Wallowing

Shade, and nice cool mud. Who could ask for anything more?

Plum torte, carrot tart, and Gazpacho.

Sturm und Drang

Off and on all day—thunder, drizzle, downpour.

Spaced out neighbor dinner this evening, but under a roof, on a big screened porch. Below, a quick prairie overview.

Nice Breeze

Windows open most of the day.

Early grocery shopping, haircut, farmers market, catfish on the grill. Such a busy day.

Do Drop In

If you’re up and about, or even on cloud 9, drop in for a little social distancing.

Warming up and humidifying again, but bearable.
Here’s an interesting article by Karen Attiah, Gus’s daughter.

A Wind From the North…

…bringing a breeze, and less humidity, and cooler temps. Windows open—and actually nice to be outside.

Air traffic controller—in training

Quiet Covid Saturday

Weather perfect for sitting in the shade.

On to September, or maybe January.

Swollen Creek…

…but, although still humid, more bearable temperature.

Pax, instead of refusing, enjoyed walking again.

Here’s a one-minute overview of the prairie, currently entering its yellow phase.

Being Inundated

Storm after storm, with heavy downpours. And, in the midst of it all, an hour and a half zoom chat with the Spalding’s (in Estes Park).

Good Day..

…to be a tomato plant. Or a corn plant, or a rutabaga, for that matter. Last night’s rain was followed, this morning, by a very heavy downpour (vertical stair rods) of at least a half hour’s duration. After our mini-drought, some flooding.

Then the rain tapered off and the clouds dissipated, more quickly than I would have liked, and the sun came out… and the cook-off commenced. Pax refused to walk more than half way up the block, for which I am thankful. While dogs don’t like what we’ve got here, vegetables seem to.

Relief

Six o’clock thunderstorm, replete with clouds, wind, rain, and a lower temp.

A walk in the shade with Pax, shady, yes, but still hot.

And when the rain came, we cooled our heels.

On To January

Change needed in physical and political climate.

Pinned Under a Pile…

…of high pressure. Cloudless, windless, and hot.

Strangest Fourth…

…in my memory. Planet baking, virus raging, racism thrashing, Americans locked out of the rest of the world, and a madman in the Whitehouse. Still…

…a holiday spaced-out patio picnic with the neighbors, featuring Green Egg brisket and Sue’s world-famous potato salad.

Now We Have To Water?

Seems like it. Sun and heat have been baking the land, so come dusk we will wield the hose.

Purple coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea) like the weather more than I do.

Not Much Nice…

…about temps in the nineties.

It’s hard in the heat, in the Time of Covid, to get enough exercise, but we did wrestle with an overgrown (volunteer) redbud early this morning, and got it pruned back to to civilized status.

Looking Forward To Lemon Cake

Could be the highlight of the day. Warm and sunny, but not horrible. Mechanical cooling still necessary, and the preferred time for dog walks early and late.

And, another perspective on the house and garden…

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Getting Back To School

Assumption:
For psychological, pedagogical, and economic reasons, kids need to be in school five days a week, with the school itself operating as close to normal as possible.

There may be a way to do this. Here are some steps that might make it possible:

1) Families wishing to attend school sign a contract agreeing to rigorous social distancing, contact tracing, and health data collection guidelines, to be followed throughout the school year.

2) All staff (and all other persons entering the building) sign the same contract.

3) All staff (and all other persons entering the building) tested weekly.

4) All students and staff required to participate in the Kinsa “WellTogether” program, which has proven to be extremely accurate and reliable. Using a smart thermometer linked to an app, students and staff are screened for symptoms at home before coming to school.

It works like this—

• Students and staff take their temperature & record symptoms at home with Kinsa’s QuickCare™ smart thermometer.

• Anyone who’s symptom-free receives a green light indicating they are cleared to head to school. If a fever or symptoms are detected, a red light indicates they must stay home.

• Students and staff  required to show their green light status before entering a bus or the building. Website here: Kinsa

5) All positives immediately contact-traced and kept in quarantine until tests show no contagion.

6) Student arrival and departure re-configured; masks mandatory outside building.

Stay Still…

…or start dripping. (And, for sure, stay in the shade. )

Thunbergia grandiflora, twined around the neighbor’s obelisk. Who goes deep inside that flower to pollinate? Maybe no one, since the plant is native to Madagascar and places like that.

Here are a few shots taken in the heat of the moment at one of the ball fields at Starin Park.

Stormbogenesis

Have been, for hours, at the point of thunderstorm origin. Lots of wind and rain, and far more thunder than Pax likes.

Earlier, in Cedarburg, with Abby, checking out the neighborhood and houses for sale, in case anyone (not us) might want to move there.

Stag Beetle…

…or Giant Stag Beetle, or Staghorn Beetle (Lucanus elaphus). Found him upside down in a bucket (probably crashed after a nuptial flight.) Somewhat rare and threatened, but not threatening, and rather cute. Grubs live in rotting logs (our back woodpile). Like to be around oaks (three giant white oaks in the back yard).

And, speaking of yards, a pair of wrens (house wrens, I think, (Troglodytes aedon), living in the south side bushes and trees, and very noisy, scolding anyone who walks by.

And here is today’s weed-pull. Walk the beet rows every morning, and what do you see? Beets, of course, but also sneaky weeds, intertwined. It’s not just that they are growing so fast, but also because they are hard to see. I can stand scanning a row for half a minute before, all-of-a-sudden, seeing an interloper.