THE VERY TOP OF SUMMER

We are well beyond the very top of summer but I read this quote in the first week of August and I can't stop thinking of it. The feeling you get when you are at the tippy top of a ferris wheel does indeed feel like the rush of the peak of summer.

“The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.”

― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

So here are some top of the summer photos.

I bought some zinnia seeds from Floret this spring and I just love the little bouquets that I'm able to make.

This summer Bea has set up on the dinning room table with all her projects. She's been using her microscope and our cameras. She also brought another one of my dad's old microscopes home so now it looks like a microscope family. The tiniest one is only about six inches tall.

This is a picture of a little park along Lake Michigan that I sometimes walk to. The native plants are looking big and wild and pretty.

Brian had a week of meetings in Chicago – I dropped him off at the hotel and had to take a photo.

I finished a dress. It's the Upton Dress from Cashmerette. Right after I finished it I was at the farmer's market in Midland and I noticed an Amish lady with a dress that had almost identical features. Hmmmm. My neckline is a little lower and the hem is higher but… I guess it needs some styling to make it look less boring.

My Japanese Anenomes are slowly, slowly getting bigger and now they are blooming. It's a test of my patience.

About a year ago I finished this sweater.

One day I decided it was just too big. So I ripped out some of the length and made new ribbing and now it looks like this. I think I will actually wear it now.

I bought some yarn for a new small knitting project.

When I can – I work on my windows.

Just today, I finished the glazing on this set of windows. The part where I use whiting powder to clean up the oily putty is my favorite part. I use a brush to move the powder around and it absorbs the excess putty and I do a finally neatening on the corners of the putty. It's satisfying.

So now the windows will sit for a couple weeks while the putty hardens. There they are in my very crowded garage. Now that we have two cars – one is always in the garage and so every space is taken up with window stuff, bikes and garden stuff. Such big problems I have (rolling my eyes at myself).