As summer peaks...

For the record, as of today, I’m looking forward to Autumn. Fortunately for folks like me, temperatures appear to be on a gradual downward slide. According to my copy of the Minnesota WeatherGuide Calendar, all last week and this week the average high temperature is 84℉. On Sunday the 24th, the average high drops to 83℉ for ten days or so. Your/our mileage may vary. Remember, Minnesota’s averages are often comprised of extremes. In any case, as far as I’m concerned, what are usually the best days of the year are still ahead of us, despite being interrupted by election season inanities and insanities.

goldenrod, not ragweed

Photo by J. Harrington

We’re rapidly approaching ragweed season, another insult to my chronically drippy nose. Ragweed and goldenrod are often confused. Check the link to learn the differences. Meanwhile, in a compassionate move that borders on brilliant, since we’ll be in thunderstorm season for quite awhile yet, the Better Half [BH] bought some calming treats for SiSi my labrador, who comes unglued at thunder. Tomorrow may be an opportunity to see how well the treats work. The lab’s anxiousness is disruptive of a good night’s sleep when we get middle-of-the night storms, so it will be nice to have an option to help settle her down.

Tomorrow, or Sunday, will be bread baking day. If the dough rises enough overnight to shape and bake before tomorrow’s heat, we’ll bake in the morning. Otherwise, baking day will be Sunday. This time we’re working on a sourdough with kernza flour, craisins, and white chocolate chip loaf. If it turns out okay, maybe we’ll look for some wild rice flour for a couple of loaves come Autumn.

Only ten days until Lughnasadh. “The Christian version of this festival is Lammas, which has recently been revived in some churches. The word Lammas comes from hlafmasse – ‘loaf-mass’ – since bread is offered from the newly harvested grain.” This year I’ll see what kind of bread seems to fit the times as well as hope to be able to light a brush pile to celebrate the festival.

Country Summer

By Léonie Adams

Now the rich cherry, whose sleek wood,

And top with silver petals traced

Like a strict box its gems encased,

Has spilt from out that cunning lid,

All in an innocent green round,

Those melting rubies which it hid;

With moss ripe-strawberry-encrusted,

So birds get half, and minds lapse merry

To taste that deep-red, lark’s-bite berry,

And blackcap bloom is yellow-dusted.

The wren that thieved it in the eaves

A trailer of the rose could catch

To her poor droopy sloven thatch,

And side by side with the wren’s brood—

O lovely time of beggar’s luck—

Opens the quaint and hairy bud;

And full and golden is the yield

Of cows that never have to house,

But all night nibble under boughs,

Or cool their sides in the moist field.

Into the rooms flow meadow airs,

The warm farm baking smell’s blown round.

Inside and out, and sky and ground

Are much the same; the wishing star,

Hesperus, kind and early born,

Is risen only finger-far;

All stars stand close in summer air,

And tremble, and look mild as amber;

When wicks are lighted in the chamber,

They are like stars which settled there.

Now straightening from the flowery hay,

Down the still light the mowers look,

Or turn, because their dreaming shook,

And they waked half to other days,

When left alone in the yellow stubble

The rusty-coated mare would graze.

Yet thick the lazy dreams are born,

Another thought can come to mind,

But like the shivering of the wind,

Morning and evening in the corn.

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