August Adventures

 

August is a messy month when the garden goes out of control. Weeds run rampant as they sense the end is coming and they need to set seed. The annual flowers do the same. Pumpkins, squash, and cucumbers grow rebellious, spreading into places where I did not intend them to grow, almost as if they know I do not have the heart to curtail their runaway vines. Everything gets big, tall, top-heavy, and over-extended. Things fall over. They collapse under their own weight. It is untidy and ungovernable.

The mornings last week were cool and dew-drenched. On my morning walks, I got soaked to the shins walking through the dewy garden. The trees dripped dew like it had rained in the night. When the sun breached the hilltop, everything sparkled with the dew. It was lovely.

Soon after the sun was up, it warmed up but didn't get hot yet. That's my favorite time for working in the garden, from sunup to late morning. The day is young and I feel fresh and full of energy. My first task of the day is collecting snails and Japanese beetles. While I feel energetic, they are sluggish in the cool and dewy hours and are easy pickings. Weeds also pull up easier when the ground is damp with dew. They relax their roots and come up with a good tug. I find pulling them up relaxing too. Weeding is therapeutic.

On Monday morning, I worked on moving firewood. I loaded what I could lift into the wagon on the mower and drove it out to the pavilion. After breakfast, Miriam and the children helped. Russell let me take him for a ride on the mower for the first time. He's usually too scared to let me. And June got her first lesson on driving the mower. Most of the wood was too heavy for us to move, so Kurt came over with his tractor and loaded some of the larger, heavier pieces into the back of his pickup truck and I drove them over to the pavilion where we piled them to await the arrival of the log splitter. We worked at that for several hours and moved four of the piles in the front yard.

By then it was time for lunch and after that, swimming. It had warmed to 84° and the sun was bright and hot, but the water at the pond was cold and I did not go in. The children seem oblivious to the cold and jumped right in. We stayed at the pond until it was time to come home and do the chores.

On Tuesday the final round of summer guests began. Rachel and Hazel arrived at dinnertime. Next door, Kurt and Julie drove up to Buffalo and picked up their daughter Kohl and her three children. Later that night our niece Missy and her family flew into Buffalo and rented a car and drove down. So with the Thayns at our house and the Shillig's guests next door, the party mood picked up again.

My war with rodents escalated last week. I haven't had my birdfeeders up all summer because of chipmunks, but it didn't help. They moved into the upper part of the barn. They were very bold. When I threw scratch or slop out in the chicken yard for the flock, they joined them, feeding without a care, knowing I couldn't do anything to them without risking hurting a chicken. I set traps for them inside the barn, but they weren't interested in any of the bait I used, having ample food of higher quality at their disposal. They chew holes in my feed buckets. They also come into the woodshed looking for food. They tear open the trash bags and make a mess. Stacey keeps a rat trap set in the woodshed at all times and caught a chipmunk in it on Monday. Rachel told me about a bucket trap she uses at her house and we set one up on the barn bridge on Thursday and caught one. That's two less, but there are always more.

My fancy chipmunk trap.

I also have trouble with a few very fat voles in my vegetable garden. The reason they are fat is because they have been feasting on my carrots. I need to get more mousetraps. I usually bait them with peanut butter, but they obviously prefer carrots. I'll have to figure out a way to attach carrots to the traps.

The nest of rabbits in my lily bed was finally empty on Monday. The last of the bunnies hopped out and joined their family in the brushy wilderness across the road. I was glad they were finally gone. I hope they don't feel a longing to revisit their childhood home. Cute as they were, I will shoot them if they come back into the garden. It is amazing how much damage a rabbit can do among the vegetables. Ask Mr. McGregor. With the nest abandoned, I dug up all the lilies and cleaned out the bed. I replanted the lilies in the newly renovated bed out in the side yard.

And I'm still fighting rats in the chicken coop. Of all the rodents I wage war on, they are the wiliest. They get wise to my traps. They ignore different baits I try. I dig out their holes and cave in their tunnels, and they just dig new ones. The thing that works best is to shoot them, but that means sitting in the dark at night, shining a light, and trying to shoot them as they scurry into their holes. They are fast and it is frustrating. They seem to know the limits of my patience. Kurt is more patient than I am and will sit longer, and he's a better shot than I am. He went down several nights last week with Chance and Hudson and they shot five. There are still plenty more.

There are certain things that I expect in August and last week they arrived right on cue. The first was cicadas. We don't get the massive brood hatch here. We are just beyond the edge of their range. We just hear one or two on hot August afternoons droning high in the trees. It is a sound that I love. The other seasonal sound I love is crickets. Early spring evenings have peepers. Early summer evenings have bullfrogs. High summer evenings are full of cricket song. Another sign that we've come to expect in August is the peacock shedding his train. Every year he loses his beautiful long tail feathers. We find them all over the yard. Florence loves to go out every day and gather them. She has a big bouquet of them.

Another August event is the Potter County Fair. It went from the August 1st to today. We went on Wednesday afternoon. We made our way along our usual route through the display pavilions and the animal sheds. We saw people we know all along the route. We ended, as we always do, at the taffy vendor.

Checking out the children's craft winners.

Russell checking out the tractors.

Best in show quilt made from prize ribbons.

A friendly goat.

At the county fair.

Finishing at the taffy booth.

When we got back from the fair, we had dinner at the Shillig's. They made meatball subs and mosquito salad and popsicles for dessert. It was an excellent meal eaten with some excellent people.

Dinner on the Shillig's back porch.

We were supposed to get a thunderstorm on Thursday so we worked hard to get things done before it arrived. I spent most of the day continuing my makeover of the long border. That day I worked on redoing the front end. I paused for a while midday to go into town with Rachel to Tractor Supply. There was a rumor that they had late chicks and guinea keets for sale at bargain prices. I was hesitant to undertake raising chicks this late in the season, but the Fosters wanted them and they had accommodations for them over at the farmhouse, so I agreed to go along with it. We bought all the keets they had – fifteen of them – and five chicks, two Golden Laced Wyandottes and three Amber Links. We brought them back and set up a pen for them over behind the Foster's barn in a repurposed dog kennel. I will be the one mostly taking care of them. I'm not sure where the new guinea flock will ultimately be housed. Maybe my lone guinea can join them later on. There's always new adventures when you farm.

The redone flowerbed.

Florence and her cousin Scarlett picking out chicks.

Home with a boxful of poultry.

The new chicks' home, for now.

We also finished moving the last of the logs off the front lawn and out to the pavilion that afternoon. Kurt managed to make it fun by giving tractor rides in between loads. My niece Missy's husband, Chance, helped load and unload logs. He could heft logs way too heavy for me. It's nice to have the front lawn clear. Now I have to work on repairing the damage.

Friday morning, I went out right away to check on the new chicks and keets. They were fine. Then I continued my walk across the big garden, down to the beaver pond and back home through the orchard. The sunrise was very pretty.

Friday morning walk out through the big garden.

Down to the beaver pond.

Through the orchard.

Home again.

Miriam, Rachel, and the children went on an outing for the day with the gang next door. They went up to Rochester to the Strong Toy Museum. Stacey and Hannah were at work. That left me home, alone, in a very quiet house all day. I wasn't actually in the house. It was a beautiful day and I spent it in the garden. I continued ransacking the long border. I finished the lower part. The upper part will be this week's project.

Kids at the toy museum.

Friday was Sarah's birthday. She wanted pizza for her birthday dinner. Everyone else was still out, so dinner was just Stacey, Hannah, Sarah, and I. Sarah made the pizza – fried sourdough crusts, some with pesto and cheese, some with tomato sauce and cheese. They were delicious. As dinner was ending, Kurt and Julie and Missy arrived and brought presents. The real party was planned for Saturday because Tosh was out of town and we wanted to wait for him to come home. The museum crew arrived shortly after that.

After waiting all week for predicted thunderstorms and rains that never came, finally on Friday evening they arrived. Nothing great. Hardly any thunder and very slow, soft rain. It was appreciated even so. Things have been dry. Miriam went out and cut gladiolus before the rain had a chance to knock them over and made a beautiful bouquet. Around midnight it rained harder. The house was warm and we had the windows open and the rain was loud enough to wake me up. I listened to it until it lulled me back to sleep.

Friday evening as the rain arrived.

Miriam's glad bouquet.

Saturday started out overcast and humid. I thought it might rain, but it cleared and became a beautiful day. I spent the day working in the orchard. First I mowed then I mulched the fruit trees. I'm putting all the wood chips from the maple trees to good use. The day turned hot and the work was hard. I had to carry the mulch to each tree, a bucket at a time. It looked nice when I was done.

Mulched apple trees.

Saturday evening we celebrated the second day of Sarah's birthday. We had a Mexican fiesta – tacos, rice and beans, homemade salsa, guacamole, horchata, and Brazilian limeade. After dinner, we sang happy birthday and there were more presents. The big present, and a big surprise, was four bunnies. Sarah and Tosh already had two rabbits. These four new ones came from the county fair, two each of two different breeds, Dutch and Netherlands Dwarf. 

Birthday bunnies.

We're home from church now. Our meetings were good. We had a good turnout, for Wellsvillle anyway. That was because we had a lot of visitors, most of them family. That will change now as we've come to the last days of family visits. Missy and Chance were our speakers and they both gave great talks. We're almost ready to eat lunch. After that there's talk of driving over to the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon to take a walk along Pine Creek. It's a beautiful summer day, perfect for a walk. This evening we're gathering at the Shillig's for a Sabbath Soiree. Sarah is presenting a Bread and Spread with a selection of homemade breads and various things to spread on them.

The week ahead looks interesting. The forecast says there is a chance for rain and or thunderstorms every day. We could use some rain, but not every day, please. I have lots of plans for work. We have guests departing, the Thayns and Roberts on Tuesday and the Atwaters on Friday, and it would be nice to spend our final days doing more than sitting indoors, watching it rain. We'll see.

Big Changes

We've bid July adieu. Looking back over the last weeks, July was a good month. There were some very happy days at the beginning of it when I had all my children and their families here. We celebrated the 250th birthday of our great nation together. It was good. I wanted July to dazzle me with heat and there were a few almost sweltering days, but there were also too many cool days. And now it's August.

I've written in this Journal every year at the beginning of August about how it is not one of my favorite months. It is full of mixed childhood memories of happy times and sad times. The four times our family moved when I was young were always in August, which were sad times for me. But after we moved, my Grandma Rathfon and cousins would come to visit us in August and those were happy times. And then there was the approaching dread of school starting that tainted the month as a child and even as an adult. I love August's heat when it gives it and dread the possibility of an early frost, which happens too often. It's a busy month when harvesting hits full swing. Yet everything I do in August seems to point to the end of things. August is complicated.

The rain that came throughout the week kept interrupting my plans, but I did get some good work done. I spent Monday destroying an old garden and transforming it into a new one. The day was overcast and warm, perfect for what I had to do. The flowerbed in question is at the side of the property, perpendicular to the long border, running parallel to the Rapley Road. I made it fifteen years ago and for the first few years I planted flowers in it. But it quickly became overgrown with tansy and mint and quack-grass and I pretty much neglected it for the next decade, which is odd because it is the flowerbed most visible from the road, so you'd think I'd want it to be a showcase. But I finally had enough of it's slovenliness. It was time to do something. Early in the spring, I covered it with a tarp to kill off most of the things growing there. On Monday morning, I removed the tarp. The ground under it was dry and dead. I had planned to use the rototiller to dig it up, but the tiller wouldn't cooperate, so I dug it out by hand. It was hard work. There were so many dead and dried up deep-rooted things. The only things I spared were four little bayberry bushes along the back edge. I finished digging and left it to sit while I decide what to plant there. I want something bold that will look nice from the road and is also easy to care for. I'm still thinking about it.

Working on the flowerbed.

All done.

Just as I was done with my work, Miriam was leaving to take the children to the pond to swim so I went along. It was sunny, and breezy, and 77°, but once again, the water was too cold for me, so I just took a nap in the sunshine. It was the last nice weather we'd have for several days.

Sarah came by in the early evening. She added another irrigation line in the row in the big garden where the cucumbers are planted. Her irrigation system is working great. It's such a helpful addition to the garden. While she was doing that, I deadheaded marigolds. We planted a lot of marigolds in the long rows out in the big garden – hundreds of them. They are beautiful, but to keep them blooming, we have to deadhead them several times a week. I don't mind doing it. I love the smell of marigold plants. After that, Sarah came over to my vegetable garden and picked chard, green onions, and cilantro. She took them home and freeze-dried them. 

Trays of chard, cilantro, and green onion ready for the freeze-dryer.

It was a lovely evening, so I stayed out in the twilight, just sitting in the garden watching the moonflowers open and the world grow dark.

In the twilight garden.

During the night, we had the first of several thunderstorms. The lightning and thunder started around 1:00 A.M. and went on for two hours. It woke me up several times. The second storm arrived later in the morning and went on in waves through the rest of the day. Our power went off at 7:45 and didn't come on again until 10:00. That meant no lights, no water, no computer, and grandchildren eating breakfast in the dark. And it was dark because it was pouring rain outside. The tree cutting crew never showed up, of course. And I was left with trying to keep myself occupied. I read and brooded and wished the rain would stop.

I'm sure the rain had something to do with it, and contemplating the impending death of the trees, but then, it usually happens every year right about now, at the end of July and the onset of August. I get what I call The Midsummer Sadness. Even with all the beauty of the season around me, my mind settles on the transience of it all. I see fragility in its robustness, the seeds of decay in its verdure. Summer is glorious, but it will not last, and I begin to mourn its passing long before it's gone. 

The Japanese have a philosophy called mono no aware 物の哀れ, "the aesthetic appreciation of the impermanence of things marked by a gentle sadness." I felt this feeling long before I ever went to Japan and realized that others felt it and there was actually a name for it, in Japanese anyway. It's kind of like the German Weltschmertz, but not as grim or harsh (in pronunciation as well as feeling). My earliest attempts to describe it in my moody teenage journals sound almost biblical, like Isaiah's – "All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness is as the flower of the field: the grass withereth, the flower fadeth" (Isaiah 40:6-7). Or the words of the psalmist – "As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more" (Psalm 103: 15-16). All my life, I think, I've known that life is short, especially the summers.

I was told a story while I was in Japan that illustrates this appreciation for the delicate and fleeting nature of existence. It was told to me by an old man, Fujiwara Kyodai, who took care of the old house where we met for church in Kawanishi. There was a morning glory growing by the porch of the house and one day, when we were eating our lunch on the porch with Fujiwara Kyodai, I told him how much I admired it. He then explained mono no aware to me with a story that centers on a haiku written in the 18th century:

 朝顔 に              Asagao ni

釣瓶 とられて   tsurube torarete
もらい 水           morai mizu

Translated it means "The morning glory has taken the well bucket; I must go and ask a neighbor for water." The story tells of a girl who went to the well to get water, but found that a morning glory had wrapped a tendril around the bucket handle. Rather than disturb it, she chose to leave it and instead walked to a neighboring house to borrow water. I liked the story, and I understood the feeling it described. Fujiwara Kyodai paid me the compliment of telling me he thought I was a totemo nihonteki na hito, very much like a Japanese person.

The Japanese love morning glories and so do I. In Japanese they are called asagao, 朝顔 "morning faces" because each blossom only opens for a single morning. Like sakura 桜 cherry blossoms, and koyo 紅葉 autumn leaves, they symbolize the ephemeral nature of life. 

How morning glories came to Japan is something of a botanical mystery. Based on genetic analysis, they seem to have originated in Central and South America and somehow were transported in pre-Columbian times to Africa, then India, and then to China, and were brought to Japan during the Heian period around the 8th century A.D. Over the centuries the Japanese have developed many beautiful varieties. 

The famous Morning Glories screen by Suzuki Kiistu (1796-1858) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I try to grow morning glories in my garden every year, some years successfully, but usually not. They are tender plants and never seem to have time to bloom before frost kills them. This year I planted the seeds of two varieties in seed trays extra early, Heavenly Blue and Flying Saucers. In June I transplanted them to a trellis arch out in the garden. At first they seemed spindly and sad, but they have recovered and are now vigorously vining all over the arch. But I haven't had a single flower yet. There are some buds forming and I go out every day to check on them.

My morning glory vines with lots of leaves, but no flowers yet.

The rain stopped around 2:30 P.M., but the sky stayed gray and heavy. The afternoon was muggy, 78° with the humidity at 90%. I love weather like that. I went out and got a little work done before the rain returned. The next wave of rain came through at 4:00 P.M. It was so light that I kept on working through it for an hour until it started to pour again. That was it for getting any work done. We had three more downpours through the late afternoon. By evening, the temperature had started to drop and ground fog was forming in low-lying places.

Wednesday was a day of Big Changes. Enos Keim and his tree cutting crew arrived at noon and went to work on the bigger tree closest to the house. They brought a huge chipper, a skid steer, and several different chain saws. The ground was soft from all the rain and I cringed as their equipment tore up the yard, but it couldn't be helped. They took down the tree, cut it in pieces, chipped the limbs, cut the branches into firewood, and hauled the big butt log into the wild garden at the front of the yard and dumped it. It rained off and on while they worked, but they kept on going. After they left, we stacked the firewood and tidied up as best we could.

Mabel and Florence on the stump.

The house looks so exposed!

Reduced to bits and pieces.

The pile of chipped branches.

Firewood.

They came back Thursday morning and took down the second tree. It was not as big and the work went quicker. It will take me a long time to get used to the trees not being there. It feels like the beginning of a new era for the house. It looks so exposed. There will be benefits to the trees being gone. We'll get more sunshine in the house. With the shade gone, moss and algae won't grow on the roof and siding of the house. I won't have to clean leaves out of the rain gutters. Even so, I was sad we had to remove them. In my usual fashion, I imagined the ghosts of all the people who sat in the shade of those trees over the century of their existence – great grandparents, grandparents, and all my family, kinfolk, and friends.

The house without trees, view one.

The house without trees, view two.

Kurt had them save some logs to cut into lumber.

When they finished with our trees, they went next door to the Foster's and cut down ten spruce trees. Some of the trees were dead. Some were too close to the house. Some were where they are going to build a garage. So many changes.

Cutting down trees at Foster's.

Chase and his children left to go home later that morning. With their departure, the Shilligs have no guests for a few days. More are expected this week and the summer party will continue.

In the afternoon, after Stacey and Hannah got home from work, we went up the road to pick blueberries and raspberries. We have blueberries and raspberries on our property, but they are not quite ready yet. Just a mile up the road, they are ready and we picked a good batch of them.

Russell, Florence, and Mabel picking blueberries.

The final haul.

After dinner, I spent some time stacking firewood. The woodpile by the house is full, so I had to take it out to the pavilion. That makes for slow work, loading the wagon on the mower, driving across the property, and unloading it. We will work on stacking and splitting wood for a long time. When it was growing dark, I stopped for the day and took a walk around the property. It looks so different with the trees gone – here and at Foster's. Our front yard is a mess with the lawn ripped up and the parts of the wild garden flattened by the heavy equipment.  I'll do what I can to tidy it, but it will take a long time for it to recover, probably into next year.

July gave us a perfect summer day as a departing gift. Friday was beautiful – sunny and hot enough to satisfy my craving for summer heat. I worked all morning in the garden. The flowerbed that runs along the front of the house was a mess. It was overgrown with grass and goldenrod. I cut it all down to the ground and covered it with landscape cloth. After that, I changed garden gears and switched to mowing. I can't mow most of the front yard because it still has piles of wood all over it. I mowed the back yard and part of the Foster's next door. By then it was too hot to work, so I came in for a siesta. Toward evening when the day had mellowed, I resumed work on the front flowerbed. I hauled wood chip mulch, which we now have in abundance, from the pile at the edge of the wild garden and covered the landscape cloth. It looks very tidy. I plan to plant some azalea bushes there, but that won't happen until next year.

Putting down the landscape cloth.

Covered with wood chips.

My final job of the day was trimming the garlic that had been curing in the woodshed. We had a small, but very nice crop this year. I need to plant more next time.

This year's garlic crop.

Yesterday we went to the Frosty Hollow Herb and Craft Fair over in Sweden Valley. It's a nice little fair with vendors selling all sorts of arts, crafts, honey, maple products, and other things. We walked through the booths and bought a few items. Mable took a pony ride. 

The Herb Fair.

Walking through the fair.

Mable's pony ride.

When we got back, most of the family went down to the Foster's to do some metal detecting and play all afternoon. I did more mowing next door. Later, Stacey helped me harvest some onions. The sweet Walla Wallas were ready. We pulled them up, tied them in bundles and hung them in the woodshed to cure.

Digging for buried treasure?

June and Mabel posing on one of the four-wheelers at Foster's.

A wagon full of Walla Wallas.

Hanging to cure in the woodshed.

Yesterday was International Mahjong Day, so Stacey, Miriam, Hannah, and I played a few rounds in the evening while the children did their Saturday-Going-to-Church-Tomorrow baths.

This morning when I checked my family chat, I saw that Daniel and his family and my niece Elizabeth have both been evacuated from their homes in Spokane because of the fires burning there. Daniel and his family went to stay with Raven's family. Elizabeth went to my sister Nancy's house in Deer Park, which is still out of harm's way. We are praying for their safety. Here, on the other hand, we are under a flood watch. It's been raining since last night, but because our house sits atop a knoll, we don't have to worry about the streams around us reaching us if they flood. But all the lower elevations do. Crazy weather.

Fires all over and that blue patch in the east is flood warning.

We are home from church. Our attendance today was very light. Our stake president and his family paid us a surprise visit. It was nice to have them bolster our numbers. Today is Fast Sunday and we are waiting for lunch to break our fast. We're having grilled cheese sandwiches with grilled mustard onions and tomato soup. It smells wonderful. The rest of the day we will have to occupy ourselves with  indoor activities. The rain doesn't look like it's going to let up any time soon. The week ahead will be busy with the grandchildren here, Rachel and Hazel rejoining us midweek and new guests arriving next door. The weather looks variable. I have hopes it will allow me to get some much needed work done in the aftermath of the tree cutting. And it's August already.