Laowai

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).

Just a few more photos from my walks at the Chicago Botanic Garden. 

School starts next week. We're dropping to the chill of Autumn.

The botanic garden has some gourd vines growing on an overhead trellis. I've been sort of obsessed with photographing them against the sky lately. I just love those curly reaching lines.

After Midland we were off to Tawas to spend some time with mom and Jennifer and Jenna. We rented a cute old cabin near Jennifer's yacht club. Jennifer and Jenna showed us a good time like they always do. We got to sail a little, we got to hunt for Petoskey stones, we bumped around the bay in Jennifer's new dingy and we did some swimming too.

Here we are by Jennifer's boat. Bea did a lot of drone photography all weekend. 

These next photos were taken by the cottage that we rented. It was rainy and stormy for a day and a night. The rain was a bummer but we did get some big beautiful waves and stormy skies to enjoy. 

Vacation food.

Badminton pros.

Bea and I took a nice walk at the Tawas State park.

Mom and I were all about the ice cream cones while Jenna and Claire had to go to their favorite bubble tea shop everyday.

Jenna had her senior pictures taken on the last day we were in Tawas. Jennifer sent us some sneak peaks of the photos and they all turned out so beautiful!!! Oh Jenna! How are you a senior already?

Here are some photos from our visit with Gramma C.

There was lots of drone flying including some cool footage of the Tridge.

Ummm…. why did I not appreciate these windows on the Dow home before?

So much eye rolling.

It's nice to visit Dora.

I've never been to one of these events – it's called a hot air balloon glow. The balloons stay on the ground but they light them up. It was so fun to watch. Made me want to make a quilt.

I think I prefer this to fireworks.

Oh my gosh I am so behind posting all the summer stuff that has been happening the last few weeks. 

Brian and Bea went on a big trip to Sydney and then to Singapore. The trip was supposed to be just to Singapore for a wedding but then Brian needed to be in Sydney for work so Bea got to tag along.

Bea was mostly on her own for three days in Sydney and she ended up seeing so many cool things! Museums and the ocean and all the public transportation and the city itself. Here are a bunch of photos.

The flight between Sydney and Singapore is eight hours! So many long flights in such a short time!

Brian wasn't working while they were there so they went around and saw all the sights together. Bea said she also had a great time getting to know Brian's colleagues. She ate dinner with them and hung out in the evenings in Sydney and thens she met even more of them at the wedding.

Here are some photos they took in Singapore.

I'm so glad Bea got to go along with Brian for a super memorable trip. She also made a couple videos that are great. Go to her YouTube channel to see  Sydney and Singapore from above.

I love my walks through the prairie at the Chicago Botanic Garden – the Dixon Prairie. This week was particularly pretty – I had to take a video. The sky was dark and there was a breeze. Some of the plants are at their peak and some have started to form their seeds. I love it!

While Brian and Bea have been away eating Kathirolls in Singapore, Claire and I have been keeping busy.

We went to a big mall on Monday and had a really fun day of shopping.

I went for a walk in a part of my town that I've never been to before.

I organized my always-messy mudroom. It will probably stay this tidy for two days.

I struggled with my knitting project. Had to rip this whole thing out. I won't go into the boring details. I needed lots of help from my knitting teacher. Uhg. I think she got me back on track.

I went with some friends to the International Museum of Surgical Science (Bea was going to go too but the Australia part of ther trip came up). 

A very interesting museum in an equally interesting historical home. My main take-away was I'm glad I'm alive today and not a hundred years ago.

Then we went to the Lincoln Park Zoo which was so fun.

We ended our day with the messiest snow cones ever. 

Claire got a haircut and the salon had this cute print in the bathroom.

Claire and I have been enjoying all the colorful summer foods.

On Friday Claire and I drove up to Lake Geneva. I wanted to go to a plant nursery up there and then we thought we would check out the area a bit. It was fun but… it was extremely hot and humid so we didn't stay too long. 

Brian and Bea get back tonight. I can't wait to hear all about their trip.

Just when the season for being skittish around the red wing black birds is finishing it's spider time. It's that time of year where when I go out in the morning there are spider webs all over. Like between the car and a branch or around the shrubs and trash bins. I do like the spiders in theory but I find myself so jumpy lately and after I walk through one big spider's web I'm on high alert for others. It's basically low-grade garden-creature trauma I'm suffering from – ha.

Other than the spiders you can find me standing around gazing at the bees in my garden. 

Since Claire and I are on our own this week I've been cooking a little differently or not at all. It's nice. Claire likes a variety of takeout options and she enjoys veggies like I do. Plus if you buy her a whole bag of apricots she will eat them in a day! Yes! 

I have vague memories of happily eating lots of swiss chard with my mom one summer. Maybe my Dad and Jennifer were away, I'm not sure, but I can picture cooking up pans of buttery swiss chard over and over. I seem to remember not eating a whole lot else for those meals but being completely satisfied with the swiss chard. And it was probably swiss chard from grandma's garden. You couldn't leave her house in summer without an armful of some sort of vegetable.

So other than spiders and swiss chard here are some garden updates starting with my front bed that is a work in progress but it's looking good at the moment.

At the other end of that bed is a shady area. Early this spring I dug out a section of grass between the flower bed and the tree to form a shade garden. I would love to did out all my front yard grass and have a natural garden. But I thought I better just take a small bite out of the grass. I used all native plants from Prairie Moon Nursery in Minnesota. They offer kits of plants for specific conditions. I feel like the kit was a great way to have success with some plants that I'm not really familiar with. There are some grasses and asters and lots of other things in there. And since the plants are just little when they ship the cost is not too high. So everything is little now but if I can keep the rabbits away for a while it should fill in nicely within a couple years. 

I turned over my compost pile and it made me very happy.

Morning in the garden – coffee, pruning and picking vegies.

I found a garage sale rake and it's the perfect size for my vegetable garden.

Totally missed my broccoli when we were on vacation – but this is it's small second harvest.

Here's my mini meadow along the driveway. 

I think these are globe thistles that seeded themselves from plants that I grew from seed a few years ago. I'm so excited to see them! 

Another self seeder from my hard won winter sown plants. This is a native called blue sage. I'm starting to be able to recognize more seedlings of my plants. This one is cool because its leaves are perfectly cross shaped from the top.

These are some more winter sown plants from this past winter – smooth blue aster. I want so badly to have some big patches of native asters but so far it's a battle with the rabbits. You might not be able to see in the photo but the plant is bitten off on the outside of the wire cloche. I'm trying to be patient.

And this feels like a big win. This is one of the geraniums that I overwintered in a paper bag in my basement. It worked so well!

Summer is clicking along. Today I took Brian and Bea to the airport. They've had a trip to a wedding in Singapore planned for a long time but this week they found out that Brian also needed to go to Sydney for work. So they are combining the trips – first Australia and then Singapore. Claire and I opted out because 20 hours of travel for such a short trip sounded unappealing to us. So now Claire and I have a few fun things planned at home and you can expect some photos from South of the equator soon. Here's what else we've been up to in the last couple weeks.

Bea has been flying the drone and posting her very cool videos on her YouTube channel.

We've been enjoying late dinners outside lately. I tend to complain when we have late dinners that I am too tired to finish all the dishes. I often fill up the dishwasher and leave a few pans for morning. It's not what I prefer because who likes to wake up to depressing dirty dishes in the sink*. And then as I do the dishes in the morning, my mind wanders to Spain. Yes, Spain. The few time that I have been to Spain I noticed that they really do eat dinner late. And then I think who is the poor person washing all the dishes at midnight?

* This whole line of thought makes it seem that I am more fastidious than I actually am. 

– We went to Ravinia with the girls. 

– I started a new dress – a pattern I've made before – and I didn't realize I cut out the wrong size until I was about to put in the zipper. Stupid, stupid mistake. I was so mad at myself. Might be able to salvage it but I'm still in the cooling off period where I keep my sewing room door shut.

– I took a walk at that little gentleman's farm north of us. I got inspired by their big beautiful vegetable garden. 

– We've had some good clothes drying weather lately. Lovely hot days that are a little less humid. Also, I've been enjoying the super bright and saturated colors that seem all around this time of year. Things like my vibrating-color geraniums (I had to take a photo of the dead headings). The first tomatoes from my garden. And the magenta flesh of some plums – I made an upsidedown cake. 

– Started harvesting beans from my own garden.

– I've been getting to the Chicago Botanic Garden nice and early for my weekly walk. Often, I have to dodge sprinklers but I kinda like dodging sprinklers.

– As is usual for this time of year – I am awestruck by the prairie at the botanic garden. 

– We brought some chocolate back from Switzerland. I get this bar out of the cupboard now and then. I stare at it and I think to myself "It's so good! and If I eat it – it will be gone" and so I put it back in the cupboard. 

– I'm doing some frogging – do you know that's what knitters call it when you unravel something. It's because you rip it, rip it like a frog says ribit. Anyway – the second sweater I made is really too big. So I'm trying to make it into something I will actually wear. 

– July means Tour de France watching and we have been diligent. Brian and I laughed really hard the other night and I had to take a photo. When the riders are climbing a big mountain the crowds get crazy and they come close to the riders. The guy in the photo chased after a rider and offered him a pizza. You never know what you're going to see on the tour.

– Have you seen these collectable Heinz ketchup packets? They each feature a state and a local food and the design is really nice.

– My neighbor sent me a picture of a painting she did of my house years ago. It's the view out her window.

– Last but not least. If you ever eat doughnuts with Brian. Whatever you do, DON'T CUT A DOUGHNUT IN HALF. He hates it.