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I'm enjoying my garden so much lately.
When it's not too hot I sit in the hammock in the afternoon. In the morning, I usually I have my coffee by all my potted plants by the back door.
This morning the dew drops were arranged like jewels on my radish leaves.
All the color in my mini-meadow bed along the driveway is almost obnoxious. I love it.
And my globe thistles are getting blue.
Tomatoes are coming.
Brian came back from his trip to Singapore (see above) and India on Friday. We had a nice weekend with him - starting with an evening at Ravinia.
And then we celebrated his birthday.
I made a chocolate icebox cake and Bea decorated it.
Today I made a shirt and I harvested my first beans of the season. Feeling very pleased with myself. Or as they say in the UK - feeling chuffed.
It's the Liesl and Company Camp Shirt pattern that I've made a few times before. For fabric I used Robert Kaufman Essex Yarn Dyed Linen Blend Homespun in Charcoal.
... and the cicadas are back. Sumer is exhausting.
Brian is in Singapore and India for a couple weeks.
I finished primer and putty on my latest window. Now I'm taking a little brake while the putty cures.
Claire and Bea are super into Stranger Things so we had to go to this experience slash store. I'm not into the show but I did enjoy the 80s nostalgia stuff. They had great 80s music playing - I told Brian "it feels like a 7th grade school dance in here".
Here is an expensive piece of wood. Had to have a bit of rotten woodwork replaced on the house. It took forever to get custom millwork done but now that it's here the project is moving again. And the house is feeling happy.
Bea drove herself through a drive-through for the first time.
The girls and I went Kayaking at the nearby Skokie Lagoons.
We saw geese, turtles, a muscrat, dragonflies, damselflies, herons, ducks, more birds I don't know and a deer that was going for a swim!
Then we went home and saw microscopic creatures from the pond water under Bea's microscope.
I love these summer colors against the green yard.
My knitting projects are going slowly. I think I'm not a summer knitter - can't seem to sit down and concentrate for long enough. But I am going to do some sewing with these pretty fabrics. Perfect for the rainy days we're having at the moment.
It was a powdered sugar doughnut. Can you tell?
I finally got around to taking a walk at the Chicago Botanic Garden this week. Everything looked so beautiful. I didn't realize until I got home and looked through my photos that there were so many pink flowers blooming. I had to zoom in and capture them all.
Last weekend I picked Bea up from her week of camp at Michigan Tech. I had a pleasant drive broken up by some antiquing along the way.
Bea had an amazing time at MTU. In fact, she liked it so much she thinks she wants to go to college there. All the way home she talked about how excited she was about the labs and the teachers and the buildings. Here's part of a project she worked on. She learned all about robotics and sensors and college life and she even got to do some soldering.
Here's her collection of stones from when we went to a beach before I dropped her off.
Along our drive home we stopped at a fireworks store - very amusing. We just bought some sparklers (see below).
I'm so happy she got to see Michigan Tech and to learn about new things that excite her. I think she would be happy to spend several weeks up there next summer.
Sadly this is the best photo I could get of the robin family that has been entertaining me. The babies are always hanging around in the back yard looking cute and waiting for their mother to swoop down and give them a worm.
Window work continues.
We bought Bea a new car... just kidding. We are looking at electric cars - but gosh it's crazy - you have to wait 8 months to get a VW electric car. Realizing as I can't have something I want right now (!) how spoiled I am.
Claire and I decorated our bikes for the ride down to the fireworks. If there was a contest we would win.
Here we are on the crowded beach - waiting for the fireworks to start.
We had a quick visit with Jennifer and Jenna. Jenna was invited to sail in the Lightening Youth Worlds competition up in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. They stopped on their way and since it was the Fourth of July we got out the sparklers and had a really fun evening.
There's Jenna and her sailing teammates. Just like her mom and her grandmom - she's a sailor. I love it.
Last and least - I've been doing a very small amount of knitting. I'm trying a lace project. I'm not even sure I like lace but I'm influenced by all the pretty lace things the ladies in my class make. Slow progress this time of year when there are too many distractions outside.
I'm finding more and more that morning is the best of summer. I get up and go right outside when the day is fresh. I drink my coffee and think and putter in my garden. Later the day is like the whole of summer - too much to handle - too much heat. I've been reading Willa Cather's O Pioneers! again. I wanted to read her beautiful descriptions of the land once more. And then I came across some old photography by a woman named Lora Webb Nichols. She lived in Wyoming and she took photos in the 1920s and 30s and I am captivated by them. I've been going back to the web sites to examine the women and their clothes and their expressions. I read Lonesome Dove earlier this summer and I loved it. There seems to be a Western theme happening here.
“Carl sat musing until the sun leaped above the prairie, and in the grass about him all the small creatures of day began to tune their tiny instruments. Birds and insects without number began to chirp, to twitter, to snap and whistle, to make all manner of fresh shrill noises. The pasture was flooded with light; every clump of ironweed and snow-on-the-mountain threw a long shadow, and the golden light seemed to be rippling through the curly grass like the tide racing in.”
― O Pioneers!
What will I read next? I think I must go walk through a prairie and find out.