bye july

A view from the deck of the barn as the next downpour began.

If there was a single theme running through the month of July, it may have been sweat. So many thunderstorms and so much excessive heat. And even on the rainless days, and the occasional day of reasonable temps for July, the constant, enveloping, stultifying humidity. Like walking into a sauna. Like breathing through a steaming towel. Every single day, several times each day, sweat would literally run down my face as I walked slowly through the paddocks, drip into my eyes as I leaned to pick up an empty feed pan, and saturate my hair before I returned to the house, threw my wet jeans and shirt into the dryer for a few minutes, and blotted my hair with a towel.

If this sounds like a lot of whining, I'm sorry - I don't feel that way about it. It's just been my reality. And the goats' reality as well. With added mosquitoes. I try to provide a high quality of life for all the animals, and there's no way around it: July has been rough. 

I feel so much concern for the people in other places who are desperate for rain. For people from places that are literally on fire. Again. Situations that are totally beyond our control, and which affect our lives in very real ways.

I think people generally become accustomed to the rhythms and range of weather patterns in a place where they have lived for a long time, and do their best to prepare for expected events and even occasional extreme events - hurricanes in my neck of the woods, for example. Maybe there's an unusually dry summer which raises the threat of fire. Or maybe there's a huge storm that causes local flooding and washes out a road or bridge. But now it seems the extremes and "hundred-year" events just keep coming, on and on, one after another, year after year. Have the extremes become the norm?

Well. When I began writing, I had intended to simply post a few of my Daily Markmaking sketches from July, which was World Watercolor Month. But starting out with that first painting of rain through the trees kind of sent me off on a tangent. Yikes. 

I'll close with a few watercolors of trees without rain:

Here's hoping August will be kind to all of us.

~~~~~

july colors

 

Just a few samples from the palette of July.

~~~~~

first fruits

A few blueberries and raspberries, most days now.

Perfect with yogurt at the end of the day.

~~~~~

 

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.

~~~~~

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.

~~~~~