Mercy! Summer is so lovely,
so fleeting, so busy it takes my breath away. We can’t keep up with the garden
produce. Yesterday we preserved six quarts of green beans for winter meals and
today Dennis brought in another basketful. Every day he gathers cherry
tomatoes. Every day we eat them and give them away, but we can’t keep up.
Shallots and onions are
curing on the picnic table. We won’t braid them until the stems have completely
dried, but I check their progress every day.
The tiger’s eye beans are
maturing now. The ones in this pod are still pale, but will darken after
they have completely dried.
Tiger’s eye beans must be
picked when their pods turn yellow but before the dried pods open and drop
their beans on the ground. Dennis cut the first maturing ones today. We will
leave them unshelled until they pop open.
Margaret, our red sex link hen, is busy, too,
keeping the hosta bed free of insects.
No matter how busy we are,
though, we take time to observe summer’s beauty. The second wave of tiger
swallowtail butterflies is feeding on coneflowers and phlox. In this photo one is feeding while the one above it is en route to a different flower.
The phlox in its glory
perfumes the air. Yesterday I saw the FedEx deliveryman standing by the flower
bed taking deep whiffs of the phlox. We all need to take time to smell the
flowers.
Copyright
2014 by Shirley Domer
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