August Is Here

 

We made it to August. So fast don't you think? In August, I try and enjoy it but with September just over on the next page it is hard to keep my mind on August. In July, I get out every thing red, white and blue. Today I put it away and started getting out every thing I own with sunflowers. Do you do that? Think of months as colors and shapes. September will be the beginning of fall things, orange and black and brown and yellow.
But August I just think of yellow and brown.

 

My beautiful Hydrangeas are now just faded and I still think are so pretty.  Now that August is here, I find myself racing to get my list accomplished that I so excitedly wrote down in May. My thoughts want to go toward fall. We have had 25 days as of yesterday over 100 degrees. I thought no wonder my poor flowers look so droopy.

 At least zinnias are always there to just look happy. I love the very bright colors. My stitching has slowed down.

I finished this one, It is by Pineberry Lane.

 

It is called Mehitable Wright's Red Work Sampler. I do love redwork. I like it because I can take it with me when I am in waiting rooms.

My latest rug. I don't hook as much as normal just because the heat just makes me put it down. It is so much easier to hook in the winter.

 This pattern came from The Wool Street Journal.
The pattern is drawn by Robin at Bird In The Hand Primitives.

I may be doing a lot of reverse hooking as I look at this as a photo. I am not wild about that water or the back ground. I feel like I have lost my hooking mojo.

At least the sunflowers are so pretty and happy out there in the sun.

Our peppers and tomatoes are amazing. I have only  had one red tomato. That is it. This morning though I noticed finally the plants are loaded with green tomatoes so all is not lost.

I hope you have a lovely weekend. A great start to August too.

~Kim~

" Beautiful things are often full of pins."
---Sarah Somebody, Florence Slobodkin, 1969

Wednesday Wonderings

It is already Wednesday and almost August too. It is supposed to be 104 today with some moisture from a hurricane or cyclone in the Pacific. Putting the dishes away at 6:00 A.M. from the dishwasher made me sweat. It will be that way all day. Someone missed the memo that this is dry California.

 Writing a blog makes me notice things. The birds are starting to molt. The blue jays look crazy as they have feathers sticking every which way and tail feathers are missing. I wondered the other day, does missing tail feathers make the bird that is flying go different directions like a rudder does a boat? My white Silkies are loosing feathers at a rapid rate. My chicken pen looks like it is filled with snow.

 

I was watching my new little hens interact with the Silkies and the older hens. I noticed something that made me very sad. My new little hens, just for the fun of it beat up my Silkie hens. Then they laugh like bullies in a school yard. I thought I raised them better than that. I personally think it is the berserk rooster and his hen. I wish I could remember what kind they are because I will never have them again. They are just crazy and I am thinking that when my son takes the rooster to butcher, he might get to take a hen too. 

 

I loved this picture when I took it. The day was cloudy, and the sun came through the clouds as it illuminated the opening out into the garden. I would say what makes me the happiest no matter how I feel at the time, going out through this gate always lifts my spirits. I always feel like I am home. I have often wondered, do you think that in the beginning when the world was perfect, and God made a garden and put Adam in it that is why gardens are so nice? In that perfect world, it doesn't say house. Just wondering.

This morning when we woke up at O Dark Thirty, out in the yard was a skunk. I went and got my camera.

 

Because I couldn't make myself go out on the pouch and I was hiding behind the door with my arm sticking out to get the picture. I am a coward. Though I did wish I had a rock so I could have chunked him to see what happened. I always like cause and effect experiments. He was really pretty, there also was that little desire to find a baby next year and see if I could tame one.  My SIL told me she just yells at them and stomps her feet and they run away. I wondered what will happen if a skunk is having a bad day?

Well, that is it, all I got today. The heat has started to take its effect. No thoughts seem to be there anymore.
The sun is up now, so the skunks and the foxes have all skedaddled it for home. Time to go water everything and sweat.
Have a delightful Wednesday,
~Kim~

" Life knocks a man down and he gits up and it knocks him down agin....What's he to do when he gits knocked down? Why, take it for his share and go on."

---The Yearling, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, 1939
( One of the most beautiful written stories but one of the saddest books I have read except for Where the Red Fern Grows which remains the saddest.)

A Busy Week

 

After my week of playing, it is nice to be back. I wish I had a whole list of things that I did. I don't.

Our kids were all at camp as leaders. Ron and I tried to do different things. Though we did work in the garden. Just a bit though. He worked in his trees and if you look closely in the picture of the garden, he is there trimming his trees.

 I canned some and I baked zucchini bread. I ended up with nine loaves and still mountains of zucchini.

We didn't go out there as much as normal so on Saturday morning when I walked out I couldn't believe my eyes. The zucchini, green and yellow squash, okra, green beans and cucumbers were covered in white flies and the plants were gasping for air. It was just heart breaking. So we decided that to save the rest of the garden we would pull out all of those plants and spray pesticide on the pumpkins to try and save them at least until mid August. 

 

I found some Harlequin beetles and squash bugs and stink bugs. Not a lot but one is too many. The best way is to get rid of the trash and dispose of it so we did. The White Flies are the worst though. I couldn't believe how they had multiplied.

 

I think next week I will bring soapy water out here and see if I can wash some of the sap from white flies off the plants so they can keep producing. In a perfect world, I would like to wait until mid September to harvest pumpkins, but I don't think I will be able to wait that long. I hope I  can make it through August. 

 

 I wanted to show you my black/purple tomatoes. They are a new variety for 2014 and they are very firm and nice. For a cherry tomato they are pretty large. 

 

 Now with a good portion of the garden gone and I won't be out there so much, I hope to get my weedy, poor neglected flowerbeds cleaned. There is always so much work to get done. Next week, Meg is coming over to help me go through the doom closet. We will go through all of the boxes and boxes of curriculum that I have packed in there. Her boys are excited because of the treasures they think is in there. 

It is so nice to be able to give all of these books away and still it doesn't even begin to touch a fraction of what I have. 

I hope you have a lovely new week, this last week of July. It sure went by fast didn't it? 

~Kim~

" A prudent person avoids unpleasant things; but a wise man overcomes them."
---The Chatterlings, Michael Lipman, 1928

Going Barefoot and Other Things

 

One of the summer things, I thought I might try was going barefoot. I realized that when we moved here, I never went barefoot anymore, but always kept my shoes on, when I got out of bed to when I got back in bed at night.  But I decided I would...Go barefoot.
 I have walked through wet grass, and wiggled my toes in our sandy soil. I have sat outside and propped my feet on the railings and stared at my toes. I have ran and jumped and put them in the water of the pool. It has felt nice to go barefoot this summer. It reminds me that I can slow down, I can put my feet up, I can reflect on deep things like " Why haven't I painted my toenails yet." 

 

Today I picked up my copy of Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. He has wrote other deep insightful books. Since I am in summer mode, I put it back on the shelf. I think this summer, I am going to clean off a whole shelf and put books that I am going to read starting in September. I think I will put that one there along with The Closing of the American Mind by Alan Bloom and Slouching Toward Gomorrah by Robert Bork. They have been on my book shelf for years, books I have wanted to read, but never took the time. My brain needs some challenging. I think I will put Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis and Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton.  I think I will take notes. I ran across a list I made 10 years ago of what I wanted to do with my life.

Six on that list was a Theology degree from Wheaton College. Four was  I wanted to study Philosophy.
I was teaching still and I wanted to be a better wife, a better mother and a better teacher. I also wanted grand children. That one I pondered. I still had young kids at home. Peter was nine.

 

What I found missing from that list was much more interesting. No place was blogging nor gardening.
Hooking rugs wasn't there nor was sewing. I was working on 20,000 steps a day, every day. I felt like a slacker when I only made it to 12,000 a day.
I just sat there and looked over my life now. How those things then that I thought were so important aren't now. I don't need a Theology degree, nor do I need to study philosophy. I am thankful I am a grand mother. I am thankful that what I thought I needed to be happy is so different from what I am now.

 

 Being a blogger has been the nicest surprise. Learning how to take photos. Writing out loud.
Making friends from all over the world. Having friends and sharing lives has expanded my life and changed my goals. For that I am thankful, I am thankful to be invited in to share your lives too.

I haven't said thank you in awhile. Thank you for sharing my life, for watching my struggles, and my joys. Thank you for laughing at my stories and for always leaving me such nice notes. You have blessed me and when my life was growing darker, you gave me something to look forward to every day. You have given to me far more than I could ever return to you.
So Thank you so much for coming into my life and for just being yourselves. You have given me the world. 

~Kim~

 

" You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose."
---Oh, the Places You'll go!, Dr. Seuss, 1990