Post July 4th #phenology

Holiday's over. Thunderstorms and downpours have ended. Local weather is back to beautiful. Our July 4th bonfire was postponed due to weather. Sometime between now and Autumnal Equinox we hope to torch the brush pile so we can start anew, but first it has to stop being too wet or too windy or too hot and buggy or several of the preceding.

rain drops keep fallin' on...

Photo by J. Harrington

We've been violating one or more of the fundamental rules of self-care by getting annoyed at ourselves for not yet having been fly-fishing. See note above re too wet (high water) and/or too windy. Thinking within the next week or so we'll at least get out and check water levels and have a rod and some waders in the jeep, just in case. Waiting for the weather to "get better" has let us get stuck in a rut in the house. We have ignored Frank Herbert's warning from Dune and let the perfect become the enemy of the good.

common mullein starting to bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

The feral oregano behind the house is now in bloom. Hoary alyssum has blossomed throughout our fields. Several yellow flowers, including, we think, hawkweed and soon, if not yet, evening primrose and mullein are appearing. A full, deep, Summer pattern has settled in.

Accidental Pastoral

Maggie Smith

I must have just missed a parade—
horse droppings and hard candy
in the road, miniature American
flags staked into the grass, plastic
chairs lining the curb down this

two-lane highway, 36 in the open
country, briefly Main Street in town.
When I was small, I sat on a curb
only a dozen miles from here, my feet
in the ashtray-dirty gutter, and watched

stars-and-stripes girls wheeling
their batons, slicing the sun-dumb
air into streamers. I can still hear
the click of cellophaned candies
on pavement. I didn’t want to

leave town, not then, and I never left.
I am not a parade, my one car passing
through Centerburg, Ohio, too late.
The chairs are empty. The children
are unwrapping golden butterscotches

in the cool, shuttered houses.
But look up—the clouds are stories
tall, painted above Webb’s Marathon,
and flat-bottomed as if resting on something
they push against though it holds them.

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