The dog days are here. The heat of the day is intense, lasting well into the evenings. The gravel road is dusty and the sunflowers are coated with a filmy layer of airborne soil. And speaking of dogs, the Labs lie under the house in the dark and cool earth, emerging only after dusk to pursue their dinner. The hummingbirds have amended their flight schedules to an evening pattern. The zucchini and cucumbers recumbant under their twining bushes, stretch into the sunlight. The corn nods slowly in the hot afternoon breeze, as if agreeing, ‘Yep, its hotted up quite a bit.’ Raspberries glow like rubies among the green leaves, awaiting little fingers to pluck them.
“Summer afternoon – summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” Henry James
“The serene philosophy of the pink rose is steadying. Its delicate, fragrant petals open fully and are ready to fall, without regret or disillusion, after only a day in the sun. It is so every summer. One can almost hear their pink, fragrant murmur as they settle down on the grass: ‘Summer, summer, it will always be summer.” Rachel Peden
“Dirty hands, iced tea, garden fragrances thick in the air and a blanket of color before me. Who could ask for more?” Bev Adams: Mountain Gardening
“Inebriate of air – am I – and Debauchee of Dew -
Reeling through endless summer days -
From inns of molten blue.”
Emily Dickinson, No 214, St 2 1860
Picking the raspberries before the sun rises high. The bounty of this years’ crop is wonderful. Making jam is on the horizon. Just not today. Today… I will recall the words of John Lubbock, “Rest is not idleness and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time.”
How are you enjoying your gardens’ beauty and bounty this August?
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