With daddy and mammy standin' by.
Rachel and her children were here with us for most of the week. They stayed longer so they could play with their Shillig cousins next door. That kept things pretty busy most of the time. Every day from the moment the children were awake to the moment they finally went to bed, there was something going on – games, swimming, riding minibikes, metal detecting with Miriam, on and on. I was not a participant in most of it, just an observer, doing my own things while all of their activity flowed around me like a tide of youthful noise and energy. It was summer like summer should be, carefree and fun, for them mostly. It made me happy.
Sunset last Sunday.
The weather was also pure summer – at least the Potter County type. We had heat, but not to excess. We had some rain, a thunderstorm, but nothing severe. There was a bit of morning fog, a touch of humidity. It was pleasant, and pleasant is good.
The thunderstorm on Monday afternoon.
We had an unexpected adventure begin on Monday. Rachel went into town to the Tractor Supply and, while she was there, she saw that they had guinea keets for sale. She called to see if I wanted any. I've been talking about adding guinea fowl to my flock for years. I decided to take the plunge. She came back with eight keets and two Wyandotte chicks. I made the isolation pen in the coop ready, put in fresh water and a low feeder for them. We put them in the pen and left them to settle in. When I went down later in the evening to check on them, I could only find three of them. I looked everywhere with no luck. Stacey, Rachel, Miriam, and Hannah came down and helped me search. We found three hiding inside the hollows of the cinder blocks I had in the pen and in a crevice in the wall. I realized then that the pen was too big for them. Stacey brought a cage down from the upper barn and we put them in there. We never did find the other two. It's a mystery. The keets are very cute, but they won't be so much when they're mature. Guineas have their own look and temperament, endearing, but not cute.
Our new guinea keets.
This is what adult guineas look like.
Monday afternoon, most everyone went down to Lyman Lake to swim. It was a hot day, the hottest of the week, 89° at noon. I didn't go with them. I'd spent the morning weed whacking and mowing and, with them gone, I knew the house would be quiet and I could take a siesta. I napped for a while and then went down to do the chores. By the time I was done, the sky had clouded over and it began to rain. The rain became intense and we had a bit of thunder and lightning. We needed the rain, so I was happy about that. I love a summer thunderstorm – if it's not too severe. I love the warm rain. It makes the world fragrant. I could feel the dry garden rejoice when the rain came. It didn't last long. The swimmers had to leave the lake because of the storm. The evening turned out to be quite lovely. Everything was fresh from the rain. The sunset was beautiful.
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| At the lake. |
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| At the lake. |
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| Sunset on Monday. |
I went down to the barn first thing on Tuesday morning to check on the guinea keets, hoping the missing two had somehow returned, but no such luck. The morning was overcast and cooler. After Stacey and Hannah left for work, the house was quiet until 8:30. Everyone else slept late. Then, starting with Russell, things grew livelier. I had another doctor's appointment that morning, so I was gone for several hours. While I was gone, Miriam, Rachel, and the cousins went metal detecting. They tried to find the site of an old schoolhouse out on Bailey Hill, but couldn't figure out its location. They ended up at the Allegany Township building down the road, which used to be a one room schoolhouse way back when. They didn't find anything exciting. When I got back from the doctor's, I spent the rest of the day in the garden. It was a gorgeous day. The weather was perfect.
In the evening, after dinner, I went out and worked until the light left. Out in the big garden, Kurt and Julie had the children picking peas. I think they ate most of them on the spot. I went down to close the barn as the last light was fading. As I walked back to the house, I could smell the sweet vanilla fragrance of the milkweed growing along the road. I was in my bare feet and the lawn was already damp with dew. It felt good on my feet. These warm summer nights are luscious.
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| Picking peas. |
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| Evening. |
Wednesday morning was cool and foggy. I had to run to the dairy for milk first thing in the morning and the drive to and from felt mysterious as I drove through the fog. I waited for the day to warm a little before going out to work, but it was taking too long, so I went out anyway. Foggy, damp mornings are perfect for hunting snails and slugs. I spent an hour collecting a bowlful. While I was searching for snails, I found a beautiful Polyphemus moth (Antheraea polyphemus) in a patch of tall phlox. I showed it to the children. It is named after the cyclops, Polyphemus, in Greek mythology because of the spots on its lower wings that resemble eyes, although it has two spots and Polyphemus only had one eye.
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| Foggy morning. |
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| The Polyphemus moth. |
Because the day was overcast and a little cooler, it was perfect for doing more strenuous garden work. The weeds along the edges of the beds in the big garden were out of control. I whacked them all down. It took me two hours to go along the edge of seven 100 foot long beds, the far onion/garlic bed, the blueberry hedges, and the squash patch. That evening we celebrated Julie's birthday with ice cream and presents on the Shillig's back porch.
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| Julie's birthday. |
On Thursday morning most of the Shillig crew left on a trip to visit Boston. Later that morning, Rachel and her children left for home. The house collapsed into quiet. After eight days of having a houseful and almost constant activity, it was so still, so empty. I went out and spent the day in the flowerbeds. I did some savage work. First I declared war on the Japanese beetles. After getting off to a slow start, they are now out in their thousands. I walked the garden with my bowl of soapy water and filled it with their nasty little bodies. I'll be doing that every day from now on along with my daily snail hunt. After that, I declared war on the oxeye daisies. I grow Shasta daisies on purpose, but wild oxeye daisies invade my flowerbeds uninvited and spread prolifically. I try to pull them as soon as their leaves appear in the spring, but I always miss a lot of them. If they reach the stage where they bloom, I tolerate them for a while because they're pretty, but I always yank them out before they can set seed. Next I went after opium poppies. I love opium poppies, but they tend to pop up in places where I don't want them. I'm softhearted and let them bloom, but I pull them out before they go to seed in an effort to control them. It seems brutal to rip them out, but gardening is brutal sometimes. Next I trimmed irises. They are long past blooming and their leaves are browning at the tips which makes them unattractive. I cleaned them up and trimmed them back to make neat fans of their leaves. That all took me into the late afternoon. A little thunderstorm blew through, not much, just an hour of soft rain. I kept on working through most of it.
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| Garden casualties. |
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| Irises trimmed and tidy. |
Thursday evening, the rising of the full moon was beautiful. I tried to get some good photos of it as it rose above the hill, but the pictures don't really capture the loveliness of it. It was very bright and the reflection of it in the beaver pond, with the bullfrogs croaking and the crickets chirping, was so serene.
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| Moonrise over Gold. |
Friday morning was another cool and foggy morning. The sunrise was very pretty. I almost missed it. I woke up a little late and looked out at the sky and dressed immediately and went out. I put on the shorts and shirt I wore the day before, not realizing it was chilly, 49°. I had to walk fast to get warmed up. When I came back in, I showered and dressed for the day and put on warmer clothing.
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| Friday morning walk: looking east across Gold. |
Wild parsnips (Pastinaca sativa) are pretty, but not a good plant to be around. It is the same plant grown in gardens for its edible root, but it has escaped cultivation and gone wild. Its stalks and leaves have toxic sap that causes phytophotodermatitis, painful blisters, when it comes in contact with skin and sunlight. I know this from experience. Years ago, before I knew what it was, I cut some down that was growing in the yard and got sap on my hands that formed ugly black blisters that took months to heal. I don't allow it to grow on my property. Every year some come up along the road down by the barn and I chop them down – dressed in long pants, long sleeves, and gloves. I just did that last week.
When I got back from my errands, I went to work outdoors. By then the day had warmed up and I had to change back into shorts to keep from overheating. Friday is Fertilizer Friday, the day I water with my concoction of either comfrey water, or fish emulsion. Both of them are smelly, but the plants love them.
Sarah came over on Friday afternoon to pick peas and cherries. She stayed for dinner and then she and Stacey worked on putting up drywall in the living room. We had a nice thunderstorm in the afternoon.
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| Picking peas. |
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| Shelling peas. |
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| Picking cherries. |
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| I cut all my cilantro for Sarah to process. She actually likes cilantro. |
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| Working on drywall. |
The house was already quiet after all the departures on Thursday, but then on Friday evening, Miriam and Hannah left to go down to the Thayn's for the weekend and it became sepulchral. It was so quiet Friday night that I could hear the bullfrogs down in the beaver pond while sitting indoors. Not that I mind it when it's just the two of us at home, we get along pretty well, but I guess we are a bit dull. I love having my children and their families around me.
Saturday morning Stacey and I ran some errands up in Wellsville – chicken feed, flowers, the usual. When we returned home, I spent an hour mowing. Tosh and Sarah arrived just after noon with their drywall lift and spent the rest of the afternoon putting up the living room ceiling. I was an interested observer through the process. It was a hot day and it was hot work. We had fans blowing in the house to keep the air moving. They put up the last piece at 5:00. The living room is coming along. Next comes taping and mudding, and then trim and painting. I'm so grateful for the Foster's help. I'll be so glad when it's all done.
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| Putting up the living room ceiling. |
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| The final piece! |
That evening, we went out to dinner with the Fosters and Kale and Roman (the only ones left next door) and their children. We went to a restaurant outside Galeton, the Perma-Stone. We don't eat out much, and I was impressed. The food was good and portions were huge. We had a nice evening.
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| Out to dinner. |
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| Saturday evening. |
This Sabbath morning was very quiet. Well, not really. It was quiet in terms of human noise. I didn't hear any traffic down on the highway. But as for natural noise, it was noisy. The crows are out with their fledged babies and they make quite a racket cawing and clicking. It's a happy racket. They always sound like they're glad to be out and about. The peacock was also his usual noisy self. He makes a circuit around the property every morning calling. And there was other bird noise – a catbird down by the barn, a brown thrasher in the thorn wood across the road, robins, and mourning doves, and blackbirds, and a cardinal singing "cheer, cheer, cheer" from the hazel hedge out in the orchard. I took note on my morning walk of the progress of the apples. Most of them are the size of ping-pong balls now. The midsummer drop is underway when some of them fall off the tree, a sort of self-thinning they undergo.
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| The peacock making his racket from the garden fence. |
We rode to church with the Fosters today. Our meetings were good. It's very warm this afternoon. Lunch will be ready soon. Although it's sunny now, we're supposed to get another thunderstorm this afternoon. I think it's perfect weather for a Sabbath nap. Miriam and Hannah will be home later tonight. Then away we go into another glorious week of summer.
