A Few More Visions From Summer

Hot tonight! Whoowee! Martin and I sweat as we watched Detective Goring on Instantwatch Netflix. But tomorrow promises to be cooler.

We have more lovely red raspberries coming in (had a few with yogurt tonight)!

I'd thought I'd catch up a little on some summer pictures. . .

Here's our dear "Aunt" Nancy with B.


Ubiquitous zinnias. . .


One of our garden paths, in progress (ran out of mulch!)


Two sweet girls. . .


The two big girls on their camping trip with Daddy while B and I were in Seattle. . .Apparently, the lake was rather chilly.



Here's the "walled tent" that Merry made into home sweet home for a couple nights. . .Martin tells me Elspeth seemed to have thought that they had moved there for good (not worried, I suppose, that Mommy and B were not around, as long as she could spend 24/7 mucking about outside).


Our glorious front path, flooded with Russian Sage, Purple Hyssop, Sages, and Queen Anne's Lace.


Summer badminton games down our hill--and a picnic--for Labor Day weekend.


Merry and Co. finishing off popsicles on the porch swing. . .


Elspeth picking raspberries in the mellow evening. . .


Elspeth, headed up the front steps (see the new garden I put in on the right, for which I dug up more, more, MORE grass!)


Beatrix and Grandmama conversing in a most serious manner on the front porch (the butterfly bushes behind attract the most incredible butterflies!) Later that night Martin and Mom and the girls finished supper on the porch while they watched a tremendous thunderstorm.

And finally, a bouquet I couldn't help but share--indicative of the wild loveliness of this past summer.

Summer Produce

Summer: is it tapering? We have more unripe black raspberries, but our produce is definitely coming in, not at an incredible pace, but enough to give me plenty to work with for dinner. Here's what was waiting for us when we returned from the beach.

Here's what Martin did with it that first day, before I started sauteeing a lot of summer squash:

Ah, summer. I started school with the girls this week, but I've also had just enough time to start the GRAND FALL CLEAN-UP outside. And believe me, there's PLENTY to clean up. I'm tired of feeling of having no driveway. So I've started tackling one pile at a time: sand, mulch, stone (will stay), brick (will stay), wood (will be built into the remainder of the fence).

Children's Garden

The Entrance to the Children's Garden. . .Follow the terracotta feet!

I keep waiting to post pictures until the garden is really in full swing (it is now)--these were taken a few weeks ago, and now the cosmos is in bloom, the sunflowers are happy, and the peas and beans are crazy.

Martin, rockman, heaved this boulder for a bench in the children's garden. Our main goal was to make a garden where everything was edible or pickable, and there was much scope for the imagination.

(Here's an early one of Elspea demonstrating the amazing Moses phenomenon. Of course here our plantings had not really adjusted yet.)

Here's a view of the riverbed Martin designed and constructed--water sprinkles out of the rock onto the rock. The white sand fills the sandbox, also make out of rock.


Here's a better bird's eye view--the paths are mulched with playground mulch. The chicken wire is starting to cover with a red-flowered vine.


This is best effort, I think, in design so far. Martin spraypainted the lines in the grass and then started digging. I designed the plantings, which will fill out well over time--a mixture of perennials, shrubs, veggies, and annuals. Here's a before, bird's-eye (it's the mess of landscape fabric at left):

And here's an after, close-up:

Beatrix & Bouquet 3

Shasta daisy, coneflowers, russian sage, pink yarrow, dill, Beatrix

Produce

I've got sugar snap peas in August. It's true, and they're lovely. . .the tomatoes are holding back, though, due to our wet, cooler weather. Cucumbers, summer squash, cucumbers, peppers, cilantro--did I mention cucumbers?

And lots of zinnias and cosmos.

I've got a hot cup of tea and Beatrix is sleeping. Martin is at a meeting and the girls are watching our family beach video for the 100th time, getting themselves ready for beach vacation 2008 (starting in a few days!). Merry's yelling. Will Beatrix stay asleep? Ah, the drama!

I've got pictures, but they're on the camera. I've been reading lots of books--my favorite so far is A Thousand Splendid Suns, (though the very last part of this fantastic book set in Afghanistan was, in my opinion, the least well written of the sections and unnecessary.) The book set me thinking hard about my own life--mostly about how lucky I am.

Merry is stomping off because I did not jump to my feet and flurry about in response to her request. Ah, the drama.

Elspeth is crying is response to Merry. And now she is stomping up the stairs. Ah, the drama.

Whooo.