Sundial of the Seasons

 July 28th and 29th

Sundial of the Seasons

"Dusk comes somewhat earlier now, the Summer Solstice already a month behind us and the daylight slowly diminishing. Time's are unchanged, but the landmarks shift even as the familiar star patterns shift in the night skies. Summer passes.

You see the change in the way the shadows fall. You see it in the trees, the subtle difference in the color of their leaves, in the ripening seed heads of the wild grasses, in young acorns on the oaks. Pasture roses fade. Black-eyed Susan and bouncing Bet flourish at the roadside. Queen Anne's lace is frothy white where daisies frosted the fence row a few weeks ago. Milkweed blossoms fade.

You hear the change in the bird calls, with fewer songs of ecstasy and more parental scolding. The wood thrush, the dove and the whippoorwill dominate the dusk. You hear it most decisively, when you pause to listen, in the insect sounds, for time has special dimensions for chitin-clad life that is granted only one Summer's duration. Bees are busier, wasps are more truculent, harvest flies more sibilant in the heat of the afternoon. Beetles click in haste, ants scurry, dragonflies dart on rattling wings.

And in the dusk, when the sphinx moths haunt the flower garden, crickets stridulate, mosquitoes hum, late lunas and other light-mad moths bang the window screens. August and katydids are just over the horizon, and Autumn is not far behind them. The shadow of time moves slowly but surely across the sundial of the seasons."

Hal Borland

"Sundial of the Seasons"

July 1962

Best first day ever

Yesterday morning I got up early, showered, dressed, and, like a good citizen, showed up early for jury duty. We have a new courthouse in Florence County and it's quite nice, especially the landscaping. A whole bunch of young crepe myrtle trees have been planted. The flowers are the exact same shade of pale lavender as the ones in my yard.

I'm fairly comfortable in a courthouse setting thanks to my two years of serving as a Guardian Ad Litem for kids in foster care. I enjoy hearing how the different judges run their courts. They're almost always old white guys who love to hear themselves talk, but usually  they've had a patina of kindness, humor, and dignity about them. The judge yesterday fit that pattern. 

To begin with all the potential jurors stood up and gave their place of employment and position, marital status, and spouse's occupation. Several of us worked in the medical field in some capacity; Florence has two major hospital systems that provide thousands of jobs. After we were done the judge made a little speech thanking everyone who worked in the medical field in whatever capacity for their hard work, risk, and sacrifices over the past year. Then he said how worrying the Delta variant of Covid is, and how "South Carolina isn't doing the right thing to help bring an end to this pandemic". I was so excited that he was basically promoting vaccines from the bench! (We were all issued N-95 masks upon arrival and expected to wear them the whole time). Then later he started talking about jury responsibilities, and how no one really likes jury duty, but "in my experience South Carolinians are cheerful about doing their civic duty. I've often thought, that as one of the original 13 colonies, we have a great deal of respect for the English court system that we adopted from the beginning. With all it's faults, it's still the greatest system of justice that has ever been invented." 

Whew. Well. Moving on.  

I wasn't picked for the jury. We were all issued temporary debit cards where I'll be paid for my one day of service and also for my mileage. Altogether I think I'll make about $10 or so. 

Ah, well. It was still better than going back to work on the first day. Instead, midafternoon I went to Marian's house and went swimming.

BEST FIRST DAY EVER!

And when I got to work today for my actual first day this year, a couple of the other office people said, "Thank god you're back! We couldn't get anything done yesterday for answering the phone and dealing with visitors at the front door! We were going to come kidnap you if you didn't show up today!"

Knowing they had to do my job all day yesterday was almost as sweet as the cool, cool water of the pool I was swimming in while they did it.

Thursday afternoon

It's a typical late-July day in South Carolina. Hot and humid, with hazy skies that are especially thick looking today because (believe it or not) smoke in the atmosphere from the wildfires 3000 miles away has reached us. Except for a quick early morning walk with George, watering the garden, and a late afternoon dash to the grocery store (in the un-air conditioned truck, ugh!) I've been hibernating in the house with the a/c most of the day.

While outside watering the garden this morning, I saw a beautiful and new-to-me butterfly. I believe it was a Red-Spotted Purple, and I wanted to get a picture of it to show you. Instead, here's an image I found online:

    

                                                Limenitis arthemis astyanax

I had plenty of opportunity to take a picture of my particular specimen, but I decided to spare you. He was perched on top of a giant pile of dog turds and was not moving.* Apparently this is a thing butterflies do sometimes. But anyway, you're welcome. 

In other garden news, today I harvested my 80th individual tomato! I've only had a gram scale to weigh them with (don't ask) so I haven't totaled up the number of ounces or pounds, but I believe I've had at least 40 pounds of tomatoes. As soon as the season ends I'll total everything up, but in the meantime it's 80 fruits, approximately 40 pounds and counting. Most of my plants are still growing and setting fruit. This is almost unheard of in this area. 

Another 1+ pound Mr. Stripey.  

Mr. Stripey, sliced. I love the colors. It's a mild, sweet tomato.

Mr. Stripey and a couple of others are taller than me, now.

And my bananas! Have I mentioned that my bananas are blowing up? They're also taller than me these days.

Last but not least, I had to share a picture of Marco for all his fans out there. Here he is posing beside one of the bananas. He had just flown a circle around the porch and landed there. If we didn't have screen to stop him, I assure you he'd be out in the wild right now. 

*Doesn't this seem like some sort of allegory for all of Life?

Slip slip slipping away

It's the last week of my summer vacation. They always goes by quickly, but this year takes the cake. First we had to work an extra two weeks in June to make up for a pandemic related late start that year, and now we're returning two weeks earlier than usual as we begin a new modified "year round" schedule. That cut the summer shorter than normal by a full month. 

So here I am in the middle of my last week of freedom, and every day I have that Sunday afternoon feeling deep inside. Just mild dread and anxiety that I'm trying my best to ignore. The days are ticking by fast but I'm hoping to do a couple more fun things before this week is out, things to take my mind off returning to work.

Here was my project this past weekend: salsa!

I had a ton of mixed tomato varieties that had come ripe all at once and needed to be used up. This salsa is so delicious that I might make another batch when/if I get another big harvest of tomatoes. Some of the plants are over seven feet tall now and most still have plenty of green fruit. This afternoon I plan to pickle and can some sliced jalapenos--my garden is still pumping out loads of peppers. 

If we get another hot and sunny day between now and Sunday, I may be able to go swimming at my friend's house. I'd like to spend a little more time in the sun this week, the vitamin D seems to boost my mood. Even if I don't go swimming, I'll try to spend plenty of time outdoors just the same.

Oh, and I have jury selection next Monday to look forward to--who knows, I may end up with jury duty and miss the first week of work altogether! That would be an interesting way to start the year. We shall see. 

What are you up to this week?

Tempted

 Do  you guys remember this cat? The one that comes out to be petted sometimes when we're walking George?

We've recently learned that it's a boy cat named Simon. Simon is the sweetest cat ever. He runs out when we walk past, and will stand up on two legs to be petted. He craves love and attention and we're happy to stop and give him both! 

Today Gregg met Simon's owner at the pet store when she came in to buy fish. Turns out that the few cats we see hanging out at her house are strays that she got spayed/neutered and feeds, but she doesn't really consider them hers. She asked Gregg if we wanted Simon!

How I wish we could say yes. He would probably follow us home with very little encouraging, and we love him. (Especially Gregg). But I'm terribly allergic, George barely tolerates us petting Simon, and to top it all off we have a bird in the house. One morning we saw Simon trying to kill a dove. George would be a danger to Simon who would be a danger to Marco. And unless Simon were an outside cat, I'd be in the ER having breathing treatments.

But it sure is a nice thought all the same.

Mid-July harvest, and a garden pest.

My garden continues to flourish! The tomatoes are really starting to come ripe now, as you can see in the following photos. Tomorrow I'm thinking of making some homemade salsa to try to use up some of the extras, because we're about to be overwhelmed. We're also still getting loads of peppers, the occasional cucumber, and yesterday the very first cantaloupe!

Our counter runneth over.

A perfect Brandywine on the left, and the biggest tomato I've gotten so far this year on the right--a Red Beefsteak weighing in at just under a pound.

I love the gorgeous color on the Mr. Stripey. It's the big yellow one on the left with the pink blush. They look so pretty sliced, and the flavor is sweet and slightly fruity. We've had a nice assortment of varieties to try this year!

So I've had to deal with a few minor pests in my garden, small hornworms and some kind of little black worms that love to chew on unripe tomatoes and damage them. I've been able to keep both under control with close observation and hand picking, and I thought I'd make it through the season mostly unscathed. Well, lo and behold, the real pest and danger to my tomatoes lives inside the house:

I take all my tomatoes straight to the dining room table after I pick them for weighing and recording in my garden journal. Yesterday I turned my back for less than a minute and you can see for yourself what happened!

Here it comes!

Yesterday afternoon our next door neighbor on the right, Heather, had a landscaping company out to do some work on her property. There used to be a nasty, thorny, wild hedge between our yards that kept coming back and needed to be dug out by the roots, as well as some large shrubs that needed pruning. There was also a big dead tree right beside our driveway that we worried was going to fall on our house or cars one day. Heather had been worried about it too, apparently, so she asked the landscapers if they could cut it down while they were out there doing the other work. 

I happened to be watching out of the window in the den when they started preparing to take down the tree. Three young guys wrapped a big chain around the trunk of the tree and braced themselves to pull it down in the direction they wanted it to fall while a fourth went to sawing at the other side with a very small chain saw. 

I turned to my husband. "This looks like a straight up, good ol' boy, hold my beer y'all kind of operation to me."  We both laughed. 

Then approximately ten seconds later I found myself gasping, "HERE IT COMES!!!" as this was happening:

Nice work, fellas.

How we spent the 4th

 It was a nice long weekend here. We got some work done in the yard and garden, spent extra time with Marco on the porch, took George for nice walks around the neighborhood, and grilled out on Sunday. Later that night lots of our neighbors blew up fireworks, and for the first time it made George nervous. We stayed inside with him, watching tv with the volume up a bit. Downton Abbey has come to Netflix so we've been watching a few episodes every night recently.

Our 4th of July feast from the grill. Hotdogs, sausages, sweet corn (grilled in the husk), tomatoes and cucumbers from my garden, and potatoes grilled with rosemary, parsley, sea salt, and olive oil. Obviously this was enough food for two or three meals!

The ornamental pomegranate is blooming. Isn't that a lovely shade of orange? The miniature roses are finishing up a second flush of blooms, too.

We've finally harvested a couple of German Queen tomatoes.  They're meaty with a full tomato flavor and very few seeds. Definitely a variety to consider again for next year!

The Mr. Stripey tomatoes are starting to ripen. We haven't tasted this one, yet. It won't be long.

And before this month is out, we'll be eating our own cantaloupes. I'm ridiculously excited about it!
 

I hope you've all had a good weekend, too!