Sizzling Summer

It’s summer. It’s hot. We need more rain.

And I’m getting just a wee bit cranky.

Personal experience has taught me that there is not always a silver lining (or even a black lining when you need one). But in the present case, because of all the rain we got earlier this month, there happens to be a very bright silver lining: the flowers and wildflowers are spectacular this year. In the bright, cloudless light the colors sizzle as hot as the temperatures.

 

Poppy in the east garden

 

Wild geranium

 

On another up side, Ursula gave us a couple of weeks off from landscaping so she could work on her metal art for two shows she’s doing.  In the heat of the afternoons I’m taking the time to write out the changes to the first chapters of my book and then I’ll move on to writing out what I worked on as we drove to town each morning on our way to work. When we open the windows at night and close them up during the day, our place stays much cooler, quite chilly actually, than outside until quite late in the day, so it’s much more pleasant to be indoors when the temperatures soar. Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.

Cheers!

The Joys of Summer

Okay, I know: it’s not officially summer yet. But this is my favorite time of summer because it’s not hot yet. We have had great rain the last few weeks. The landscape is the greenest we have seen it in many years and the wildflowers are spectacular.

Despite all the rain we’ve had, we haven’t had many rain-outs on our landscaping job the last couple of weeks. That makes Ursula happy because she really needs to get into her metal shop to create more of her metal art – she has a show coming up on the Fourth of July and is the featured artist at the artist’s coop in Livingston for the Livingston Art Walk. She has nothing on hand.

So, while Ursula is in her metal shop, we’ll have a couple of weeks off. We’re very happy about that. Still, Ben and I have been so stiff and sore doing heavy rock work this last week that we’ve been doing various rain dances so we could have a day off. The older we get the harder landscaping is on our bodies. And even though I’m a little younger than Ben, I take longer to heal than he does.

At any rate, I agreed to go hiking yesterday with our friend Lori. It was a spectacular day on the mountain and I’m glad I went. I am, however, a little gimped up today and Ben wants to get a lot of things done outside. I’m doing laundry instead. And trying to do a bunch of stretching without groaning too much. The not-groaning part is as difficult as the stretching. I have to keep reminding myself of the benefits of stretching.

I had a P. E. instructor once that said the sensation you get from stretching is not pain. What an idiot.

We did have Friday off because of rain, but we had to deliver pottery to Butte; then we spent the rest of the day shopping. Shopping is about as much fun for me as having a debilitating toothache. There are few activities I dislike more than shopping. So, today is my only real rest day this long weekend. Tomorrow we go back to work.

Groan.

 

Sunset through rain clouds

 

On the mountain