Hello and welcome!!!
By the calendar it is not yet summer, but by my thermometer it is almost 90 degrees fahrenheit! It feels like summer. I was out pulling weeds today, sharing breathing room with a bumble bee and a honey bee, both humming around my shrubs. My flowers are blooming.
I'm throwing caution to the wind and trying a tomato plant again this year. The last few times I've tried have been disasters. So... this time I'm reading about tomato needs. I don't remember ever having these problems in my younger years. Have tomatoes changed? Have I? Or is it the half barrel I'm trying to grow them in? Wish me luck.
Summer is not my favorite season, I'm a cool weather person, but summer does have its pleasures. I love the fresh snap peas from my garden, the brilliant red geraniums, walks in the cool evening air. I love to watch embers glow in our fire pit and to hear the geese just overhead as they wing down to the river.
Summer can offer more time to read, and I have read some favorites lately. I highly recommend:
Great Short Works of Willa Cather edited by Robt. K. Miller
Favorites:
Eric Hermannson's Soul
A Wagner Matinee
The Bohemian Girl
Neighbor Rosicky
For my book group I chose:
Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
early responses: enchanting... a treasure
Because we're approaching the 250th anniversary of our country:
1776 by David McCullough
fascinating history
Most anything by Gary Paulsen:
Brian's Winter
Dogsong
I wish you a good summer, good reading, good rest for your soul.
Thanks to Ramona Behnke for hosting this month and for providing this prompt. Please find her post and links to others HERE.
For everything there is a season... Ecclesiastes 3:1.
Love your flowers! I enjoyed growing cherry tomatoes in WA, but not enough direct sun near our place in NC.
ReplyDeleteWonderful book recommendations. I have a copy of Wind in the Willows which I've never read. I'm going to suggest 1776 for our book club. And I've never read Willa Cather's short works, although Neighbor Rosicky sounds familiar. I wonder if I read it "years ago" in my American Lit class.
Look at those happy geraniums! Good luck with the tomato adventure. I've done butterfly gardening but I've never been good at growing actual people vegetables. I have a neighbor who is providing daily cucumbers. Happy summer!
ReplyDeleteGardening, flowers, reading, sharing space with bees... truly summering. And making room to listen for what a tomato needs... maybe it will tell you. :)
ReplyDeleteThis post has such a happy spirit to it. Those red geraniums are perfect...smiley even. Thanks for sharing the smiles.
ReplyDeleteKaren, although summer may not be a favorite season for you, you have captured the beauty and joy of the season. Your post just makes me feel good and carefree. Bob
ReplyDeleteKaren, thank you for bringing the delight of pre-summer/summer into focus on this dark, rainy day. Your flowers are beautiful, your desire to grow tomatoes is brave (we stopped while in Long Island because there was not enough light to take care of our tomatoes). Reading is always a powerful and relaxing activity on summer days.
ReplyDeleteThe salutation "Good rest for your soul" is what summer should always be.