Coping with August

Sometimes at this time of year, I fall into a sort of mild midsummer funk. That’s how my week began. Monday morning, although it was bright and beautiful, I felt listless and grouchy. I had lots of work to do, but no energy, mental or physical, to undertake it. It was the last day of July and that made me sad. I always start to feel the too-swift passage of time more keenly in August. I was tired and I hadn’t even begun the day. I had to do something to invigorate me before launching into anything. I needed a therapy session with Bach.

From the moment I first encountered the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, I felt a deep kinship with him. His music spoke to my spirit. Listening to classical radio as a teenager, anytime a piece by Bach came on, I knew it was him before the announcer named him. But after high school, when I finally bought a stereo and started collecting records, for some reason, I didn’t buy any Bach. The first recording of Bach’s music I ever purchased came later and on a whim. It was 1981 and at the time, I was exploring the music of Debussy, visiting the record stores around Los Angeles, collecting a specific set of recordings of his piano music played by Walter Gieseking. I remember the day – I was in a record store in Panorama City, on Van Nuys Boulevard – I don’t remember its name. I tried to look it up, but the San Fernando Valley no longer looks like it did when I lived there, so I can’t find any information on it now. Anyway, I’d found a few Debussy/Gieseking recordings and was walking past the bargain bin when something caught my eye – a boxed set of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Book One (BWV 846-869), played by Sviatoslav Richter. This recording, a Quintessence budget release on three vinyl discs (this was just before the advent of CDs), was on sale for just $10. I couldn’t resist. I bought it, took it home, went immediately to my room, put the records on my stereo, put on my headphones, and was swept away into one of the formative musical experiences of my life. I connected with the music in a way that has never left me. From that moment to this, there is a part of me that needs that music. It feeds my brain, lifts my spirit, and makes me happy. I have always felt that somehow Bach wrote it for me. I have often wondered if in the pre-mortal existence he and I were friends. I like to think we were. And of all the recordings of The Well-Tempered Clavier that I’ve listened to over the years, Richter’s performance is the one I love most. So I spent an hour and fifty-four minutes on Monday morning enveloped in that wondrous music. Thus renewed, I went out to face the day.

Johann Sebastian Bach and Sviatoslav Richter.

My original Well-Tempered Clavier purchase.

If you’ve never experienced The Well-Tempered Clavier, I highly recommend it. Find a good recording of it, sit still in a place where you won’t be interrupted, relax, and let the music carry you away. In 1722, Bach wrote a set of twenty-four preludes and fugues in every key starting with C Major and on to B Minor to support the new method of tuning keyboards called equal temperament. Bach and his contemporaries in the Baroque Period believed that each musical key had a particular effect on our emotions – major keys were happy, minor keys were sad, different keys caused feelings of spirituality, tenderness, anger, grief, joy, etc. The preludes and fugues of The Well-Tempered Clavier demonstrate this beautifully. The Well-Tempered Clavier was circulated in manuscript form during Bach’s lifetime, but printed copies were not made until 1801, over fifty years after his death. Any serious student of the piano will encounter The Well-Tempered Clavier at some point.

Sviatoslav Richter (1915-1997) was a Russian/Ukranian pianist. He was mostly self-taught. He did not begin his formal piano instruction until he was 22 years old. He is regarded as one of the greatest pianists of all time, celebrated for his introspective and powerful interpretations, especially of the music of Bach. He performed this recording in 1969 and played the entire set from memory over several days.

[Here is a link to a performance on YouTube by Sviatoslav Richter recorded in 1972 and 1973 at Schloß Klessheim, Salzburg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EnosoXeTWI. It’s Book One and Two, so it’s over two hours long. Book One ends at 1:54:12.]

The first sunflower of summer.

So after Bach, I spent the late morning and on into the afternoon on Monday pulling up spent plants in the flowerbeds. It felt a bit brutal. I left empty patches in my wake, but things were looking shabby and I’d rather have empty than shabby. I also had to prop up a lot of plants that were top heavy and falling over. As usual, I planted the dahlias too close to each other. They looked good through June and mid-July, but when they hit their prime and began to flower, they collapsed onto each other. They are so densely intertwined, I can’t stake them without mangling them. It’s a mistake I make every year. Every year I plant them farther apart, but never far enough. Next year I’m going to plant them in a long row out in the big garden and set them three feet apart and put cages around them to hold them up. When I finished working in the flowerbeds, I mowed the lawn. Around 4:00, it looked like it was going to rain, so I finished my outdoor work and came indoors. It only rained a little, just enough to make the world fresh and fragrant.

Dahlia beds.

These days, when I take my morning walks, I like to go on the meadow path that passes through a sumac thicket. When we moved here twenty-three years ago, the yard had been much neglected. My great aunts, Esther and Eleanor, were not able to do much in the yard for years due to their age. Our first spring here, we did some drastic landscaping. One of the first things we did was remove a large patch of sumac that covered the front of the house. It wasn’t easy. We cut it down and then wrapped chains around the roots and hooked the chains to our old Suburban and tore them from the ground. For years after that I battled sumac in various parts of the yard. There are two species of sumac that grow here, Staghorn (Rhus typhina)and Smooth (Rhus glabra). The kind on our property is Smooth Sumac. Aunt Esther and Eleanor always called it “shoo-make.” Over the years, as I stopped mowing parts of the yard, allowing nature to take over, a colony of sumac sprang up on the steep bank along the road at the front of our property by the barn. At first I tried to control it, limiting its spread, but gave up after a few years and decided to just enjoy it for what it is. And what it is is a beautiful plant. I’ve come to appreciate its tropical-ish lushness, its vigor, and its color. It makes a green jungle on the bank from late spring through summer and in the fall it turns gorgeous shades of vibrant red. I still don’t allow it to grow in any of the cultivated areas of the yard – it tries. But it can do what it wants on the front bank and in the meadow. Staghorn Sumac, which is abundant here along the roadsides, bears edible berries that can be made into a lemony drink. There is a variety of sumac that grows in the Mediterranean area, Rhus coriaria, whose dried berries are used as a spice in some places. Smooth sumac also bears edible berries used to make a lemony drink, but the ones on our land have never born fruit. Maybe this year. I’d like to try it.

Path through the sumac.

Sumac on the front bank.

Staghorn sumac (top) and Smooth sumac (bottom).

Wednesday morning it was a bit chilly, 45° – not a good sign for the beginning of August. It felt autumnal when I went out on my walk and I’m not ready for that. I went out extra early so I could see the full moon before it set. It was beautiful hanging in the western sky over the orchard. The day warmed nicely after the sun came up. I went out to the big garden and picked broccoli and cauliflower and spent the rest of the morning blanching and freezing it. I brought in a dozen cucumbers. It will soon be time to make the first batch of relish. That afternoon, I dug the first new potatoes and we had them for dinner roasted with butter, garlic, and topped with a sprinkle of cheese. I also picked a couple of tender zucchinis that Stacey sliced, breaded, fried, and served with tomato sauce. Delicious. I love summer garden dinners.

The full moon Wednesday morning.

Cauliflower and broccoli.

The first new potatoes.

Strawberries.

Wednesday evening I got to have a Face Time chat with my brother and sisters. We had some family matters to discuss. It was so nice to talk to them and see their faces. It made me miss them. We so seldom get to be together. We all live so far apart from each other – North Carolina, Utah, Washington, Oregon, and Pennsylvania. And our children are even more far flung. At least technology lets us see each other now and then.

A morning walk last week.

Thursday, late in the morning, as I was working in the garden, I heard one of my favorite high summer sounds. The peepers are long silent now. The bullfrogs don’t make too much noise. The crickets have started their evening music. But the sound that I heard was a cicada buzzing somewhere high in the maple trees, a drowsy sound meant to accompany naps in the shade in a hammock. I don’t have a hammock set up and I was too busy to nap, but I stopped a moment to daydream when I heard it. I know in some places, when their 17 or 13 year life cycle arrives, cicadas make quite a noisy mess and are unpopular with the populace. Next year both broods, the 17 and 13 year, are due to emerge in places south of here. We are too far north to be affected. We just get a few of them every year, singing high in the trees on warm August afternoons. And I love it.

The new flowerbed I planted at the head of the driveway.

We live in the country, so we get to experience encounters with serious wildlife all the time – deer, foxes, bears, the occasional coyote. Some of those encounters are interesting or even charming, some are not. Recently we’ve had one of the more not charming experiences. We’ve been invaded by skunks. We started seeing one around dusk, a pretty, mostly white skunk with its plumy tail wandering around the property. Then we noticed all the holes it was digging in the lawn here and next door. That wasn’t so bad. We’ve had worse. Several times when Miriam and Hannah were coming across from the Shillig’s house to our house after dark, a skunk was at the back porch and they had to come around to the front of the house to get in. Then a skunk got into the woodshed and ripped open bags of trash. The same thing happened in the Shillig’s garage. Then we noticed that there was more than one skunk. They aren’t particularly afraid of us. I think they know we do not want to get too close and they don’t feel threatened. I’m always concerned they will find a way into the chicken coop. I’ve had skunks kill chickens in years past. Thursday night things got serious. I was headed down to the barn to do my nightly inspection and there was a skunk digging in the front yard near the upper entry to the barn, which was open. I went back inside and got the .22. I hit it with one shot and felt pretty smug that it hadn’t sprayed. I got a shovel and when I went to dispose of it, I found I was wrong, it had sprayed, I was just upwind before. I took care of it and headed back to the house. Then I saw a light out in the big garden and realized Kurt was out there. I went out to talk to him. As we stood there, we saw another skunk amble across the lawn and into the corn patch. A few moments later there was noise over by the Shillig’s back porch. They’d set a live trap earlier and when Chase and his boys and Miriam and Hannah went to check the trap, they found none in the trap, but four more skunks shuffling across the yard. When I went into the house, I realized I had a whiff of skunk about me, so I showered and threw all my clothes in the wash. My shoes still smell skunky. Chase succeeded in live trapping three and relocating them far away up in the woods somewhere. That’s six skunks so far! Four down, two to go.

The long border.

In addition to skunks, I’m battling Japanese beetles. These are their peak days and they have become a devouring horde. Every morning and sometimes in the evening I go out with my bowl of soapy water and gather them. In one sweep of the garden the other day, I tried to estimate how many I’d captured – about 1,200. And day after day, there are just as many. They are mating now, preparing to lay their eggs in the ground where they will continue the destruction as grubs until next summer. I know this is a war I will never win, but I will never stop. I love raspberries and roses too much to give up.

What Japanese beetles do to linden leaves.

One morning's worth of beetles- the bowl is full.

These are glad and dahlia days. I planted all my gladiolus and dahlias in raised beds this year, not out in the long border, two beds of glads, three of dahlias. I did that because I grew them to cut for bouquets and wanted them accessible. They are blooming now. Every few days I cut an armful of them and bring them in and Miriam arranges them in vases. I love having bouquets in the house during the high days of summer. It brings a burst of garden loveliness indoors.

Miriam arranging bouquets.

Last week we took down the peacock pen out on the edge of the orchard. It never was a successful venture. The peahen and the only chick she hatched died last year. The peacock was never happy living out there. He prefers the company of chickens. So we took down the fence and rolled it up and I mowed down the tall grass that had grown up there. I will plant some fruit trees there in the spring.

Where the peacock pen used to be.

I’ve been working on fortifying the fence around the chicken yard, making it stronger against the (I hate to mention it) winter winds and snow that will come. I used more old wooden snow fencing that I get from Stacey’s employers. On Friday Miriam and I drove out to one of their barns and got two rolls of it. We used recycled metal posts from the defunct peacock pen to support it. I like a good strong fence.

My walk this morning, out in the corn patch.

My walk this morning, home.

My walk this morning, the long border.

It was cool and a little foggy this morning when I took my morning walk, a quiet and lovely summer Sabbath morning. Church was good today. It was Fast Sunday and our testimony meeting went well. We are home now and I’m hungry and ready to break my fast. We’re having a light lunch. I don’t know what it is, but it’s taking too long. This evening we are going to Shillig’s for a Sabbath Soiree and to say good-bye to Chase and his boys. They are leaving for home early tomorrow morning. Kale and her family left on Thursday. Things will be quiet here for a while, but we have more family coming in two weeks at both houses, so it will be lively again. And August advances apace.