Once Independence Day passes, summer seems to suddenly age although it’s really only two weeks old. I suppose that’s because there are no more Big Events after the Fourth of July. A warm and hazy routine sets in and the season hurries on. After having a full house last weekend, things started to wind down at our house, but there was still lots of activity. Tabor went home on Monday morning, but Rachel and the girls stayed until Thursday. Sarah and Tosh left on Monday afternoon. When Rachel left, Miriam, Kurt and Julie, and Kohl and her children left with her. They all went down to spend a few days together at the Thayn’s house. But while they were still here, there was a lot going on.
It was hot all week with temperatures in the high 80's and low 90's. On Monday to cool off, the children played on the slip-and-slide over at Shillig’s. That evening for Family Home Evening, we had a Family History Quest. Stacey had stations set up where the adults represented an ancestor. The children went from station to station to visit each ancestor and hear a story from their life.
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| Slip-and-slide. |
On Tuesday Miriam held The Great Unicorn Hunt, the follow up to her Great Sasquatch Hunt from two years ago. She made rainbow unicorn cupcakes which she hid in a fluffy nest in the hazel hedge out in the orchard and left a trail of glitter and tinsel through the orchard. She made unicorn droppings out of brownies. The children received a letter from the "Game Commission" telling them that a unicorn had been sighted in our area. The children then went on a hunt, following the trail to the nest, collecting evidence as they went. It was a lot of fun. Even when it started to rain, it didn’t hamper the fun, there were just slightly soggy cupcakes.
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| Hot on the trail of a unicorn. |
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| The unicorn's nest. |
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| Unicorn cupcakes. |
On Wednesday, the big activity was a Princess Luncheon (there were some princes there too). All the little girls dressed in their Disney princess dresses. The table was set for a fancy feast. Afterward there was dancing.
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| The Princess Luncheon. |
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| The Princesses. |
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| Singing and dancing afterward. |
That afternoon all the Thayn girls got haircuts. A friend of Stacey’s from work who is a beautician came over to do it. The girls look so cute with their bobbed hair. Another thunderstorm came through that afternoon and blessed us with another quarter inch of rain. That evening we celebrated Julie’s birthday. We had tacos at our house and then we went over to Shillig's for cake and ice cream.
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| June and Mabel after their haircuts. |
We haven’t had much rain these last weeks. We’ve had several storms, but they haven’t delivered much rain. The ground is thirsty and the little bit that falls is quickly absorbed. To keep the garden going, I’ve resorted to hand watering now and then. My efforts have paid off so far. The garden looks good. Most of the vegetables are loving the heat and growing quickly. We’ve begun eating broccoli and cauliflower and peas. Some of the flowers like the heat, others, like the poppies, not so much. They are fading faster than usual, but they are still the best part of the garden for now. Combined with the larkspur, they put on a pretty show.
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| Rain! |
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| After the rain. |
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| The pigs enjoying the mud. |
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| Part of the long border. |
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| Some of my poppies. |
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| My new favorite poppies. |
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| Larkspurs. |
After everyone left on Thursday, the house settled into a melancholy stillness. All the energy of children constantly moving, playing, running, and making noise drained away. The heat combined with the quiet and time seemed to stretch into languorous hours, as if the house was taking a long afternoon nap. I tried to do a bit of housecleaning, but my heart wasn’t in it. All the things I was tidying away reinforced the lack of children. At dinner, with just Stacey, Hannah, and I at the table, it felt empty. Our meals went from huge productions and a dishwasher loaded to capacity, to just three plates and cups, a few forks and spoons, a pot, a pan. In the evening there was no lively conversation, no games at the table. The predominant sound was the hum of the fan trying to keep a little air flowing though the sluggish house.
Our biggest rain of the week came on Saturday afternoon. I knew it was coming, so I did all the yard work I could in the morning – mostly weeding. July is a weedy month. They behave themselves in June, but in July they go crazy. And these are the worst weeds – galinsoga, quackgrass, purslane, pigweed – they don’t even have pretty flowers to redeem them. It seems they spring up and grow gigantic overnight. I can hardly keep them in check. I have to weed every opportunity I get. Some parts of the yard I just give up on pulling them and mow them down.
One of my chief delights during these rare summer days is my morning walks. These past days, there has been ground fog and heavy dew in the mornings. It is refreshing to walk out in it before the sun and the heat burn it away. This is the time of spiders. I suppose they are around through all the summer, but the morning dew reveals their webs and they seem to be everywhere. The trees and grasses are festooned with webs. One spider builds a web across the opening of the back porch door during the night and I walk into it every morning. I never remember it is there. I cringe and dance and brush the web out of my hair, hoping the spider did not come with it. On my morning walks of late, it seems the birds are singing louder than before. I count at least a dozen different songs – robins, bluebirds, red-wings, grosbeaks, cardinals, doves, sparrows, thrashers, catbirds, swallows, finches – all singing in the bright foggy light. It is wonderful to hear.
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| Various mornings: the beaver pond. |
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| Various mornings: kingfisher and spiderwebs. |
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| Various mornings: milkweed on the barn path. |
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| Various mornings: the house from the far edge of the orchard. |
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| Various mornings: across Gold. |
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| This morning. |
Miriam, Kurt, and Julie came home on Saturday night and that helped revive things a bit, but it’s still very quiet around here. This week I will keep myself busy with painting, mowing, barn chores, and the endless job of weeding. Miriam and I plan to work on the woodland garden some more. We need to rake and pick rocks and work on shaping the pond to prepare it for its liner. It looks like the weather will be a little milder and we might get more much-needed rain.
Today we began meeting for church at our building in Wellsville again. There are lots of strict protocols we have to follow for the time being. Because no more than 25 people can be in the building at a time, our congregation was split into two groups, one meets at 10:00 and the other at 11:30. Our family is in the 10:00 group. There were fifteen members there today. We are only allowed in the chapel, no other rooms, and we have to sit apart from others. We are not allowed to have physical contact with anyone. We have to wear masks. We are not allowed to sing, but we listen to recorded hymns instead. The meeting is only one hour long. I’ll admit that I’m going to miss meeting at home. After all these weeks where we didn’t have time constraints, we didn’t have to wear masks, and where we could sing as much as we wanted, I found our meeting today to be a bit strange. I’ve loved sitting in our living room, administering the sacrament to my family, and the in-depth Sunday School lessons we had together.
After our meeting in Wellsville, our friends the Dunns, who were at the meeting, stopped at our house for a Sunday School lesson. We sat around the dining room table and discussed the assigned chapters in The Book of Mormon. Now lunch is done and the rest of the day is free. It is beautiful outside and I want to go for a stroll through the garden, but I think I’ll take a little Sabbath nap first – but just a short one. I don’t want to sleep away a day as fine as this.
