Demolished Garden

      I am so sad and frustrated, watching my lovely garden being demolished each day! At first, I thought it was a bunny rabbit.  But three times now I have now seen a woodchuck scurrying out of the garden into the bushes.  The lettuce, which was lovely and large, is completely gone, down to the roots.  The newly planted swiss chard has disappeared completely.  Each day, another cucumber plant bites the dust.

If I had a gun, I would sit and wait for the critter and shoot it!  I did go to the farm store to look at de-crittering options.  The animal trap was quite expensive.  I wasn't sure that just any critter poison would work, so I gave up that idea.  Now, I just weep a little each day to see my beautiful vegetables being consumed by an ugly woodchuck.

Worse yet, it ate off all the leafs of my climatis plant, which can never get enough of a start off the ground to produce a flower!   I have tried so hard to grow a climatis plant;  now I think I am just going to completely give up on that.     At a previous house, I had a beautiful purple one.  I still miss it!

The woodchuck does not seem to like tomatoes.  Perhaps I will manage to have some tomatoes.  Actually, I do believe I am going to have more tomatoes than we can possibly eat.  The tomato plants have pretty much filled up the garden. The good news is that there should be three different varieties--small red, larger red, and small yellow.

So far, tucked underneath the tomato plants a few acorn squash plants are growing, as well.  I've never grown those before.  I hope to see at least one make it to maturity.   My fingers are crossed!

Sights

Central New York is filled with many beautiful sights, not very far from home.  We went to see a couple of them today.   The first was Tinker Falls, a quarter of a mile hike off the road, back along the path.  The views along the pathway itself were worth the trip.  To actually get close to the falls, some of the hiking up rocks was a bit slippery and treacherous.   We were very cautious not to have any mishaps.  It was too remote for even a helicopter rescue. But the sights were certainly worth the effort, though not much water was running today.  I'm sure it would be much more impressive in the spring, with rushing waters.

                                                     

After that little journey, off we went to the Lavender Festival.  The place was packed with many sightseers.  We saw some folks we know from Cortland, and also from Syracuse.  The location is about halfway in between.  The "festival" runs for two days in July, when the farm is open to the public.   There is lavender cutting, cooking demonstrations, artisan vendors, and every lavender scented product for sale.   I was envisioning fields and fields of lavender growing, but actually the lavender beds were all pretty much in an extensive front yard.  Even so, it was quite lovely, and certainly smelled delightful.

I'm glad we are taking in some of the interesting things to see this summer.   This is much more our type of traveling than going to Africa or France.   We can be home in the afternoon in time for a good vigorous and competitive game of tennis!

We have other journeys planned for the next six weeks or so,   but many of those involve family and friends, more than sights and leisure.

It could not have been a more beautiful summer day than this one.  Blue skies, a slight breeze, sunshine---absolutely perfect!   How glorious is Thy creation in all the earth!

Dinner Parties

Since I retired and we moved into this house, which is perfect for entertaining,  I have had a significant number of dinner parties.  There was never much energy for that during my child rearing and working years;  most dinner parties happened at church.

Recently, Gerry wanted to invite two particular couples from his department, so we had a "faculty" party.  Now when I have a dinner party, I work very hard for everything to be just perfect, and perfectly delicious.    That involves planning, shopping, chopping, mixing, baking, preparing, cooking, cleaning, etc.  At the very least, it takes about two full days of preparation.  Since my kitchen overlooks the living room,  I like for the kitchen to be perfectly presentable, and so there are no cooking or preparation dishes or pots visible by the time the guests arrive.

Early on in our marriage, which we always wanted to be a partnership,  Gerry just naturally gravitated toward doing the clean-up, which seemed the fair and thoughtful thing to do.  I did not "train" him to do that.  He always did it naturally,  which of course, I have always appreciated.  I do notice, however, that when he starts to clear the plates when dinner guests are finished with their meal,  guests of our generation always react with shock and awe,  as if he is doing something absolutely monumental.   "Wow, can I take him home with me?"   All the signs clearly indicate that their husbands are not helping with the clean-up.   We do have a dishwasher, so a great deal of the cleaning means putting the food away, and the dishes in to the dishwasher.    They were doing so much oooing and ahhhing about him clearing the table, I'll admit that the thought did enter my head:  'Why, I've been doing dishes by hand while preparing for two days!"    But because it was him, it was worthy of great admiration.

He is an exceptionally good helper and husband, I'll be the first to admit.  Our daughter and her husband (twenty somethings)  do all kitchen work together, including the chopping and cooking.   So, I'm sure the surprise over Gerry is very much a generational thing.   It would make me very happy if all the other husbands of a certain generation would help their wives, too!

Come on, fellas, do your part, so that Gerry will not be such an anomaly!

Longer Hair

I've been cutting my own hair since I was nineteen!   It had grown out one year in college;  I suddenly and desperately wanted it shorter.  I asked a friend to cut it, and she obliged, with a buster brown bowl cut, which meant that I had to figure out how to correct that, and did!   I've had basically the same haircut for most of my adult years, except for a few times of letting it grow longer.  The last time was when I was pregnant with my second child, 40 years ago.   I wanted to be able to put it in a bun on the top of my head.   I got it there, but since it is thin and fine, it would not stay.  (I didn't know about mousse back then, or maybe they didn't even have it),

It's not that I like myself in longer hair, or think I look good.  Neither of those is true.   But letting my hair get a little longer is something I have the ability to do.  There are numerous other physical features that I cannot change, (short of major surgical interventions),  but my hair grows by itself.  It is the change that interests me, more than the hair itself.  In order to have a different style,  I would have to let my hair grow considerably longer to accomplish that.  I've always dreamed of the style pictured here.

Since I am in the habit of cutting my own hair,  whether this urge to grow longer hair will last for one more day, or a few more months is completely unpredictable.   I do know that it will be temporary. All the in-between stages of growing between one style and the next are a major pain!   I've never managed to last very long in that in-between place, which drives me crazy.

Who knows where this will go?   Probably not very far!