Summer Days are for…

…Little Bear and Mama Bear to spend time together, making mugs and mug shots, and realizing we are growing up…

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…renewing our supply of zucchini relish, a family tradition ever since Micah copied down the recipe from his Auntie on a summer’s visit many moons ago…

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[ It is sweet and oh-so-yummy, especially on hotdogs. (Though we really must find another use for it, since we seldom eat a hotdog now that the kids are grown…) And it really did help put a dint in our surplus of zucchini! ]

 

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…savoring our own ‘back yard’. People come in their yachts to visit Nancy’s Bakery.  We have but to ride a hilly 13 miles to sit on the patio overlooking the harbor. Legendary cinnamon buns round out the ride as we carbo-load for the return trip home.  Sometimes the best part of an effort made is the reveling in its accomplishment. Other times…it’s the cinnamon buns!

–LS

Taste and see that the Lord is good—SO good!

A few of my favorite…Summery Thingz

 

  • IMG_20140712_094529350_HDRMellow mornings when the sun slants through the blinds turning everything to gold…

 

  • Quiet afternoons spent out back reading in the sun, (or dappled shade). Hmm… I’m sure I heard a bear, but I can’t see him. Can you?P1150556
  • … or watering the jungle that my garden has become

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  • Fresh cut flowers from my very own garden…especially the ones planted there from seed.  Miracles of a sort.

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  • Homegrown cherries!  We got a handful this year from our young tree that dukes it out with the deer every spring.IMG_20140708_104656096 And another handful from the wild cherry tree that sprang up in the old compost pile…IMG_20140708_104838688_HDR

 

  • Making Currant Jelly from our own bush…

IMG_20140709_132510645 to go on hot homemade bread from home ground wheat. Next time we’ll try grinding our own homegrown wheat!

We just discovered we could thresh it ourselves!  (Thanks to Rachel’s perseverance!)IMG_20140709_123956369_HDRIMG_20140709_150431401

 

  • Getting to make one more childhood cake, for the 19 year old that loves teddy bears still…

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  • Evening bike rides when the sun has simmered down and there’s no rush to be anywhere…or to beat any KOM’s (‘King of the Mountain’ on STRAVA).  Time to stop at the wharf and strike up acquaintances while the ferry comes in over the shimmering sea…

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  • And did I say FLOWERS?! more fresh cut flowers?  brought inside to celebrate summer (and a birthday)?!!

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  • Ahh and blueberries.  I love picking blueberries, especially with daughters.  It’s been extraordinarily and wonderfully SUNNY and HOT this month and the blueberries have loved it as much as I.  So in record time this morning we had our gallons of berries (from a local U Pick)…

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…and in just a little more time we had a pie!

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We weren’t the only ones looking forward to a bite.  As we were happily downing pie a la mode, who should we spy through the screen door, emerging from the woods out back, but a hungry bear.  He must have sniffed it through the open door and come venturing to see if there was any for him!

P1150590 He seems to have taken up residence in our little wood this year, but I generally yell and flail before I think to catch a picture. This time, before we scared him away, I popped out the door for a picture!

P1150593 Fortunately, he was more afraid of me than I of him. I got my picture but he got no pie.

Ahh, the wonderful business of summer!

–LS

 

There are poppies and there are POPPIES…

We were going away and still they hadn’t opened…P1140974

Now I’ve seen poppies bloom before…lots of red ones generally.  These are blooming in my garden now:P1140986

Some more exotic than others…P1150427

My old neighbor used to shake her head and wonder why I wanted to grow weeds.  Poppies were the undesirables back in the farm fields of Italy.

P1140982 I have always loved them…They’re so delicate, like tissue wrapping paper and every year a fresh set volunteer…

But this year an extra jumbo plant arose in the hot west-facing tomato bed and grew like Jack’s beanstalk!  I hadn’t planted it, at least not intentionally, but there it was, with the biggest buds ever, just waiting to burst.

And we had to leave on our trip before she delivered…P1140972 (sigh) I was afraid I’d miss all her blooms before we got back to see…

A wedding intervened, and a 5th birthday for Grandson #1 and 3,000 kilometers of highway (more on that next time) before we could get home again to have a look…

First thing in the morning I scampered out with my camera to see how the garden had fared.

The roses were lovely

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The Cranesbill Geranium blooms profuseP1150448

But the Poppies were outrageous!P1150430P1150436P1150442

Extravagant tousle-headed beauties still blooming in profusion.

Now those are POPPIES!  I love it!

–LS

On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate. Ps.145:5