More evening sky drama, this time after a massive storm system had moved through, with thunder and lightning and sheets of rain. Shown here: one of numerous non-functioning chimneys which are a feature of my house. Whatever fireplace(s) this one was supposed to serve, they don't even exist anymore.
I wanted to capture the absolute red strangeness of the light, but really couldn't.
It was significantly weirder than this photo of the back garden represents --- almost like the light in an eclipse.
I spent some time yesterday pulling out mostly-dead stalks of cosmos --- I do still have one container of them, plus a few in the ground --- and planting more spinach seeds in their place. It's warm to be planting spinach outside, but I never have any success starting seeds indoors, and I have enough spinach seeds that I figure I can just keep sticking them in until something takes and doesn't go to bolt. Meanwhile, plenty of new arugula, the miracle green, is starting up from its own seeds, so that's exciting. We will have some kind of greens to eat over the winter, even if nothing else takes. There are still some beet greens going, however, and I do plan to put in some butter-lettuce seeds as well. The tomatoes are rallying after having been eaten down to nubs by something, and the peppers continue to flourish --- the ones I've been drying are, I would estimate, maybe 40% dry after two days in the dehydrator. Just punching it up again for another 7-hour round.
At 7:30 tonight I will have been home precisely a week from taking the children to college --- doesn't seem possible that they've already been gone this long, or that I have been back this long. I still feel I'm getting my feet under me. It's so good to work in the garden and do what Kirsty calls "little jobs of autumn cleaning." We have a houseguest coming this weekend, so that's some impetus to get things not only in order but actually . . . not dust-coated. All my bookshelves are a horror show. No wonder we have allergies. So I've been working my way around the house, little by little, with my lambswool duster, trying to coax these surfaces out of the mire they're in. Of course what I'm really doing is releasing a whole galaxy of dust mites into the air, but at least the surfaces look temporarily better.
I could vacuum, and eventually will, but right now the situation is that the vacuum cleaner is upstairs.
Back from my morning walk, and trying again for more interesting selfies.
As you can plainly see, I still haven't repainted the front door after Dora, who had escaped her crate and jumped out of our bedroom window, tried to claw her way back into the house one day while we were away in June.
As you maybe also can see, I'm wearing my original pair of Xero Cassies with my redyed royal-blue Camellia today. My replacement pair has come, but I figured I'd keep wearing these for knocking around, dog walking, etc. OF COURSE this dude who talks to me every day on the greenway trail said, "Now to train that little dog not to chew the slippers." Poor Dora, blamed for everything, even when the damage isn't her doing. I hadn't actually thought said damage was all that visible, but I guess I was wrong.
There was really no salvaging them as nice shoes. I was glad the red ones were still in stock. NOT what I'd wanted to spend money on, but you know . . . sometimes life just forces your hand that way.
As always, though, I'm so happy to have been able to salvage this dress. I had been feeling so meh about her, and meh when I put her on. Now she's just perfect, fun and flattering and versatile. On the surge of energy generated by all this good feeling, on this very last day of August, I shall attack the work before me.
