Ode to Summer

This summer weather just doesn't want to end... and the weatherman says it's going to get hotter this weekend. So I'm going to try a positive post about Summer. My heart is not in it (because of the heat), but here goes.

We will have good memories of the summer reunion in Manteca and our friends that came up to see us the day before the "party". We have known these two for a very long time. Al was the Prospector's best friend in high school and his best man at our wedding. That's was fifty years ago.
Ginny had never been up here since we built a house on this mountain. I'm so glad that they bothered to drive up here. They flew from Seattle and landed in Sacramento. They went out of their way to come up and see our place, even though we were going to see them the next day in Manteca. Now, that's what I call friendship.
It is the same with my friend "C" who lives in Sacramento. Remember her little dog Max?

 The other day she drove up here with Max and her ninety six year old mother, just for the day. Just to give her Mom a special ride in the Foothills and lunch at her friend's house. Now I know why friendship is so important... in so many different ways. It's a process. It's keeping in touch anyway you can, which is so easy these days. Email makes excuses lame.
 My mother was only able to see this farm of ours one time.  Having "C"s mom here was a reminder of how fast life goes by and how much you miss those who are gone. This visit meant a lot. "C" gave me a gift without even knowing what it meant to me. She brought her mother up here on a beautiful summer day and brought me memories of my mother too. It's hard to explain.

I'm going to frame our grandchildren's summer art creations and hang them on our walls. I love these gifts of beauty and talent from "the Beans". The years are moving by so fast and they will grow into other activities. Hopefully, these artful expressions will continue, but they will never be as innocent as they are now. These are the master works of the unfettered minds of their childhood.
Like the bird that my oldest grandson made for me, when I was down there a few weeks ago... A giant lavender bird with drawings of the wind on its wings.

...designed with creativity, craft paper and cloths pins.... with a smile on its face.

 A winged creature made from my Bean's imagination... and with love, just for his Noni. Yea... I get to be the recipient of his generous little soul.

So, this has been a good summer. As much as I complain about the hot weather, I love this summer for lots of reasons.
The way the earth smells at night and early in the morning.
The lizards...

 snakes and frogs that wander into, or live in, our garden.
The constellations that I watch every night from my bed. The open window over my head.
I'm thankful that...
Fire didn't find us this year.
The Rattlesnakes were few.
We only lost one old chicken.
And... our pump didn't go dry.

Our new chicks are reaching maturity and one left us a gift last week.

One perfect brown egg. The "roadie" won the race. She was a bit older that the other newbies... so she had an advantage. This summer was slim on egg production. The oldsters weren't laying anymore. We had to BUY EGGS for a while. It was awful!
The tomatoes are coming all at once. So I boil water...

 Drop the tomatoes in for 30 seconds.

 Then into ice water for a minute.

And the skins slide right off. It's amazing. Then I make spaghetti sauce and freeze it.
It's got to be done. I've given away all I can. Folks aren't saying "Thank you!" anymore. There's a limit to the generosity of tomato giving.
And still they come...

This is the morning's harvest. I've dried the little Tomaccio sweet tomato raisins but we don't like them. I had to use the oven, for lack of a food dehydrator and I think they got too "dried". Live and learn.
The basilico is beautiful this year. The heat makes it grow like a weed. I've made lots of freezer Pesto. I dried the basil too. I also dried some sage. Sure smells good around here. Sure is cheaper than buying dried herbs.

So that's my tribute to SUMMER.
Now it can leave, heat and all, with a promise to return next year... but, it needs to leave.
I'm ready for wind, rain, baking, knitting, wearing sweaters, chilly hikes and maybe... if I please the gods and don't kill anymore rattlesnakes... some SNOW.... glorious SNOW.

Wild weather, pumpkins and a table, Oh My...

All those clouds that I showed you last night decided to do a "cirque du soleil"  light show for us last night... with thunder and lightening and rain... ALL NIGHT LONG. It was really exciting.
The Prospector has been gone this week, so I was by myself. This storm woke me up three times in the middle of the night to let me know what Mother Nature can do when she really tries. It was amazingly beautiful.
I'm sure this is common stuff for those of you who live in the East and the Midwest but for a native, bay area Californian this was quite a show. I was somewhat nervous, but the rain ruled out lightening fires and logic told me that the odds of getting hit my lightening were pretty slim. But all the same, I chose not to touch my iron bed the whole night.
I didn't take any photos of the lightening, but three separate times, I sat in up in bed and watched this display through the window. Once, I heard Cutter whimpering in his crate. I told him that it was OK and he was safe. He must have listened to my voice because he settled down. I never heard Carl complain at all.
The strikes were so close and thunder shook the ground, but all went well and in the morning...

this was the beautiful aftermath. This photo was taking at 5:45 this morning. The storm had moved to the east and I could hear a few distant rumbles. It was so lovely.
I made coffee, let the dogs outside and... DIDN'T HAVE TO WATER THE GARDEN.

After breakfast, I went to the vegetable garden to see if there was any deep watering to be done or veggies to pick.
The tomatoes are doing well. These are the Tomaccio sweet raisin tomatoes.

They are the cherry tomatoes that can be dried and eaten like raisins. I don't find them any sweeter than "sweet one hundreds" but I'm letting them stay on the vine longer to see if they get sweeter. Maybe they just "dry" better. We'll see.
The pumpkins are thriving. The vines are beautiful.

And look... I will have pumpkins to take to the Beans for Halloween. The Beans are my grandchildren, as most of you know. I think that the pumpkins are big enough to carve their names in now. It's a fun thing to do. The names will form a scar as the pumpkin grows.
Yep, it's time to scratch the names in.

This one started green and is just now turning orange. The others on the same vine (I think.) started out orange. Strange. I'm going to have to check again and see if it is the same vine.They are so intertwined that you have to really look to see which is which.
This photo, below, shows the rain on the leaves. There was quite a lot of rain. I love the huge leaves with rain on them.

 I should have taken a closer photo of this. The rain drops are not as obvious in the post photo. But, those leaves are wet. Gloriously wet.
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Since my sister and my friend "C" left, I have been working on one project that I promised myself I would complete while the Prospector was gone.
I'm refinishing the kitchen/dining table.
This was the old finish.

The clear finish was worn, nicked and had some dried Mod Podge (among other things) on it from my careless use of craft work supplies. And it was just kind of 1990's "blond".
So I sanded what was left of the finish.

Then I applied the first coat of Minwax water based stain... and had a heart attack. It looked awful.
After I had a good cry, I put a second coat on it and perfected my technique, it was much better.

This is not as simple as the directions say it is. When the Prospector called last night. I think I said something like, "This kitchen table is 30 years old and I was trying to save it, but it's not worth saving and I'm tired, and life is too short to go to all this effort." And then I started to get tears in my voice. He didn't say anything at first. That was probably wise.
When I settled down, he said, "We can buy another set if this one doesn't turn out. Sleep on it. I will be home tomorrow." and then, "Did you use a tarp?"
That did it. I told him to drive carefully and I would see him tomorrow. I hung up and put everything away. I fixed myself some dinner and watched an old movie. The table was sitting their looking,well... unfinished.
After dinner, I felt refreshed, so I put a final coat of stain on it and look...

Not so bad. I worked with a brush and finessed the light and dark areas until I was seeing "American Walnut" stain in the back of my brain.
I will probably never stain anything again. The legs and the chairs are going to be PAINTED... painted with a solid, creamy, forgiving latex paint that will cover up all the age related skin damage that this old table is showing. I'm NEVER going to STAIN again. Mark my words. NEVER!

The Prospector arrived this afternoon. I'm glad he's home. I missed him. He caught a thousand fish and had a good time.The dogs were so excited to see him. He didn't mention the table except to ask if we were going to eat at the coffee table tonight. I said, "Yes." That was the end of it. We will all sleep better tonight.
Tomorrow I will put a clear finish coat or two on the top of the table and start painting the legs.
It looks OK. I didn't show you a close up of the finish. It's not perfect and, obviously, neither I'm I. I think I better stick to knitting and felting for hobbies... although when my friend was here last week we made "yoyo's" Do you know what they are?
Tomorrow I will tell you all about them. Right now, I need a good night's sleep.