We had more departures and arrivals during the week. On Tuesday morning the Georgia Shilligs left. They headed west to Kirtland, Ohio, then on to Detroit to spend a day with Sarah and Tosh. After that they drove to Chicago to attend Aaron’s sister Kailie’s graduation from Navy boot camp. Then they headed back to Georgia with an overnight stop in Nashville to see the Thayns.
On Wednesday some friends from our California days stopped here for the night – two sisters, Linda Ann Ta’Ala (nee McBride) and Elma Leta McBride, and their nephew Jacob White (whose mother is Gloria McBride White). The McBrides were one of the stalwart families in the Sylmar Ward and our good friends when we lived there. Linda Ann just finished a mission in South Carolina and she and Elma Leta and Jacob are on a cross country road trip. They went to Gettysburg on Tuesday then headed up to spend Wednesday in Palmyra. They arrived here on Wednesday evening and spent the night. Thursday morning they headed west with plans to visit almost every state between here and Utah. It was nice to sit and talk and get caught up on what’s been happening in our families during the past 30 years.
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| Good-bye to the McBride clan. |
I think that the McBride’s visit has finished up our expected summer visitors. We had a good run this year with lots of family and friends. Next summer is the Rathfon Reunion which will be held down in Perry County, so we will get to spend time with lots of family there. I hope all my Rathfon kin are planning to attend.
It continued hot and dry here all week. Heat is a relative thing, I know. The west and midwest are sizzling in the triple digits, but it’s been in the 90's here and for Potter County, that’s really hot. I think we are officially in drought conditions now. The rivers and creeks are running very low. The town of Galeton to the south of us has started to enforce water restrictions. We have our own well, and it’s a good one, so we don’t have to worry about running out of water here. Several times during the week the forecast said we had a chance for thunderstorms, but we were disappointed every time. We had a tiny bit of rain in the night on Friday, but it didn’t do much to alleviate things. I’m still watering the gardens by hand. It takes me more than an hour to do the vegetable gardens and the flower beds. The poor plants are so thirsty. I never will waste water on the lawn, so it’s a lost cause. The dry conditions have made the apples start to drop. So far I’m not worried about it. Most of the trees needed thinning anyway, so I’m hoping this is natures way of relieving me of that task. If they all drop off I’ll be very sad.
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| The front yard one year ago and now. |
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| One year ago and now. |
Early Saturday morning, after our 1/10 of an inch of rain during the night, I took a walk around the yard following my usual morning route – across the front yard to the meadow, then down across the road to the beaver pond, then past the barn and up the road turning in our driveway to the gardens, out through the orchard, then back across the back yard to the front porch again. It was a beautiful morning. There was a bit of fog with the early morning sun shining through it, and everything was still wet from the rain. The fog and wet didn’t last long. As soon as the sun was up above the trees, everything got baked dry again.
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| Scenes from my Saturday morning walk. |
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| More scenes from my Saturday morning walk. |
Every year during the days of high summer, I wage a war against Japanese beetles. They usually appear about the time the hollyhocks begin to bloom and for two months or more they devour some of the choicest plants in my garden. They eat the hollyhocks and roses while still in bud, so I usually don’t get to see open flowers. They eat the leaves of my grapevines, blackberries, and raspberries. And they eat the fragrant flowers of my linden tree. This year, I waited for the pests to show up. The hollyhocks began to bloom and there were no beetles – the flowers were perfect. The roses started on their second round of flowers and still there were no beetles. I was starting to think that by some miracle we’d avoided the plague this year. Then last week I started finding a beetle or two every day, never more than five or six, mostly on the roses. “I can deal with this,” I said smugly to myself as I killed them. On Monday the linden tree began to bloom. It’s flowers are inconspicuous, little pale yellow cluster that dangle on long stems. They smell like heaven and the bees love them. So do the Japanese beetles. They showed up in their hundreds to eat the linden flowers. I tried to kill the ones I could reach, but the tree is big and most of the flowers are out of my reach. Now I’m afraid that when the linden flowers are gone, the beetles will move on to other plants, most likely the grape leaves, which are sheltering a bumper crop of grapes. If I weren’t a devoted organic gardener, I would fog every beetle infested surface with something deadly. But, alas . . .
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| Perfect hollyhocks this year. |
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| No Japanese beetles. |
Canning season is officially underway now. A friend brought us a bunch of cucumbers and I turned them into pickles. I picked another batch of black currants and also a batch of gooseberries. I’ll have to have a jelly and jam day soon.
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| Ripe gooseberries. |
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| Black currants. |
Hannah is home now. We picked her up at the Buffalo airport yesterday evening. She had a good year at BYU-Idaho. Now she’s home until January to make money for next year’s college. She got her old job back, which is nice. It’s great to have her home again.
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| Picking up Hannah at the airport. |
It looks like things will stay hot here next week. The forecasters are giving us a 50% chance for a thunderstorm followed by heavy rain tonight. I hope they’re right for once. We’ll see what happens.
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| The queen of my summer garden - fragrant lilies. |
