Good Bye, August
30/08/20 07:16
Sure seems like September in August hereabouts. I'm talking about the weather mostly. I am not complaining. It hasn't been an unpleasant summer one way or another, but moving on is what we do here in New England. I will say that this summer has been one for the books when it comes to growing things in our garden.
I'm guessing it has something to do with the fertilizer that I used, but I am not complaining about the results. Our tomatoes are enormous, and there are plenty of them. There are so many that I decided to use YouTube to learn a little about just when and how to pick them off the vine. It seems I've been doing it all wrong all these past years.
They never did bring back parking along Ocean Boulevard this summer, so it has been, at least where biking is concerned, a summer of love. For those of those who don't know, that's the expression used by Mayor Durkin of Portland, Oregon, when asked about the anarchists setting up shop in downtown Portland.
Not once did Nancy and I take to the back roads to avoid the crowds when going off on our bikes. We also like the back roads when we're looking to avoid riding under cloudless skies but everything was just that much quicker once cars were no longer lining the Boulevard so, we just took the Boulevard.
Nancy had but one good sunflower plant that survived the summer growing season. It stands several feet tall, and it sprouted several lovely blossoms so she has enjoyed those immensely. The blooms attract so many creatures, from birds to bees, throughout the summer months, so I suppose it might have been nice to have more survive, but it is what it is. We spent many a morning standing just feet away from the blossoms watching the bees busy themselves with the collection of nectar and pollen.
If they knew we were there, they didn't show it, and they seemingly could have cared less. I'm no naturalist, so I don't know what kind of bees I was looking at, but they were smallish and fuzzy. Not the giant bumblebee variety is what I'm saying. I may have to go back to YouTube to get the lowdown.
Nancy and I downloaded an application called "Seek" for our iPhones, which helps to identify various species of plant and animal life. It's been a godsend when deciphering the various flowering plants from the weeds that sometimes try to pass as flowering plants so that we'll not be uprooting them. They're clever little bastards, they are.
Nancy's Moon Blooms and Morning Glory's have been a bit of a disappointment as well. Something or someone nicked the plants at the bottom, which killed one of her better plants in the garden, and the other has produced a few flowers but nothing like last year. Her Moon Flower plant that she grew in a pot on the deck has produced no flowers to speak of, and despite our efforts to move it in and out of the shade on the sunnier summer days, it has not rewarded us for our actions. I think I have the names of these plants down right.
Nancy can hardly contain herself when she sees a new blossom on any one of her many flowering plants. She cackles and fusses like a child with a new toy, and her delight, as brief as it is, knows no bounds. It is akin, I might like to say, to her finding a spot for a puzzle piece that has previously escaped her and now, with fewer places remaining on the board, she fits it snugly into place and announces to the world (or anyone within earshot), "got a piece"! Eureka moments all!
Evan has a crucial date on the calendar coming up in a couple of days. We've convinced him that wearing a tie to the event is a good thing, but he's drawn the line at wearing one of my jackets to go along with his outfit. He says he needs to feel comfortable. If he is more comfortable without a coat than with it, then who are we to try and convince him otherwise.
I was hoping that he might wear a red power tie, but he selected one with more muted colors, and that's fine. His khaki pants arrived from Amazon and he'll try them on when he comes to visit today. We'll know one way or another whether or not we need to go to Kohl's to make a last-minute purchase.
I need to get moving on, finding out precisely how we get an absentee ballot for Evan as well. He didn't say that he was unwilling to stand in line at the polls come November 3rd, but I'm guessing that he would prefer that he not have to do that. I'm half heartened to know that they make this process as brutal as possible since that tells me that it is less prone to fraud, and that is a good thing.
I might be less than enthused going about this whole absentee ballot business on Evan's behalf if I thought for a minute that he was going to vote for Joe Biden, so there's that. And you can color me damn delighted that he has not joined the ranks of Antifa or BLM, knowing all too well how susceptible the youth of today are and their propensity for latching on to radical and anti-American movements.
I wished she hadn't, but she did. Mrs. G inquired about our tomato crop this year when we were over to pay a visit. In her roundabout way, she was asking why we hadn't brought the tomatoes with us. That's fine. We got her some last year, so her expecting the same this year was not beyond the pale. For better or worse, we made the last- minute decision not to bring over any tomatoes.
While we have a few sitting on our kitchen table ripening, none looked presentable enough to gift to anyone. That may change between now and the next time we pay a visit, so we'll assess accordingly. As I sit here thinking about it, Mrs. G would have been just fine with tomatoes ripened or unripened. Who am I to suggest otherwise? Did I not think for a minute that she might be asking about them? Was she just being polite? I don't know her to be a tomato lover, but who isn't a sucker for something, anything, homegrown?
Nancy recently mentioned that she might like to have something that produces white noise. As a rule, I don't like sleeping with a noise of any kind, but we've had the fan running during the night throughout the summer, and I've come to prefer it to no noise at all. When she first mentioned it, I had visions of waterfall sounds, rainfall sounds, water lapping on the shore sounds, etc.
I think we're on the same page here, so I went ahead and ordered a device from Amazon that might just fill the bill. I'd like to surprise Nancy with it, but that's near impossible with all the e-mail follow-ups that Amazon sends prior to delivery. Oh, well.
We'll be paying a visit to the peeps in the Adirondacks soon, so that is something we're looking forward to. With any luck, Evan will be joining us. He may choose to bow out, but I think he might be more in need of a vacation than either Nancy or I. We won't need to quarantine after our arrival so that's good. We will have to quarantine after we return, so we'll see how that plays out.
We'll be staying in a private residence, so the standard rules that apply to folks staying in hotels will not apply to us. Nancy was understandably concerned about staying in a hotel in the era of Covid and I somewhat share her concerns. All things considered, we'll have little to fret about.
We made reservations to visit a local museum during our stay where they are featuring photographs of yesteryear in and around the Adirondacks. We won't be bumping around the Village of Lake George as we typically do precisely because of Covid. I don't know what they have in place for rules when it comes to out-of-towners but I'm likely to feel put out either way.
I'm also not a big believer in community spread so scoff at those who want the lot of us to saddle up in hazmat suits as a prophylaxis. Leave it to me to decide how much risk I want to assume when it comes to my health. So, we'll see what works for us and what doesn't when we get there.
I'll not be hugging the peeps, so that'll be weird. I'm hoping that my peeps haven't gone over to the dark side where masks are required around the clock and social distancing means phoning it in. I'm hoping they will pay a visit without having to wear personal protective equipment during the time we're together. Maybe we'll order a pizza to share from the local restaurant and we can sit outside on the patio at the house overlooking the lake.
I am just thinking out loud here since I want to get it straight in my head as to how things are going to work out. It's been a long haul for my peeps over these last many months as well so maybe we can all celebrate the relaxation of the rules now that we're out some six months from the beginning of this virus thingy.
I'm guessing it has something to do with the fertilizer that I used, but I am not complaining about the results. Our tomatoes are enormous, and there are plenty of them. There are so many that I decided to use YouTube to learn a little about just when and how to pick them off the vine. It seems I've been doing it all wrong all these past years.
They never did bring back parking along Ocean Boulevard this summer, so it has been, at least where biking is concerned, a summer of love. For those of those who don't know, that's the expression used by Mayor Durkin of Portland, Oregon, when asked about the anarchists setting up shop in downtown Portland.
Not once did Nancy and I take to the back roads to avoid the crowds when going off on our bikes. We also like the back roads when we're looking to avoid riding under cloudless skies but everything was just that much quicker once cars were no longer lining the Boulevard so, we just took the Boulevard.
Nancy had but one good sunflower plant that survived the summer growing season. It stands several feet tall, and it sprouted several lovely blossoms so she has enjoyed those immensely. The blooms attract so many creatures, from birds to bees, throughout the summer months, so I suppose it might have been nice to have more survive, but it is what it is. We spent many a morning standing just feet away from the blossoms watching the bees busy themselves with the collection of nectar and pollen.
If they knew we were there, they didn't show it, and they seemingly could have cared less. I'm no naturalist, so I don't know what kind of bees I was looking at, but they were smallish and fuzzy. Not the giant bumblebee variety is what I'm saying. I may have to go back to YouTube to get the lowdown.
Nancy and I downloaded an application called "Seek" for our iPhones, which helps to identify various species of plant and animal life. It's been a godsend when deciphering the various flowering plants from the weeds that sometimes try to pass as flowering plants so that we'll not be uprooting them. They're clever little bastards, they are.
Nancy's Moon Blooms and Morning Glory's have been a bit of a disappointment as well. Something or someone nicked the plants at the bottom, which killed one of her better plants in the garden, and the other has produced a few flowers but nothing like last year. Her Moon Flower plant that she grew in a pot on the deck has produced no flowers to speak of, and despite our efforts to move it in and out of the shade on the sunnier summer days, it has not rewarded us for our actions. I think I have the names of these plants down right.
Nancy can hardly contain herself when she sees a new blossom on any one of her many flowering plants. She cackles and fusses like a child with a new toy, and her delight, as brief as it is, knows no bounds. It is akin, I might like to say, to her finding a spot for a puzzle piece that has previously escaped her and now, with fewer places remaining on the board, she fits it snugly into place and announces to the world (or anyone within earshot), "got a piece"! Eureka moments all!
Evan has a crucial date on the calendar coming up in a couple of days. We've convinced him that wearing a tie to the event is a good thing, but he's drawn the line at wearing one of my jackets to go along with his outfit. He says he needs to feel comfortable. If he is more comfortable without a coat than with it, then who are we to try and convince him otherwise.
I was hoping that he might wear a red power tie, but he selected one with more muted colors, and that's fine. His khaki pants arrived from Amazon and he'll try them on when he comes to visit today. We'll know one way or another whether or not we need to go to Kohl's to make a last-minute purchase.
I need to get moving on, finding out precisely how we get an absentee ballot for Evan as well. He didn't say that he was unwilling to stand in line at the polls come November 3rd, but I'm guessing that he would prefer that he not have to do that. I'm half heartened to know that they make this process as brutal as possible since that tells me that it is less prone to fraud, and that is a good thing.
I might be less than enthused going about this whole absentee ballot business on Evan's behalf if I thought for a minute that he was going to vote for Joe Biden, so there's that. And you can color me damn delighted that he has not joined the ranks of Antifa or BLM, knowing all too well how susceptible the youth of today are and their propensity for latching on to radical and anti-American movements.
I wished she hadn't, but she did. Mrs. G inquired about our tomato crop this year when we were over to pay a visit. In her roundabout way, she was asking why we hadn't brought the tomatoes with us. That's fine. We got her some last year, so her expecting the same this year was not beyond the pale. For better or worse, we made the last- minute decision not to bring over any tomatoes.
While we have a few sitting on our kitchen table ripening, none looked presentable enough to gift to anyone. That may change between now and the next time we pay a visit, so we'll assess accordingly. As I sit here thinking about it, Mrs. G would have been just fine with tomatoes ripened or unripened. Who am I to suggest otherwise? Did I not think for a minute that she might be asking about them? Was she just being polite? I don't know her to be a tomato lover, but who isn't a sucker for something, anything, homegrown?
Nancy recently mentioned that she might like to have something that produces white noise. As a rule, I don't like sleeping with a noise of any kind, but we've had the fan running during the night throughout the summer, and I've come to prefer it to no noise at all. When she first mentioned it, I had visions of waterfall sounds, rainfall sounds, water lapping on the shore sounds, etc.
I think we're on the same page here, so I went ahead and ordered a device from Amazon that might just fill the bill. I'd like to surprise Nancy with it, but that's near impossible with all the e-mail follow-ups that Amazon sends prior to delivery. Oh, well.
We'll be paying a visit to the peeps in the Adirondacks soon, so that is something we're looking forward to. With any luck, Evan will be joining us. He may choose to bow out, but I think he might be more in need of a vacation than either Nancy or I. We won't need to quarantine after our arrival so that's good. We will have to quarantine after we return, so we'll see how that plays out.
We'll be staying in a private residence, so the standard rules that apply to folks staying in hotels will not apply to us. Nancy was understandably concerned about staying in a hotel in the era of Covid and I somewhat share her concerns. All things considered, we'll have little to fret about.
We made reservations to visit a local museum during our stay where they are featuring photographs of yesteryear in and around the Adirondacks. We won't be bumping around the Village of Lake George as we typically do precisely because of Covid. I don't know what they have in place for rules when it comes to out-of-towners but I'm likely to feel put out either way.
I'm also not a big believer in community spread so scoff at those who want the lot of us to saddle up in hazmat suits as a prophylaxis. Leave it to me to decide how much risk I want to assume when it comes to my health. So, we'll see what works for us and what doesn't when we get there.
I'll not be hugging the peeps, so that'll be weird. I'm hoping that my peeps haven't gone over to the dark side where masks are required around the clock and social distancing means phoning it in. I'm hoping they will pay a visit without having to wear personal protective equipment during the time we're together. Maybe we'll order a pizza to share from the local restaurant and we can sit outside on the patio at the house overlooking the lake.
I am just thinking out loud here since I want to get it straight in my head as to how things are going to work out. It's been a long haul for my peeps over these last many months as well so maybe we can all celebrate the relaxation of the rules now that we're out some six months from the beginning of this virus thingy.