Lookee Here!

Every morning when I wake up I go out to check on the garden first thing.  I tuck my camera in my pocket so I can capture anything I want to share with you or Durwood.  Look what I saw this morning.  It's an Early Girl tomato getting red.  I am absolutely sure that it's reddening because LC gave it a hefty drink the last time she was here.  I showed Durwood the picture and I think he's already making toast for his first garden-grown tomato sandwich.

The daisies and bee balm are going great guns.  I just love that happy sea of white petals and yellow centers with the pops of red bee balm.  The purple coneflower (aka echinacea) is kind of lost on the side but I like it too.  (don't want it to give up the ghost because it feels unloved)  I need to dig up some daisies and plant them around the yard because they're
encroaching on the asparagus and we can't have that now,
can we?  No, we can't.








I caught the butternut squash vine making a break for it, heading toward the tomatoes but I caught it and threaded it back into the fence.  You've gotta watch 'em every minute.  They're sneaky and fast.






The first item on yesterday's to-do list was to get the new traverse rod unboxed and put up.  I had a moment of panic when I took it out of the box because it was a center-draw rod and I need a single draw one.  But before I went into total panic mode I read the instructions (don't be shocked, I'm an inveterate instructions reader) and there were the steps to turn a center-draw rod into one that draws from either end.  I was very pleased that the holes in the new, white brackets were spaced the same as the old brown ones and I was extra pleased to remember that I have a battery powered screwdriver.  (Durwood was less pleased as he was trying to listen to a TV show at the time but he got over it when he saw how hard I was working.)  It took a while but I got it up and working.  Hooray me!

Durwood's youngest brother's wife (sister-in-law in the spirit of brevity) called yesterday morning to say that none of the weekend dates I'd sent them worked for them but they'll be in Chicago for a funeral this Friday so they thought they'd just drive up for the weekend after that, okay?  Hm, well, considering I have three poetry readings to give this weekend in a new arts festival (Artour) I was a little hesitant to say okay but when I mentioned it she said they'd be in later on Friday night so we could meet them after my 6:15 reading, then we'll leave Durwood with BE at the motel on Saturday afternoon and she can come with me for my 12:45 and 2:45 readings.  That'll work.  Then DS and DIL1 are coming to the motel with LC and OJ for a short visit after naptime which will probably coincide with our return from poem-ing.  The the kids'll leave because they have lives too and we'll go some place yet to be determined for supper.  On Sunday they'll drive away.  *pant, pant*  Should be interesting.
 
I can't do a blog post without a sky picture.  This was last night's sunset.  I love it when I look out and the whole world has turned a golden peach color.  That's when I grab my little cheap digital camera and head out into the middle of our (un-busy) street to capture this.  Ahhh.

After supper I sat on the couch to cast on and knit the brim of Pink Rebel Girl Hat #3.  It's the smallest one so it went fast.  Next I have to chart or find a chart of letters so I can buckle down to duplicate stitching the words onto the hats before the snow flies.


July 20--Vincent van Gogh, Landscape at Dusk.  The couple walked through the orchard.  The sky ahead of them was a deepening blue while behind them the horizon blazed with the last orange light of sunset.  The daytime hum of bees in the fruit trees was replaced by the songs of frogs and the sawing of crickets.  As it got darker their pace increased and he began to wish he had a flashlight.  The village lights were behind them and the rising room was so slim it cast no light on their path.  The sound of a barking dog echoed down the valley, somehow making it seem even darker.

While doing yoga this morning my focus was distracted by this pair of cavorting chickadees and after they left a monarch butterfly sat on a Slinky coil opening and closing its wings.  The butterfly was a much better yoga focus than those zippy chickadees, I'll tell ya.  I will confess that I interrupted the flow of my practice to snap these photos but since I've been not doing yoga for about a week I thought doing it with an interruption or two was way better than not doing it at all.  Rationalize much, Barbara?  And I just found out in an email from our neighborhood assn. chairman that there's free water aerobics in the pool a block away on Monday nights.  There's Tai Chi in a park tonight too.  I might do that instead of going to knit... I need to get off my duff and get moving to slough off the last of my funk.  *nods confidently*
--Barbara