River Bound

Based on the ten day forecast and my upcoming schedule, today might be my last chance to take advantage of the faaaabulous swimming hole I discovered last week. This river/creek is COLD y'all, and if it's not 80+ degrees, getting wet is not all that pleasant. So I'm packing up my thermos of ice water, my towel, sunscreen, collapsible chair, crappy book, hat, sunglasses etc. and heading to the water for a chance at summer.

Doing it creek-side

I'm not sure if the Gold Fork is technically a river or a creek, but this time of year it's so low it really doesn't deserve the label of a river. But it is still very very pretty, no? Yesterday I packed up my sewing supplies (this tea cozy is being entirely hand-sewn), a folding chair, and a picnic and headed down to the creek. I forded the stream and set up on a lovely low shelf of rock in the sunshine where I ate lunch and slowly worked on the cozy. It was a really beautiful afternoon, blue skies and temps in the mid-70s. I dipped my toes in the glacial water now and again and watched enormous dragonflies and tiny butterflies buzz the flowers on the banks. I was pretty sure that things would end in misery, that I would slip on a slimy rock and dump everything in the water, or the wind would pick up and I'd have to chase my cozy into the drink. But it wasn't a disaster at all; it was a perfect afternoon.

It's been an odd summer, cooler and damper than usual. It really feels more like late September than mid-August, and we've had several days in the past few weeks where the day's high didn't break 60 degrees. That, to put it succinctly, is fucked. But there are surely more nearly perfect days to be had before winter settles in, and I'm going to try harder to enjoy them.

In Which I Totally Succeed at Summer

Maybe you don't think of summer as something you can fail at, but a person can absolutely fail at a season by not taking advantage of it (for instance, ahem, a winter without skiing. Sigh.). If one's summer is distinguishable from winter only by the number of layers one wears: fail. And I have been determined not to fail this summer. I go hiking almost every day I have off and spend hours and hours basking in the sun (while wearing a hat and spf 30 of course). I've gone swimming in the river (quickly, it was very cold), and, most importantly, I've searched, high and low, for huckleberries.

Huckleberries had become my nemeisis this summer. The thing standing between me and a successful season. I could rationalize away not going rafting (too expensive), and not swimming in the lake (too cold) but not finding huckleberries? That was failure I could not live with. Yesterday I even climbed over a gate, prominently posted "NO TRESPASSING" and with three locks reinforcing the sign's intent, to look for a patch that my mom remembered as a gold mine 20+ years ago. A patch where we'd seen a black bear sharing our harvest. I didn't find it. I called my mom and she told me told me all I had to do to find them was drive over to West Mountain, slow down, open the windows, and stop when I smelled their unforgettable tart sweetness filling the air. So, I did. (But first I went home and baked a loaf of bread and made black cherry jam from a recipe in my Grandma Ann's ancient Boston Cooking School Cookbook. Another thing to tick off my checklist for summer. I made jam!) I crossed the valley, pointed my car up the mountain, followed a terrifying one-lane twisty dirt road with no guard rails, slowly, and stopped when I found a wide spot to park near the top of the mountain. I sniffed. Nothing. I was about to get back in the car to drive a little further, when I spotted it. A small bush about three feet away. Covered in those small purple berries that look so much like blueberries and taste so much better. I spent the next hour moving from bush to bush, slapping mosquitoes and eating about twice as many as I kept. I ended up with just a cup of berries. I may try and go back next week and see if any more have ripened, but for now. Summer: you did NOT beat me.

The Bats of August

I don't like it, but I have no problem understanding why and how mice get into my house. Crawlspaces, foundations, vents . . . there are ways. And while I do my best to keep my house clean there are crumbs. There are incentives. But bats? How the HELL do they find their way in? Certainly not through the crawlspace, and last summer we sealed up all the holes we thought they might fit through. But, more importantly, WHY? There is nothing for them here but panic and death and perhaps a little torture if Freckles catches them before their little hearts give out.

For whatever reason, bat season officially began yesterday when I came home from the spa to find two bats. One already dead, the other flitting, panicked through the loft. I've already shared too many horror stories here, so I'll spare you the details of what happened when Freckles caught the second bat. If last summer is any guide, this is only the first wave of a months-long invasion. I will be pulling my mosquito netting out of storage before bed tonight.

Intermission

I got a plea from a relative to post again, but I just don't feel like I have much to say.

My grocery budget has doubled as I gorge myself on cherries and nectarines and blueberries and any other fresh, reasonably local, fruit I can get my hands on. It's one of the greatest joys of summer. Although, sadly, it's not all good. Today I spent $13 on inferior cherries and I'm very bitter about it.

The weather has been fabulous, much cooler than last summer (in a good way), and significantly less smoky (in an even better way). I've gone for three hikes since Saturday, and one yoga class. I've seen twin spotted fauns and an enormous five point buck crashing through the underbrush. I've watched several really big birds (osprey? some kind of hawks?) circling above the pines, riding the drafts. I read half of Friday Night Lights sitting by the river on a particularly hot, Summer-2007-style day. I just kept dipping my feet in the icy water and splashing my arms and applying sunscreen because I didn't feel like being inside.

I think I might be a little depressed. I'm sleeping a lot. I still haven't looked for a job that pays more than $10/hour. I do have a complete cover letter, edited by a real lawyer and everything, but I can't bring myself to send it out. I just can't see an upside. The first option is that someone will want to hire me and I'll have to go back to real work, and work scares me. I don't want to go back to crying all the time. Alternatively, maybe no one will want to hire me and I will be destitute with no prospects. And . . . that doesn't sound so great either. So things are on pause right now. I'm reading books and eating strawberries and sitting on warm rocks. I'm listening to the wind in the trees and smelling the scents of an Idaho summer, old pine needles and newish mountains and the very faint sweetness of huckleberries. And I'm generally OK. Just not quite OK enough to think more than a day or two ahead. I've pushed pause, because this, right here, is good. Thanks for understanding. And not worrying.

Wildflowers

Aren't they pretty? I picked all of them within 50 feet of my front door.

Mercury Is No Longer in Retrograde. . . I hope.

I've got my fingers crossed that I didn't just jinx myself by writing that. The new battery charger/grass hog appears to be working so far. I've managed to plant a little herb garden for myself before the plants died in their pots. Which is huge because usually? I get excited and buy plants, get distracted, forget to water them, and they die before they're even in the ground. I also bought an old-fashioned rotary lawn mower, which I'm not sure will even work on my lawn/prairie what with all the weeds, but I hate relying on my neighbors so . . . worth a try. Despite my broke-ass brokeness. I've got to start looking for a real job. I started a cover letter to the law firm I worked for in Boise after my 1L year. And by started I mean I saved a file, found their address and the name of their hiring partner, and wrote a single sentence. A week ago. It's a start. But summer is so fun! I'm actually enjoying working outside, planting, watering, and grasshogging. I love drinking iced tea in my new vintage lawn chair while birds I can't identify dive bomb for bugs on my prairie/lawn. And walking down by the river is just fabulous.

Broken

So the brand new sewing machine my mother bought me randomly decides it will only sew in reverse and then just as randomly changes its mind. Oh, and it also changes stitch sizes every two inches. Which is clearly fucked. And now, the battery charger for my brand new weed eating grasshog decided to stop working after charging a single battery once. What the hell is going on in Chinese factories? I mean, I knew about the toothpaste, the tainted clams, and the lead paint, but those were just poisoned products, not non-functioning ones. This impacts ME and it sucks. Royally. I just discovered that I actually kind of LIKE this particular form of yard work and now it's barred to me until I drive 200 miles to exchange this broken machine.

I guess, if I felt like putting a positive spin on things, I'd say yay, I have an excuse to go down to Boise next week. But it's now summer, and really really pretty, and I don't WANT to spend the $40+ in gas and one of my days off to exchange a grasshog. Even if I do throw in a trip to Anthropologie and a movie theater. Damn.

Happy Days are Here Again, the Skies are Blue and Clear Again!

That last photo of snow on the june grass was just the beginning. The next morning we woke up to three inches. It was . . . disheartening. Every time I tried to exclaim over its awfulness, L would give me a disgusted look and say, with more bitterness than I have ever heard anyone but Zach express, "I don't want to talk about it." Thankfully it all melted during the course of the day, and by Saturday, summer was really and truly here. L and I went into town this morning for yoga, and by the time we got home that june grass, no longer covered in snow, was shorn. One of my truly exceptional neighbors had driven his riding mower down the hill, without warning, and cut my front lawn/prairie while we were gone. I couldn't speak. I have got to find a way to pay him. I'm thinking a check would be best.

Today has been a perfect alpine day. Sunny and in the upper 60s with a slight breeze I woke up with one goal. By the end of the day I wanted to sit on my lawn, content that I had made good use of the perfect weather, and sip a gin and tonic in the endless evening. After spending as much time as my poor arms could take raking the cut grass, after drying laundry on the line, and watering the peonies, I met my goal. Here's to small victories and days that last forever. (Of course, I've only managed to clear a small portion of what was cut. I'll still be raking when it needs to be cut again.)

Labor Day

This is how I spent my Labor Day. I don't actually have a deck, and the grass is too dry and full of grasshoppers to place a chair in directly, so I made do with this . . . I think it's a platform for saddling horses? Which I don't have . . . whatever, it worked. It was nice to sit watching the smoke blow the other direction with a nice glass of sweet tea and the cozy comfort of a Miss Marple mystery. Hope your Labor Day was equally labor-free.

Summer Wanes

Why is summer ending so soon!?!?! Due to a number of unforeseen events - kittens, a house-ful of relatives, lazyness, forest fires - this summer hasn't been exactly what I imagined a summer in the mountains would be. (OK, I should have anticipated the lazyness, but ... somehow I didn't.) I haven't really gone hiking, I haven't gone swimming in the river, the lake, or the reservoir, I didn't take up my cousin's offer to go rafting on the Salmon, I haven't put up a tent and slept with only that thin nylon between me and the stars. This is not to say it's been a bad summer, just that it's been one more summer of which I didn't take full advantage. Which is disappointing. It's been pretty hot the last couple of days, and today is supposed to be another warm one, so I hadn't really thought that summer was ending. Until I woke up this morning at 6:40 and it was still really dark. But it's now almost 8:30 and it's still pretty dark. I'm going to blame it on this big black cloud blocking the sun, and not the creeping fall that is already turning a tree in my yard red, and some of the aspens by the road yellow.

Dry

There are clouds in the sky this evening, and it seems strange. I've clearly recovered from my stint in mildewy Oregon, because I find myself hoping it will rain. I can't remember the last time I felt that way. I guess three straight weeks of lovely dry sunshine and a small wildfire will change anyone's attitude about the desirability of moisture.

I put laundry out on the line today, and the first pillowcase was dry by the time I clothespinned the last sheet. They now smell like the mountains. Granite and ponderosa pine and heat.

Summer

I know that the ranting about Christmas coming to retailers earlier every year is a complete cliche, but can I just say how much worse it is to see, the first week of July, "End of Summer Sale" signs everywhere?!?! NO!!!!! Summer just started! It's nowhere near over! I know that it may be ending for retailers, but for god's sake, would it kill them to call it a "Summer Clearance Sale" or "Clothes for the Current Season Sale" or something else slightly less depressing?