Midsummer Merriment

I might have the best of intentions, but it truly is a challenge to get over here to the blog to update. It's embarrassing, particularly because I, too, follow the blogs of others, and find myself disappointed when I check in at theirs, only to find nothing has changed in the past week or so. The nerve of them! I want to be entertained regularly and I so enjoy seeing what folks have been up to, whether they're well known in their professions or just recreational bloggers as I clearly am.

So, it has been nearly a whole month and I don't have a lot to show and tell here in the blog. If you've been conscious at any point in the past two weeks, you'll know that a very humid high heat wave has affected much of the central, south and eastern US. We were not immune here in the Northeast. The only saving grace is that, while it lasted several days here, this kind of weather front (or at least its very high temperatures in the 90s and, in some cases, 100+s) is usually fairly short-lived. In due course (about 4 days), the temperature broke and we were back to normal (70s and 80s during the day, low 60s at night - truly heavenly weather). We got some rain, the typical thunderstorms blew through periodically in the course of a given day, and it just felt like the usual summer story here.

I won't dwell on how it was pretty much pointless to do anything. My home, unfortunately, does not have central air, or the capacity for window A/C units (although I do have one in storage), so I toughed it out. The good news is that, unlike many homes in the mid-south and south, we have basements and that's usually - and, in my case, was - the best place to go. It was a good 10 degrees cooler down there and I have plenty I can do there during the hottest part of the day (late afternoon) in this house.

The house here, if I hadn't mentioned it, is passive solar design from the late 1980s, so, while that's grand during the cold weather months, it becomes a literal blast furnace during a very hot, humid midsummer day...can we say "sweat box"? Oh, yeah. Yes, of course, I've put drapes over the windows, but I cannot reach all of them (some are big expanses of glass on the second story of a cathedral-ceilinged space - on the west side, of course, where the late afternoon sun literally blazes through the window - and, alas, I don't have my great big, honking extension ladder available to reach them and cover them with a shade or drape. Ugh!

The kitties are also clever enough to find their way into the cooling shade of the woods adjacent to the side yard. They come back to the house for water, but they only nibble modestly at their evening food. Seems the heat puts them off their feed, too...just as it does me. Can't blame them.

So, stay cool if it's very warm where you are, and just remind yourself, if you live in an area where it gets very cold and snowy in the winter, as I do: summer is good. It's not freezing cold and there's no ice or snow to impede your travels. These are good things.

My summertime southern view:


Happy August!

New Visitors to Welcome Summer

I've posted before about the fauna that seems to enjoy the woods and nice, grassy lawn that surround this house. There are all manner of birds, especially those fun turkeys, and songbirds, hawks, crows, and the occasional pheasant, and, of course, the deer. Deer are everywhere around here. I often see them in the morning or at dusk as they wander across the lawn and through the unmowed fields that abut the yard, but I had a special treat the other morning. Suddenly, out of nowhere was....a fawn!

This is not the fawn, but it could be its mom. I took this shot yesterday, so I'm not sure, but I've seen both. I couldn't decide if she had lost (misplaced) the fawn, but it has been a while since I've seen both together. Lately, it's one or the other, but not both.

I can't figure out if the fawn is old enough to be out and about on its own, but it seems to know that it's safe here, particularly in the fenced horse paddock (where there are no horses these days). I've left the gate to the paddock open (of course), and, today, the fawn strolled out of the woods, across the back yard (which is the view I have most of the time since it's the direction I face when I'm sitting at the computer - looking to the south and out beyond the yard and horse paddock to the distant hills), and trotted over to the far side of the little barn, around the corner, through the gate and into the paddock. I saw it re-emerge in the paddock beyond the barn, but I haven't seen it come out since then, so it might have decided to hang out for the evening here. I hope so.


This is still mom - look closely at the edge of the lawn. It's the view to the north, where the mowed area of the lawn gives up to Mother Nature. Mom likes to cruise through the tall grass there for the tastiest greenery. She comes through there often.

(In the foreground is a tall, grey PVC pipe into which I placed my trotting horse weathervane that I've had at several previous homes, although it never was on a cupola, always in the yard, usually in the little spot in the lawn where a standing clothes pole once had stood. This pipe marks the location of the well head so the snow plow driver doesn't whack into it in winter. Do you think it's tall enough?! Yikes. We get a lot of snow, but not that much! It was just a big old pipe standing about 9-feet tall, smack in the center of the driveway circle, when I moved here over a year ago, so I thought it would be fun to place the weathervane on top for a little equine symbolism and amusement. I am a horsewoman, after all...lol.)

I'll try to shoot a photo of the fawn next time I see it, if I see it. It's so adorable (from afar)...my little neighborhood baby Bambi.

Happy 2nd day of Summer, everyone!