How I Spent My Summer Vacation: June

A partial list:

10. Cooking hot dogs over a campfire.
Relish.
Mustard.
Good conversations.

9. Teaching Vacation Bible School.
Alice based the week
on GT and the Halo Express scripture memory.
Love GT!

8. Visiting Goodwill.
It borders on addiction.

7. Looking at the roadsides.
Elderberries are currently blooming.
There was a dead porcupine
along 322 east of Rockton
and I had a "Get Well" balloon in the car,
so I tied it to his front leg
and took a picture for Luke,
bless his heart,
who tolerates my humor.
A car pulled over,
perhaps thinking I had car trouble,
then, thankfully, left.
More cars were coming
(busy road for the middle of the afternoon)
so I left,
only to see a car slam on its brakes
in my rear-view mirror.
I did a u-turn
and retrieved the balloon.
Warped humor should not cause accidents.

6. Went to a mountain picnic and took a dessert.
A dessert that people liked.
A dessert that people requested the recipe for.
Den was shocked.
We circled the day on the calendar.

5. Eating Calliari's bread
spread with real butter
and Palumbo's hot chicken spread.
What Primanti Bros is to Pittsburgh,
that combo could be for DuBois.
Hometown food.

4. Visiting local state parks with the grandgirls.
If you're interested,
Bald Eagle State Park's water is warm and a bit dirty,
Parker Dam's water is clean and COLD,
and Black Moshannon's water is cool
and full of tannic acid from vegetation--
thus the name BLACK Moshannon.

3. Reading children's books
and then writing reviews for a company in D.C.
The good news is: free books!
The bad news is: I've thrown some of them away.
If I can't recommend them,
why pass them on?

2. Watching 24 every Monday night
and Doc Martin on Thursdays on PBS.

1. Looking for things
that are creature-like
in public places.
For the past two years,
I've carried stick-on googly eyes in my purse
(a Luke suggestion).
The most recent find is below.
Ten points if you can identify its DuBois location.

How did you spend your June?

Hello

Juneberry Thoughts

One of the advantages of living on the mountain
is the panoramas that spread out when we drive to the valleys.
Last month
Bennetts Valley was spectacular
with hundreds of juneberry trees in blossom.  
Amelanchior is known by a number of names:
saskatoon
is the native name
and was a major ingredient in pemmican,
shadbush
because it flowers when shad spawns,
serviceberry
because two centuries ago
the berries were ripe
when the many wedding services were performed
by the circuit-riding preacher.
  
About ten years ago
Den planted our three bushes,
and this year the conditions were perfect for fruiting.
Last week
the berries were pink,
Wednesday
they were darkening to a perfect ripeness...
and Thursday night the bear came.
Branch tips were stripped
by his bite-and-pull method of eating
and a big branch was broken on the ground.
Friday morning
the grandgirls and I discovered the damage.
Anna was a bit sad
that the bear damaged the bush,
but Lucy was thrilled
that so many berries
were now within her reach.
She ate them indiscriminately
until she discovered
that green ones were not good.
The next hour
was spent devouring
Hundreds of Delicious Berries.
Crevasses in the stones in the wall
became temporary bowls.
While Anna braved
the wiggly stones in the wall
to reach higher branches,
Lucy took Bop a fistful of berries,
which somehow became
half a fistful of berries.
Bop graciously accepted the gift
and then immediately gave it back to her,
Lucy 's cheeks almost burst with enthusiasm.

This morning the girls are back home
and more branches are broken.
Luckily the weather is perfect:
nice breeze,
relatively low humidity,
great for beating the bear to the remainder of the fruit.
I gently bend the branches
to reach the higher berries--
not too hard
or I will break the remaining branches.
I pick the ripest maroon berries
and the darker reds
and listen to them ping into the bowl.
When I release the branch,
the remaining reds look riper than the pinks
and I wonder if perhaps I should pick them as well.
As I work, I think of spectrums--
the spectrum of juneberry ripeness
with greens not ready and some purples overripe,
and the spectrum of branch brittleness
as I want branches to bend but not break.
In the spectrum of house cleanliness,
our house has dust bunnies
and the occasional dust possum
but the Center for Disease Control hasn't visited yet.
In the political spectrum,
I am easily swayed
by both Rebublicans
and Democrats.
Then there is the spectrum of attention given to children....
I think that the middle is usually a good place to be.
Colson Blakeslee,
our first family physician,
advised "Everything in moderation."
I like that.
I eat low-fat cottage cheese and butter,
carrots and bacon.
I use store-bought pie crust
and homemade filling.

I think I'll go make a juneberry pie.

Seedy deliciousness

Anna and Lucy juneberrying

The "bowl" isn't empty yet

Saturday's task

Official Summer Greetings

Ahhh! A hammock, a book, and a glass of lemonade....

This weekend marks the summer solstice.
It's interesting how
the first day of summer on the calendar
can be the same day
as Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream."
We spent Thursday and Friday
(our summer babysitting routine)
with granddaughters
Anna, five,
and Lucy, two,
and Paul joined us Friday night and Saturday
while Kate was at a conference at NPR headquarters.

School has been out for almost two weeks,
but learning is a daily occurrence. 

Anna learned
the joys of hammock, lemonade, and book
(Boxcar Children's Blue Bay Mystery recommended),
brick sidewalks have patterns,
lifting too many bricks
can make your stomach muscles sore,
life jackets really do make you float,
and some flowers are called "blue-eyed grass."
Really.
To bees, nectar is like lemonade
and pollen is like Chee-tos dust.
Mortar is fun to mix.
You eat Juneberries in June.
Mountain laurel has flower parts
that act like sling shots.
When you get a belly-ache
from eating too much applesauce
with cinnamon and sugar,
you can always play hospital.

Lucy learned
deer eat the corn you throw in the field,
you can sing yourself to sleep
by bellowing "Are you sleeping?
ARE YOU SLEEPING BRUDDA JOHN?!?"
Grammy can do underduckies.
Chee-tos are good
...except for the ones
that have been on the cabin floor for hours.
You can go fishing in puddles.
Squirt guns can water plants.
Bop keeps pretzels in the jeep.
Outhouses are fun if someone holds onto you.
"I wuv dat guy!" melts Bop's heart.
Hickory Dickory Dock cannot be read too many times.

Paul learned
five-year-olds can make your favorite rhubarb pie,
World Cup soccer is available on the mountain
if you aren't picky about which game you watch,
tree stands sometimes blow over...
and winches are wonderful.
Tarps over sandpiles
are good places to find snakes.
Winter-killed ivy
is difficult to remove from chimneys.
Masonry skills improve over time,
and Anna
has inherited
some of his musical ability.

Sue learned
sometimes bears wake you up
by crunching birdboxes,
small children are impressed
by mediocre scooter skills,
and watching for injured chipmunks
to emerge from daylilies
can be calming.
Creek clay can swallow shoes.
When jumping into swimming holes,
it's a good idea
to have your sunglasses
attached to your body.
Fast water can knock you down.
Bruises happen.
Two-year-olds like bug spray, not for its repellent abilities,
but because the lemongrass oil mix
is in a spray bottle.

Bop/Den learned
pancakes can be consumed
as fast as you can make them.
It's more fun to lay stone with a friend.
When Bop needs a band-aid,
everyone wants a band-aid.
Sometimes turkey gobblers
prefer the neighbor's field,
and sometimes
you don't realize
how much you've missed your son.

This first official week of summer,
may your books be many
and your band-aids be few.
It'll be midsummer before you blink.

Blessings,

Sue's scooter-riding abilities are recorded for posterity on the driveway.

Sue and Denny

Lucy caught a fish-leaf!

Bop calls it scaffolding. The girls call it a jungle gym.

Anna reassembles the sidewalk. Re-laying seemed easier than weeding.

 

Did you know that mortar can be called "mud'?