Midsummer

I realized suddenly that it’s summer solstice, hence it’s 9 PM and still semi-light outside. My children swam until 8:30 last night, then came up to the house for second baths, having already had first baths at 4 in the afternoon after the first dip in the pond. All the swimming clothes got draped on the deck railing and the towels got lumped in piles in the laundry room after second swimming because they were muddy.

Today was a repeat exactly of yesterday’s schedule, only they had scrounged up other assorted odd bathing costumes, walking past the row of sun-baked trunks on the deck, and then neatly adding today’s soppy stuff beside the others. First baths were at 6:00, while Gregory made quesadillas for supper. I went out to till the garden and the girls hopped into the goat fence and played Heidi until they were hot and the goats were bothered.

It was 8:00. “May we go swimming again? We got dirty and stuff. Please???” I said, “No,” which just goes to show that I am not always very much fun. But after everybody washed up and got into pjs, I served them pink lemonade slushies, the ones with beetroot in them to make it pink. Just kidding, it was red 40, which just goes to show that I am not always very health minded.

We have fresh peas at last! A lot of my first planting didn’t come up, so I just get nice, manageable amounts. Yesterday the girls and I sat in the air conditioned  living room and watched the Great British Baking Show while we shelled them. They thought that was pretty cool. Hehe. Last year I wrote about the easy peasy way to do large amounts of peas by blanching them in the pod.  This year so far we have only had a few buckets full, so we shelled them dry out of the pods. I discovered a better way to get rid of the blossom ends that have such a maddening habit of sticking to your hands when you try to wash them.  I set up a fan and slowly poured the peas through the blowing air into a large bowl to winnow out the lightweight blossoms. After three pours, the peas were clear of the wispy greyish blobs and I was happy to proceed with the blanching.

The only other garden produce right now is butter crunch lettuce, which is so delectable that I could eat it at every meal, and the last bits of strawberries from our own patch. It’s a tired strawberry patch, plus I neglected to cover it when we got a hard frost during blooming time, so the yield was only about half what we usually get.

Last week we picked the cherries on our Carmine Jewel tree and made pie filling. It’s a process that I do purely out of love for my husband, because I do not especially enjoy cherry pies. Pitting those tiny little fruits makes me feel just a little bothered every time, which just goes to show I am not overwhelmingly loving yet. Nevertheless, the pie cherries are ready to be picked like clockwork every June. I have started a Father’s Day tradition of cherry-something dessert. According to my diary, this is the third year in a row that Gabe had to work on Father’s Day, which really stinks when you think about it. But at least he took some cherry pies along to work with him.

We did a lot of wandering around the first two weeks in June. The first trip was to a reunion with childhood friends and former neighbors, the John Weaver family in North Carolina. Our weekend of connecting and watching our children become friends was a lot of fun. I will limit myself to one story which will probably be a highlight that both parents and children will remember.

On Saturday evening when we were sitting around a campfire swapping stories, someone was alert enough to notice that 4 children were missing. It was a crew of 12 year olds who had hiked up the mountain to watch the sunset, but the sun had long gone and it was pitch black. Not totally reassuring was the story of a grown-up getting lost up on that mountain in broad daylight. All the mothers had been on a walk when the hike commenced, but siblings reported that they had survival packs, flashlights, water bottles and a book with them. Well. That put a little different slant to the matter. Both Gregory and his cousin Patrick are expert fire builders and we were sure they would have the smarts to stay together. My sister-in-law Carma whistled her signature drop-everything-and-come-to-mom whistle that carries astoundingly far, and John shot into the air a few times so that the children could follow the sound. A few of the guys drove the Gator up a trail as far as it would go, then called, and sure enough, there came some wavering flashlight beams. They insisted that they were not lost, just not totally sure where the trail was. When they heard the whistle, they promptly set about extinguishing their fire so that they could come home. Apparently they lost track of time because they were taking turns reading out loud for the benefit of the group. I wasn’t sure whether to feel proud or a little annoyed.

I looked on both my and Gabe’s cells and neither of us took a single photo of the reunion weekend. We were quite unplugged, I guess.

Here is one of Gregory on top of a different mountain on Hawksbill Trail in Pisgah National Forest. Of all our children, he is the most passionate outdoors lover. Every time we drive through a city he remarks about how hard it would be to live there. Bless you, little man. May you make many more campfires in your life. Just try to tell Mama where you are going next time.

It was a shiny day. We all made it to the top, even the forty-year-old (ahem), even a little niece in an Ergo carrier, even the dog.

We spent a few days in western North Carolina where the scenery is hard to beat, the company is fine, and where both of my brothers and one of Gabe’s brothers live. It was a cousinly-packed trip, so exhaustingly much fun. Gabe decided he prefers driving home through the night and we heard not a peep from the crew in the back seats, except when we stopped for gas at 2AM and Addy wailed the whole way in to the gas station bathroom and out again. We got home at 7 on a Wednesday morning, everybody stumbled into the house and crashed until noon.

On Thursday evening we packed up again and headed north to where Gabe’s parents live. The guys have a work-sharing thing going on with their various projects, then on Sunday Gabe’s youngest brother was baptized. All the rest of the cousins were together that weekend. They run in packs and I hardly see my children except when they get hungry. Gabe took the older boys camping on the banks of the Susquehanna one night. They wanted to give their gear a tryout for an epic camping trip in the wild later on, freeze dried food cooked on teeny rocket stoves and all that.

I got most of the photos for this post off his phone. So, photo creds and all that… thanks, Hon.

We saw every single member of both our families within one week. It was lovely, and then I was ready to stay home for a very long time. We had three appointments and a car break-down in the first week after we got home, but things are looking like a lull now.

Wait. It’s summer. It might be a while until the lull, but the ride is glorious in summer!