After having a houseful of family for a week, things seemed very quiet last week with just a few of us here. Tosh arrived to stay with us for the week while he did some work, but he was gone most of the time and when he was in the house he was very quiet. The week was mostly warm and wet, we had a few hours of sunshine, but nearly every day we had rain and often a thunderstorm to go with it. It reminded me of the rainy season in Japan (tsuyu in Japanese). These are fragrant days when the air is warm and heavy. On warm and humid days there are more water molecules in the air to bind and carry smells to our noses. With our humidity ranging from 75% to 99% all week, the world smelled wonderful. Right now the linden tree is in full bloom and its fragrance is intoxicating. There are other smells drifting in the heavy air – the vanilla aroma of milkweed and cut grass, the sharp smell of mint in my herb garden, the musky odor of tomato plants as I brush against them while weeding, and the sweet perfume of the lilies that carries as far as twenty yards across the garden. I know many people dislike warm, humid days, but I love them.
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| Tsuyu in kanji, it means "plum rain" because it comes when the plums are ripe. |
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| One of the milkweed patches in my yard with the linden tree behind it. |
On Monday, one of the days it didn’t rain, I mowed the orchard, something I do twice a year, once when the orchard grass has bloomed and before it turns brown – which was now, and then again in early fall before most of the apples are ripe. It’s a dirty job. Cutting grass that’s almost four feet tall isn’t easy. I once thought I would scythe it down and even bought a scythe, but using it was too strenuous and now the scythe sits on the back porch as an expensive decoration. Maybe one of my children or grandchildren can take it up someday. Instead, I mowed with our old reliable Cub Cadet with the blades set on the highest setting. Grass flew everywhere as I mowed. Mice and voles fled before me and birds followed after me to pick in the cut grass for bugs. By the time I was done, I looked half scarecrow with grass stuck in my hair and plastered all over my clothes.
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| The mowed orchard. |
Monday morning while taking my morning walk through the garden, I discovered that a deer (I think it was just one – I only saw one set of tracks) had been through in the night and had eaten the tops off of some of my beets and chard. On Tuesday morning, I found it had returned and finished off most of the rest of them. I sprinkled cayenne pepper on the pitiful remains, hoping the deer won’t like it and the plants will regrow. Later in the week the deer came back and ate the tops off of all my green beans. I had to buy more cayenne powder for the beans. I hope that deer doesn’t like spicy food. It’s infuriating to put so much time and effort into planting and caring for a garden just to have it become a casual snack for a deer. Kurt has also reported seeing a woodchuck over near the Blake house and another up above the sheep pasture, but so far they have not come into the gardens. They’d better stay away. So many pests to plague us!
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| Beets and chard after the deer paid a visit. |
All this wet weather makes the garden, and the gardener, happy. Warmth and light and rain in the right proportions makes things grow vigorously. Plants that puttered along through the early days of summer like zucchini, cucumbers, and pumpkins have suddenly burst into rapid growth. It seems they add a foot or more a day. The nightshade vegetables, tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes, love the moisture and heat and are thriving. The runner beans are blooming. The cabbages are starting to form heads. The basil is tall and fragrant and ready to be made into pesto.
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| The pumpkin patch. |
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| Cucumbers and zucchini. |
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| Peppers in the pepper box. |
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| Basil in the pepper box. |
On Tuesday afternoon I harvested my garlic. After pulling it all up, I realized immediately that I didn’t grow enough. Next year I’ll plant more, maybe double what I planted this year. It is now curing in the woodshed. It will be ready to trim and store in a few weeks. We eat a lot of garlic.
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| Freshly pulled garlic. |
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| Garlic curing in the woodshed. |
The flower garden is shifting now to the high summer flowers. The poppies are winding down and instead of their bright petals, they are showing off their seed pods now. I don’t let all of them go to seed. If I did, I’d have nothing but poppies in the flowerbeds. As they are blooming, I tie a bit of yarn on the stems of the plants I find most desirable and collect seed from them to plant next year. Some pods I let ripen to use the seed in baking. With the poppies fading, it’s time now for other flowers to shine. The coneflowers (Echinacea), balloon flowers (Platycodon) and tall phlox (Phlox paniculata) have begun to bloom. The bee balms (Monarda) are in full flower. The sweet peas (Lathyrus odoratus) are blooming and I love to pick bouquets of them to bring into the house. There are still larkspur and cornflowers and nigella, but they will soon be done. Then there will be zinnias and salvia, day lilies and sunflowers.
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| The long border in mid-July |
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| The first phlox blooming. |
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| Bee balm. |
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| A bouquet of sweet peas. |
Right now one of the dominant flower blooming in my garden is creeping bellflower (Campanula rapunculoides). I have a love/hate relationship with this flower. It was already growing in what remained of my aunts’ garden when we moved here. Along with pink phlox and some peonies, they are the last remnants of that old garden. Not knowing what it was, I let it grow unchecked for a few years, but soon discovered how aggressively invasive it is. I have been trying to eradicate it ever since. It isn’t easy to get rid of. It has a deep root and it spreads by root and seed. I try to dig it out, but never get it all. And, unfortunately, it is pretty when it blooms. The patches that I didn’t pull up, bloom in mid July and when I see them, I think that they are lovely and since nothing else is blooming there, I let them flower planning to dig them out later. I never am diligent enough, and some of them always escape destruction to bloom another year. They have migrated to the wild edges of the yard and I let them go there, but my battle with them in the long border is now in its second decade.
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| A patch of creeping bellflower. |
In the wild parts of the yard and along the roads there are mallows and trefoil, chicory and Queen Anne’s lace and the first of the early goldenrod is in bloom. The big thistles, beloved by goldfinches and the Scots, are blooming now. Many people don’t like thistles, but I do. I always allow a few to grow and bloom in the untended corners of the yard. The prickly flowers are beautiful and when the seeds are ripe, I love to see the goldfinches collect the down and harvest the seeds. When the Pennsylvania Dutch (Deutsch) arrived in America, the American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) reminded them of the European Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis) so they applied their word, distlefink “thistle finch,” to it. It was an appropriate name because the American Goldfinch’s life cycle is synchronized with the thistles. They wait to nest until later in the summer when the thistle seeds are mature and use the fluffy down to line their nests. When their young hatch, thistle seed is a main component of their diet. The Pennsylvania Dutch use the distlefink on their hex signs and in their fraktur art as a symbol of good luck.
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| A thistle in my yard. |
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| American goldfinch (not my photo). |
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| European goldfinch (not my photo). |
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| A distlefink hex sign. |
Tuesday in the late afternoon a tremendous storm roared through here. Before it arrived, the air was still and very warm and muggy. We stood in the yard and watched the storm approach. The sky grew very dark. As the first rain began to fall, we ran onto the back porch just as it let loose. The wind raged and trees bent under its force. The rain fell in sheets. The rain was so heavy that the gutters on the house could not keep up with it and water poured off the eaves like a waterfall. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed. It was very impressive – the biggest storm we’ve had so far this summer. It dropped two inches of rain on us before it moved on. I love summer thunderstorms. It rained off and on, sometimes hard, sometimes softly, on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. We’ve had over four inches fall in just one week. I’m hoping for a little dry spell tomorrow or Tuesday so I can mow the lawn.
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| Tuesday's downpour. |
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| Water pouring off the porch roof. |
On Friday our friend Otilia and her son Eric arrived from California. It is great having them here. Coming from hot and dry Southern California, they are delighted with all the rain and greenery. We went to the movies with them on Friday night. On Saturday morning we took them over to the big Amish Auction in North Bingham. The auction is held once a year to raise funds for the Amish schools and it is a big affair here. This time there were more people there than I have ever seen at this event before. Because of all the rain we’ve had, the fields around the auction barn were very muddy. We spent a couple of hours walking around, looking at the items coming up for auction. The only thing we bought was ice cream. It was delicious. On our way back from the auction, we stopped to visit our good friends Bob and Nancy Jones in West Bingham. We walked through their gardens and Bob and I had a nice long chat about raising vegetables and chickens.
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| At the Amish auction. |
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| At the Amish auction. |
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| Part of Nancy Jones's garden. |
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| Eric, Otilia, Stacey, Hannah, and me in Nancy's garden. |
Otilia is a great cook and she brought some great items to prepare for us. We were especially happy that she brought some chorizo for us. We had chorizo and eggs for breakfast on Saturday morning. That evening she made chicken mole. Because we have an abundance of eggs, I’ve asked her to make us some flan.
Church was good today. After our meetings we had a Linger Longer lunch, the first we’ve had since last March. It went well. It has stopped raining for a while and the sun is shining. I don’t know how long it will last. I’ll enjoy it while I can. On our way home from church, we discussed going on a trip to Mexico with Otilia. Her family comes from Sinaloa, but I think we’ve decided we want to go to Chiapas with her, maybe next February. That’s an adventure to look forward to. So we are home, enjoying a quiet afternoon. Later on we are going over to the Shillig’s for the evening. We have some fun things planned for the week ahead. We just have to hope the rain lets up a little. Good Sabbath.
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| After church today. |
Dan
