Summer

You know that first day of June when Summer stretches out before you with all its sunny days, times to relax by the pool, read a good book, garden, stay outside until dark and watch the lightening bugs flickering in the trees?   It’s halfway over already and I still haven’t done half the things I wanted to do.

We have made a trip to Chicago, spent time in the pool, had the grandkids over, gardened and enjoyed the warm, hazy days.  We want to go to the zoo, the state fair, and to Cincinnati before our son moves to Florida(ah, a new place to visit.) We said we would go to at least one auction this Summer.  We haven’t made it to one yet.  David works so many Saturdays so we can’t go.   Already Autumn is beckoning.  I see pumpkins and Autumn leaves in the stores.  Halloween is just around the corner.  I want Summer to last at least two more months.  All my grandkids go back to school on August 4th.  August 4th!!!  That’s taking away a whole month of Summer from them.  When I was in school back in the age when we chipped the alphabet on rocks, we didn’t go back to school until after Labor Day and one year we got out of school for the Summer on May 6th.  That was a loooong, lazy, wonderful Summer.

But times have changed and the school year is different now.  I’m just glad I went to school when I did.

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Even the garden is showing me that the last days of Summer are upon us.  The sunflowers are blooming.  Some of them have already been eaten by the goldfinches and lay on the ground.

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The zinnia patch is growing and starting to dry into the seeds I will gather for next year.

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Bernice, or is it Dorcas says, ” What’s Summer?”  Chickens don’t care as long as they are fed and watered.

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By the way, here are the new chicks on the block.  This is our new silver laced wyndotte chick.  She is so pretty.  We’ve clipped her wings.  She still manages to fly up and roost in a giant bush by her pen.

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The black chick is our new Australorp.  When they get separated, they get very nervous.  Here Abby, the Wyndotte, is inside the cage and Ada, the Australorp, is outside and neither one likes it.  Both will be medium sized chickens and lay medium sized brown eggs.  Both have to be hunted at night up in the big bush by their pen.  Last night they were in the very tiptop and we could not find them for quite a while.

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Our youngest grandson.  He is getting really good at swimming.  Last year he was afraid of the deep water.  This year he swims like a fish.  I didn’t learn to swim until we got our first pool.  I was always afraid of deep water too.  I even took swimming in college, but never got over my fear of going in water that I couldn’t stand in.  Now I can swim in the deep end and not be afraid.   It’s all in practicing.  You can learn about anything if you practice it enough.

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Flowers in the garden.  Morning glories, perovskia  and coneflowers, and hibiscus.  The hibicus make my yard look very tropical.  They have spread everywhere from one little plant my neighbor gave me years ago. This one is almost eight inches across.

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Remember the soda shoppe chair I showed you in a previous post?  David chipped all the old paint off it.

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He had taken the chair completely apart.

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He said it looked like originally there was a copper plating on the chair.

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He spent a lot of time getting all the chipped paint removed.  That’s why I bought the chair in the first place.  Its chipped paint, but through the years it began to look really bad.  After all the  paint was removed, David spray painted it.

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And here it is now.  I love it.  I also added my touch.

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I stuck butterflies on it.

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Now it’s a real, girly chair that I will keep in my shop.  David had also replaced the old wooden seat that was rotten so the chair can be sat in.  He is so handy.  He says that’s why I keep him around.

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Meanwhile, since I haven’t anything better to do, I have this basket of one and a half inch blocks I have cut out over time and am sewing them together.

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I figure eighty of these across and eighty down would make a good size quilt.  That’s six thousand and four hundred little squares.  Yes, I’m crazy.

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I will leave you with a picture of Lunaria Annua, or Honesty or Money plant that grows around our garden. I can see why it’s called Money plant as it glows like Spanish coins when the sun shines through them.  See the seeds inside?  These will drop and reseed the plant for another year.

Here’s to Summer, industrious husbands and tree roosting chicks.  Bye.

 

 

 

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