End of Summer Missive

It is the worn cuff of summer. The days are still hot, and it feels that everything is either covered in dust or on its way to becoming it. I neglect my usual chores for the more immediate task of keeping the garden beds alive, timing my day around watering and the necessary ritual of opening the windows and doors, worshipping the precious few hours when the air outside is cooler than the air inside and I can release my own very small micro climate. It slinks around the house like a lazy cat though, not one to dart for the first open door. I open the closets and any other place it hides, trying to flush it from the house as quickly and much is possible. The surfaces remember it though. At some point, even the concrete floors just stay warm.

Summer is not my jam. By this time of year, I feel like the frayed end of a thread jabbed too many times at the eye of a needle. I suffer from sensory overload, and the “too muchness” of the season gets me every year. Too hot, too much light, too many people, too much noise, too many events… and this year, two fires have already ripped through my community destroying more than 50 homes. 

It’s a lot. Summer is a lot.

I keep a list of things I look forward to each year because otherwise I can get overwhelmed in the too-muchness of the season and forget about the other stuff: stone fruit and melons, wild swimming, those summer shadows, the scree of insects. Summer has a lot going for it as long as I make time for it. 

And now that the season has tipped, the evenings cobalt and cricket-songed, I feel like there’s a bit more I’d like to get out of it before it fades.

Here are few things that are keeping me going lately.

Studio:

Some recent drawings.

Lately, I’ve been drawing spent bouquets and fruit-heavy apples boughs. Experiments really. But drawing feels good. I’ve also spent some time trying to learn some fundamentals of painting. One of the things that gets me, and there are many, is having to have a good photograph to work from. Which means, learning to take a good photograph.

Earlier in the summer, I had a piece included in the 3rd annual Women Artists of the Gorge show at the Columbia Gorge Museum.

I also finished the lamp I began once upon a time. Well, mostly finished. I’m still trying to decide what to do with the shade.

Paper-mache up-cycled lamp.

House and Garden

Our table is forever a sort of hearth or altar offering whatever is in season. At the moment, it is heaped with our suddenly abundant tomatoes and apples from our espaliered apple trees, which were surprisingly prolific this year. There is always a bouquet of some sort or another. In summer it is nearly always sunflowers from our rooftop. At the moment, there is also a single, fat, green acorn.

We’ve been blessed with an abundance of nasturtiums this year. Shouldn’t this be a blessing doled out by some shimmering green-robed saint? “A blessing of nasturtiums upon you, my child.” They cascade in jewel-tones over the edges of most of the planters on the deck and weave between the vegetables. I’ve been placing many small bouquets in tea cups and old ink bottles around the house.

A cup of nasturtiums from our container garden.

Chickadees have been coming to our deck to feast on the ripening sunflowers seeds. Chickadees! They join the goldfinches, english sparrows, and jaunty, rapscallion scrub jays. Their calls harken to woodlands and thickets, not our “urban” lot, and I’ve been trying my best not to disturb the brave little birds as they feast.

For the first time ever, with any luck, I have a dahlia about to bloom.

The laden table. Everything is grown here on our “urban” lot.

Elsewhere:

I discovered the best place for blackberries is the empty elementary school near where I work. I’ve been frequenting it daily on at least one of my breaks, returning to the library with bruise-coloured hands. I’ve also been both blueberry and huckleberry picking this past month and the evidence is in my freezer.

The bike C— built me is perfect for riding through the forest to our favourite, secret swimming hole. The bike is forest service green and the frame and components are from the year I was born.

I’ve taken some plunges in truly cold water this summer. There’s nothing like it. Especially when it knocks the breath out of you. My swimming suit is the same green as the nasturtium leaves.

While looking for a new secret swimming hole (to no avail) we ate dolmas along a forest stream and a mink came loping down the water’s edge. They made a sort of purring noise as they went along.

The kids at one of my bookmobile stops brought me an armload of cucumbers they had grown because they noticed the cucumber slices in my water.

The library levy passed, which means more people like libraries than don’t.

The summer bugs.

What about you? What makes your summer list?

Side Note: We have so many ants at our house. They come roiling out of the ground every time I pull a weed. No dish is safe. I try my best to live with them. Apparently they come for the water (and cat food) but maybe it’s for the good company.