily cohorts.

More color, coming soon!

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wordless tuesday

Glass bottle, Roman Egypt

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first of the year

 Always an exciting moment: the first iris began to bloom here this week. One of the little blue or purple ones in the garden between the barns. It's a reminder to keep checking on the big bearded iris plants in the bank garden by the driveway; they start out looking strong but can be overpowered by bittersweet and other creeping, clinging plants if I don't visit frequently with pruners in hand.

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wordless tuesday

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decisions

Did a little walk-around this afternoon with AM, the fellow who has helped me with a lot of work since 4 April; initially removing the tree from the barn, later organizing rental of a dumpster and directing the barn demolition, and amidst other tasks, tackling the priority issue of creating or improving temporary livestock shelters. Funny story: I had contacted him and introduced myself way back in March - remember March? when the barn was in one piece? - asking if he'd be interested in sawing up some fallen branches and boles in my Upper West Side paddock. We got on very well at our first meeting, and ended up walking the property while the conversation ranged into lots of possible projects. When he was leaving, he said, "Just call me when you decide what you want to do first," and I'll bet he was surprised when I called him a couple of weeks later and said, "I'd like to start with removing the tree that has fallen across my barn."

For weeks now I've been going round and round in my mind, wrestling with decisions about next steps. I'm determined to move forward soon, and it was good to walk around the shelters and the barn and the paddocks and have a natter about every option either of us could think of.

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80s in the shade

 

which bothers some of us more than others

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extremely green

We've reached the point where most of the trees' leaves are past the soft stage, and many are now deeper shades of green than they were even a week ago. Every window in my house looks into a sea of greens. And outside, my main chaise view is up into layer after layer of beech, maple, oak, and hemlock branches. Very many very greens.

It's a nice way to start the month of June. Gazing into green.

~~~~~