remembering summer

REMEMBERING SUMMER

Being too warm the old lady said to me

is better than being too cold I think now

in between is the best because you never

give it a thought but it goes by too fast

I remember the winter how cold it got

I could never get warm wherever I was

but I don’t remember the summer heat like that

only the long days the breathing of the trees

the evenings with the hens still talking in the lane

and the light getting longer in the valley

the sound of a bell from down there somewhere

I can sit here now still listening to it.

~W.S. Merwin

I think of this time of year, the end of August until October 1, as late summer. September being the star month when we are on hold so to speak. But there is a definite easing into the autumn season. The shortening of the days is always the most obvious sign that summer is beyond its peak and shouting goodbye. Whether we are ready for it or not, and I always am more than willing to move on with a high note of anticipation of the wonders of what the next season brings.  Yet sublime remembrances linger. 

 Summer 2023 will be especially remembered as the summer of the butterflies. I planted a cutting/ butterfly attracting garden. I was not disappointed. I have so many photos of the variety of the butterflies that visited my garden this summer. I even began a post titled, "Plant and They Will Come". But who really wants to see my large display of butterfly photos? But I do hope to develop the pictures and place them in a nature study notebook this winter. Some days during the very heat of summer I would walk out into the garden and I was surrounded with butterflies flying all around me. I was beholding one of my Creator's  gifts. The monarchs also visited  drinking from my zinnias as well as the milkweed I planted last year.  I even found a monarch chrysalis then was able to see the completed cycle.  

The  black bear was seen one drizzly Sunday afternoon. We knew black bears lived around here and had been spotted, but seeing one ourselves was...well, quite a late summer spectacle!

the library

“When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”

―Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

 What do they call this room I ask the man showing us the house we purchased last year. It was a room off the living room through double wooden doors. "A parlour?", he suggests. From that very first day I called  this room the library. And plans began forming in my mind almost immediately to the possibilities of making this such a room, walls lined with built in book shelves, an antique bookcase on that wall filled with books, comfy chairs with reading lamps, and maybe even a footstool.  Of course, I've had libraries of sorts all my life, wherever or whatever held my large assortment of books was considered a make-do library. And certainly this past year a majority of books have been stored in boxes on the third floor awaiting my vision to become a reality. At last I have a lovely room that embraces the afternoon sun on cloudless days, making it a perfectly wonderful place to be christened "The Library".

 “Books are delightful society. If you go into a room and find it full of books— even without taking them from the shelves they seem to speak to you, to bid you welcome.”

  ~William Gladstone

I have a friend whose husband was starting a new business and was very capable and interested in building us book shelves.

Some days I have my lunch at the table that sits in the center of the room.

"In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.” 
― Mark Twain

 One Sunday afternoon, a berry clafoutis with hazelnut whipped cream  with "delightful society". My husband was there too😊, and he is certainly delightful society.

"A house that has a library in it has a soul." - Plato

living my life this way now

I enjoy solitude. It's probably selfish, but why bother about it. Life is much too important, as Oscar Wilde said, to be taken seriously. I feel so sorry for those mothers who are devastated by loneliness when their children fly the coop and don't want to live at home anymore. They feel lost, but look what exciting things can be done. Life isn't long enough to do all you could accomplish. And what a privilege to be alive. In spite of all the pollutions and horrors, how beautiful this world is. Supposing you only saw the stars once every year. Think what you would think. The wonder of it!”

~unknown

Sunrise

I sit in the green andiron back chair while still in my robe,  

a mug of coffee in hand savoring a new morning.

A morning's quiet time enjoyed on the front porch.

Still in the garden everyday.

prudent preparation

"It has occurred to me that I am only doing what every housewife did as a matter of course only a generation or two ago. She always preserved food for the coming year as it came into season and bulk-purchased staples such as sugar and vinegar. Our grandmothers did this not because they were paranoid, isolated survivalists, but rather because they had learned from experience that blizzards, crop failures, and epidemics happened. The prudent, prepared household prevailed. Others did not.

As the winter storms howl outside my window and the political, economic, and ecological news goes from bad to worse, I sleep well, knowing I can care for my family during times of plenty and times of want."

~ Just in Case: How to Be Self-Sufficient When the Unexpected Happens

by Kathy Harrison

figs

                                              If I had words to make a day for you, 
                                   I'd sing you a morning golden & true 
                                   I would make this day last for all time 
                                   then fill the night deep in moonshine 

                                    If I had words to make a day for you, 
                                    I'd give you a morning golden & true 
                                    I would make this day last for all time... 
                                    then fill the night deep in moonshine 

It was as if I had written a simple letter with one request, placed a stamp in the right hand corner and dropped it in the mail. 

"Please send a perfect day"

And today the letter was answered.  As I opened the front door and slipped out onto the porch I could not but help sighing with contented happiness. The hot temperatures and humidity of the past week had vanished and instead we had a soothing welcomed coolness. My morning work was already determined, but now I could open the windows and let the fresh air and light breeze fill my kitchen space. 

I have mentioned in a past post a brief intro to my personal fig story.

And I'm still  hoping one day to have a fruit producing fig tree as we have now planted one beside the back screened porch. I have visions of it giving shade to that sunny corner of the porch when it matures. I also have hopes of plenteous figs. It produced two figs this year, since it is yet young I still maintain  reasonable expectations of more fruitfulness in the summers to come.

Yesterday my husband stopped by a friend's house who has three large fig trees loaded with fruit and he was more than happy to share several containers of fresh figs with us.

 My morning's work involved making a batch of fig newtons. As a child I did not like fig newtons, that super sticky sweet paste in a dry crumbly cookie was not desirable to my taste whatsoever. But several years ago wanting to give them another chance, I tried a gourmet fig newton and  immediately I knew there was so much more to a good fig newton than those cookies I remembered from my childhood. Since I could not find a  recipe in any of my cookbooks to the internet I went. By reading what several bakers had done, I somewhat pulled together my own version of several recipes. My jam was not sweet, I added fresh lemon juice, a small amount of brown sugar, a pinch of salt and some water which was cooked  down to a jam consistency. Meanwhile I whipped up the dough. The methods of making the fig newtons varied considerably, I went for what seemed was the easiest method for me, but it still turned out to be a bit tricky. The tricky part was getting the second layer onto the cookie.

 Yet, I could hardly wait for them to cool so I could cut them into squares and give them a proper tasting.  Oh my, how delicious! They certainly are not the prettiest bar, but they are downright bona fide delicious! 

                                           " The fig tree has ripened its figs

                            And the vines in blossom have given forth their fragrances."

                                                      Song of Solomon 2:13