Good Morning!

68°f/20°C, feels so cool! Lower humidity at last. High of 88 yesterday, 90 expected today.

View from the porch. No blooms along the walk right now, sadly. The geraniums aren't blooming well at all this year: usually they are a dependable source of color. We have to wait til next Spring to paint the replacement boards on the railing, as these are pressure-treated and won't retain paint yet.

A favorite view, for some reason.

It is a beautiful morning, a bright start to what will be another hot day. At least lower humidity makes it more bearable.

I made black raspberry jam yesterday, snapped more beans, and got a huge ham divided into smaller bags and vacuum-packed. Larry bought the ham thinking it was on sale, but he grabbed the wrong one so he paid a pretty penny for it. However, it will make many, many meals and sandwiches. 

He dug up the carrots for me,  so today I will be cleaning them up. 

Most will go in the freezer, but i will use some, along with the green beans, potatoes, tomatoes and onions from the garden to make a big batch of vegetable soup to can. That will happen tomorrow, as today we will be taking the big buffet to our booth. Planning to make cucumber relish too, as we have an overload of cukes at the moment, and I need more relish. We shall see!

Meanwhile I painted this cute little table. It's not quite ready, but will go to our other location on Friday, I think, to go into the display window. I plan to change the window over to a more Fall-ish look. Early I know, but at one location that sells mainly new decor, they are going all out with Fall, and it's selling like hotcakes. Go figure.

Well, as Garrison Keillor used to say, that's all the news that isn't! Ending with this, which I thought was so funny.

A Moving Day

66°f/18.9°C, cloudy, rain, fog, humid as can be, then finally, a red sunset.

A slower day today, thankfully. I made pancakes with strawberry syrup for breakfast, did a little housework, then painted a small 2-tier round table and got a couple mirrors ready for our booths. This is one mirror; i had planned to paint it, but decided to renew the gold with gold wax instead. That stuff is just amazing. On the right is the waxed area, tge left is how it looked originally. Subtle, but definitely better.

I got out another yoyo  quilt that needs repair. This one needs some planning because there are missing pieces. I think i will remove the top row of this quilt and use those yoyos to replace/repair the missing pieces.  Do you think this is a good approach? I'm not a quilter or a seamstress,  so I would appreciate your input!

My son Derek came over to help us move some heavy stuff. We have had a four-panel black lacquer Chinese room divider in the van for almost a month! It is missing a hinge pin so we couldn't put it in a booth yet, but it was so heavy that I resisted carrying it into the house.  Larry and Derek got in inside easily, then moved the buffet I just finished into the van, to take to our booth on Tuesday. Next, they moved an old armoire we no longer needed into the truck to take to Goodwill.  My house suddenly feels much bigger!

It is always a delight when Derek comes over. I had just cooked up a big pot of new potatoes and green beans with a ham hock, and he ate 3 bowls with gusto! Before he left he raided the cellar for apple butter, pickled beets and dill pickles. We had time for a nice conversation before he left, and we followed right behind in the truck,  trying to beat the next rain and get that armoire to the GW.

A few stops for gas for the mower, zero beer for Larry, and fruit, and we were back home to enjoy a quiet evening on a porch,  a rare treat this month since it has been so hot.

The porch conversation meandered. We noted the death of Lindsey Graham, a man I did not like but I am sad that he died so young. At my age (75), 72 seems far too young to die. We talked about the flooding in many places, but fortunately it seems no one lost their home. We talked about the big black snake granddaughter Haley found in her chicken coop, and admired the photos of the flagstones granddaughter Sarah is laying with mortar on her patio. We agreed that a friend needed to dump his problematic, extremely jealous girlfriend, and then reminisced about the various people we dated in our younger years. We petted the dogs and watched the lightning bugs rise from the grass as the tree frogs sang their throaty lullabies. 

And that was our Sunday. I hope yours was as pleasant as ours was.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

July Jungle

68°f/20°C, mostly cloudy all day, with some hard rain late afternoon. Rain yesterday too. 

It has been rainy, muggy, foggy, cloudy, and did I mention rainy? Last July we begged for rsin, this July we need it to let up and let things dry out. Some of my flowers in planters have basically drowned, and I worry about blight hitting the garden. Conditions are certainly right for it.

I feel like a weakling, but we have been pretty much running the air conditioners non-stop, just to deal with the humidity. I tremble to think what the electric bill will be, but it has felt necessary to keep us comfortable. Most years, I turn.off the AC at night and open doors and windows, but last night the humidity was 93%! To me, that is just unbearable. I did turn the AC off for most of today, as it stayed fairly pleasant until the rains came. 

Since it was cooler than it has been (74°), I got out and did more strintrimming, cutting back the jungle i created when I planted oregano as a ground cover. That stuff takes its job seriously! Next I tackled the bindweed that was exuberantly taking over the raspberry patch. I have the wounds to prove it too, as the raspberries were not at all appreciative of my efforts. 

My reward was a small bouquet of a few things in bloom, and a stem of drift roses. I couldn't get to my zinnias as I planted them in the center of the big flowerbed and getting to them would be tricky. I just befuddle myself sometimes. 

Other than that, today was a good day to dust. I got the best part of it done before sitting down to finally finish repairs on this yoyo quilt. 

I have only had it for, ummm, maybe 8 years? It really didn't need much, just a few of the circles tacked back together. These were quite a fad back in the 80s, I think it was. Now it's ready to go to the booth, along with the big buffet. Derek will be here tomorrow to help us load that beast up. I know we can do it ourselves once we get to the booth, but i don't think i can manage getting it down our 5 steps from the porch to the walk.

That's about it for today. I'll leave you with this image of the new mural in Sutton, WV, which is very near the site of the Braxton County Monster sighting back in September 1952. I was lucky enough to meet Mrs. May, who never changed her story of that night, in 2002 at a 50th anniversary event.

West Virginia was the first state to launch a state-wide mural project, so murals are popping up in cities and towns across the state. I will have to keep my eyes open to spot more of them.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.