We left June behind and entered July last week. July is almost as fine a month as June. The only thing that lessens its glory is that its days are now growing shorter, but not really noticeably. And July does have Independence Day, so that more than makes up for that slight diminution.
I spent a lot of time in the garden last week. There is no better place to be on a summer day. I basked in the warm, sunny days, working in shorts, barefooted when it was practical, feeling that sunshine vitamin course through me. In July, the garden shifts into high summer mode. The gentler flowers of late spring can't abide the heat and fade away. The summer flowers, strong and bright, take over. Sensing the subtly shortening days, many plants accelerate their maturing, setting seed and ripening fruit. That goes for undesirable as well as the desirable plants. Weeds start to get crazy in July. I gauge the progress of the season by the roadside flowers. We are past Dame's Rocket now. We've moved into daisy, daylily, and milkweed time with chicory and Queen Anne's lace coming right after and goldenrod and asters too soon after that. Out in the orchard, the tall grass is starting to go brown. I'll be doing the first mowing later in the month.
On Tuesday I saw the first Japanese beetle. I had refrained from mentioning to anyone before then that I hadn't seen one yet, hoping to not jinx myself. But there it was, sitting on a horseradish leaf. They are very pretty beetles, but they are so destructive. I nabbed it and crushed it with my fingers. And so the battle begins.
On Tuesday my new tomato support poles arrived. It was just in time. The tomatoes have reached the size where they needed support. I drove the poles in and secured the plants to them. I am determined this year to be vigilant about pinching them. It seems every year I forget or I get lazy and the plants send off suckers and become huge and then collapse. That's not going to happen this year. I'm going to keep them under control.
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| Tomatoes secured on their supports. |
Our lettuce is at its best now, but it won't last much longer. It doesn't like the heat and will soon begin to bolt. We have salads at dinner every day. Out in the big garden, the onions are looking great. I spent some time weeding them. I love to be among the onions when it rains. The raindrops hitting the hollow, tubular leaves makes a musical sound. The garlic is almost ready to harvest. Maybe ten more days and I will pull it all up and start curing it.
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| The lettuce bed. |
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| Onions. |
In July the lily pond reaches its glory days that will stretch on all summer. Miriam wanted a lily pond and we had it dug four years ago. She maintains it. It is full of life – tadpoles, frogs, the occasional newt, water beetles, damselflies, dragonflies, and the plants – lilies, cattails, and yellow flags.
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| The lily pond. |
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| One of its denizens. |
As I was taking my morning walk on Wednesday, it occurred to me that what I call my meadow, the front part of the front yard from the maples to the road, has become more of a jungle than a meadow. There are still some parts of it that are grassy, but most of it is dominated by trees now. There are five oak trees that I planted from acorns that are pretty big now, a catalpa, and numerous wild cherry saplings from birds dropping seeds. There are patches of sumac here and there and the entire front bank sloping down to the road is covered with sumac. I like it. On a still, warm, and humid July morning, it feels tropical, almost exotic to walk through it.
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| The path through the meadow/jungle. |
I had doctor's appointments on Wednesday and Thursday that took a large chunk of time out of both those days. But when I wasn't driving, first to Olean, New York on Wednesday and then to Port Allegany on Thursday, or sitting in doctor's offices, I was out in the garden. To me, being in the garden, in the sunshine, working in the soil, is powerful medicine.
Friday was Independence Day, one of the year's major holidays for me. Christmas and Easter, despite being hijacked by a lot of secular commercialism, are religious holidays. To me, Independence Day is too. It has its traditions, food and fireworks, which most would not consider religious, but the reason for it all is to celebrate our liberty and I consider liberty to be a religious principle. Our Founding Fathers did too. They saw it as a God given right. They stated that belief in indisputable language in the document whose signing we celebrate on July 4th, the document that resulted in the establishment of the greatest republic the world has ever known.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness…"
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are rights given to us by God, and "to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." God gave us liberty, men created government to protect that right.
As the day approached, I wanted to get into the spirit of '76, to visit what some of the founders were thinking, writing, and saying as they attempted to create a nation conceived in liberty. I turned, as I usually do, to my favorite Founding Father, the complex and brilliant Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence. There have been concerted attempts to tarnish Jefferson. By pointing out supposed character flaws, they attempt to dismiss his contributions to American political ideology. No matter what he did or didn't do, he was imperfect and a man of his time as we all are, Jefferson focused a lot of his formidable intelligence on the concept of freedom and the role of government and human society. Here are a few of the many things he wrote that I like:
"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."
"I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
"To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."
"How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy."
"He who knows best, knows how little he knows."
For Christmas and Easter we have special decorations as part of our celebration. For Independence Day, we decorate the porch rails with patriotic bunting. We wear red, white, and blue clothes. And we fly the flag.
I like flags. The use of flags as symbols and as a messaging device stretches far back into antiquity. The study of flags is called vexillology, from the Latin word for flag, vexillum. During the Revolutionary War, the rebelling colonists used many different flags. In 1765, to protest the Stamp Act, a group that called themselves the Sons of Liberty held a protest under an elm tree in Boston that became known as the Liberty Tree. The British cut the tree down. In its place, the Sons of Liberty erected a liberty pole and from it they flew a flag with nine vertical red and white stripes known as the Rebellious Stripes. The British outlawed that flag. So the Sons of Liberty made a new flag by changing the direction of the stripes from vertical to horizontal. By 1776, the number of stripes had grown to thirteen, representing the thirteen colonies united in the fight for independence. Eventually, after twenty-six alterations, it became the flag we know as the Stars and Stripes, Old Glory, the Star Spangled Banner, a symbol of liberty. We proudly fly the Stars and Stripes at our house.
In researching Revolutionary War flags, I discovered one I didn't know about called the Moultrie Flag. This flag was commissioned by Colonel William Moultrie in 1775 as South Carolina was preparing for war. It is a white crescent on a blue field with the word liberty inscribed in the crescent. During the battle at the defense of Fort Sullivan in Charleston harbor on June 28, 1776, the flag was shot away, but Sergeant William Jasper ran out in the open and hoisted it again, which rallied the troops and won them the battle. The flag became the symbol of the South Carolina Minutemen. The white crescent on a blue field became part of the design of the South Carolina state flag. I like it. I think I'll add one to my flag collection.
Another flag I like is the Gadsden flag, one of the many "Don't Tread On Me flags." It was designed by Christopher Gadsden, a delegate from South Carolina to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. It was used as a naval flag, flown from the ships of the Continental Army and was the first flag used by the sea-going soldiers that eventually became the United States Marines. I have one of these in my collection. Someday we hope to put a big flagpole by the driveway so I can fly some of my flags.
On Thursday evening, the Thayns arrived. Immediately there was a frenzy of activity as they joined cousins from next door in riding motorbikes and gators all over the compound. Some of the older cousins made quick plans to spend the night camping out, the boys in the treehouse, the girls in a tent near the treehouse. Having them outdoors for the night made the house a little quieter.
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| The campers. |
The quietness ended early the next morning. The girls in the tent were up before dawn and came in the house to use the bathroom. I was just waking up. So the day began early. Very early. Things accelerated quickly after that. There was breakfast. Then second breakfast. Some people got dressed up fancy for the day with red, white, and blue clothing and makeup. I spent the morning in the garden. Friday is Fertilize Friday. Every Friday I water everything with either my comfrey water, or fish emulsion. That took me an hour. Then I weeded. At noon most everyone went over to Fosters to ride four-wheelers and watch Jaws. I didn't go. I had a light lunch followed by a quick nap. Stacey stayed home too. She was busy making food in the kitchen while watching movies on her favorite Mother's Day gift, the kitchen television.
When they got back from the Fosters, it was time for fun at the Shillig's. The day had warmed to 80° and Kurt had his slip and slide set up. That kept the children entertained until dinner.
I love Independence Day food. Our menu is set for most of it, but we do vary some things. We always have burgers, hot dogs, and bratwurst with all the fixings. We always have potato salad, watermelon, potato chips, and frog-eye salad. Other salads vary. Same with desserts. This year we also had broccoli bacon cheese salad, and mosquito salad. For dessert, Stacey made apple pies, Miriam and Sarah made ice cream sandwiches, Julie made brownies, and Sarah made special ice cream just for me.
Dinner was at 6:00 p.m. The Shillig's back porch was decorated very patriotically. The Fosters were in charge of the grill. The food was great. After dinner we entertained ourselves until it was dark enough to start the sparklers and fireworks. Our fireworks show was impressive. The Fosters and the Thayns contributed to the Shillig's already ample supply of explosives. It was a chilly evening, but the sky was perfect.
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| The Shillig's decorated back porch. |
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| The Fosters at the grill. |
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| My patriotic daughters. |
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| The whole gang. |
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| Fireworks! |
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| And more fireworks! |
The tent girls didn't make it a second night. Someone felt sick and the night was chilly and they all came in and slept upstairs. Saturday morning was chilly, 48° when I got up. The day warmed up quickly which allowed for lots of water activities, more slip and slide, a trip down the road to swim at Erway's pond. In the evening, some of us went to the movies to see the new Jurassic World movie while others went down to Foster's to play games and work on a jigsaw puzzle. The movie was fun, the usual sort of dinosaur movie with lots of bad science and predictable plot.
It was cool and quiet this morning. At least it was from dawn until 7:30 when Russell woke up. After that, the house stirred to life as preparations for church got underway. Church went well. There was lots of red, white, and blue. We sang all three patriotic hymns in our hymnal – The Star-Spangled Banner, My Country 'Tis of Thee, and America the Beautiful.
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| Florence and Russell at church. |
We're home and it's almost time for lunch. The day has heated up. We're at 87°. We're having dinner this evening over at the Shillig's house. After dinner, Tabor and Rachel are leaving for home, but they are leaving their children here to spend the week with us. So we have a week of fun and frolic ahead of us. For now, I don't know what anyone else has planned between lunch and dinner, but I think I need a nap. I hope you had a festive 4th! We did.
