July Has Ended and August Begins - A Very Busy Month Indeed

DH and I had a totally awesome final day of July, sitting out on the patio on a perfect summer day. It was a bit too hot for DH, but I was absolutely comfortable - probably the most comfortable I'd been on a Sunday so far this summer. We had lots of hummingbirds visiting the feeder, and we had this little guy who somehow hopped onto the patio table and then proceeded to climb the umbrella pole to the very top. When we attempted to dislodge him, he jumped onto one of the umbrella struts and shimmied to the very end of the fabric, finally jumping back to the table and then to the base of the stone wall. I was VERY impressed. If a human attempted a jump of that bodily proportion of height, we'd be squashed flat. The toad, however, seemed perfectly fine. 

We have these small toads in our garden and our 
yard. They're no more than two inches long, and 
they're chubby. We've always thought they're 
rather sweet, and they're quite remarkable. 
Here's our adventurous toad after his long 
climb and rather amazing jump down. 

It's August, and Sharon arrives in a month. That gives me eight cleaning days, so I'm shifting into high gear again. It's not that difficult to clean - I actually keep a fairly clean house. But how many of you dust the tops of your corners and vacuum every room all the time? Yeah. I thought so - LOL. So I need to do a thorough clean and I'll be starting on Wednesday. I also have several appointments this month at the clinic - a wellness visit with my Doctor, and a mammogram. Both fairly minimal, but important. 

The toad somehow made it up to the tabletop of our patio 
table and then started climbing up the pole of the 
umbrella. He climbed all the way up to the top, when 
he was stopped because there was no way to get 
any higher. I'm not sure what he wanted to 
accomplish, but we were worried for it and wanted 
it to be safe. 

I got my Absentee Ballot in the mail on Saturday. I'll fill it out at the shop tomorrow and have Chickie witness it for me, then drop it off at the local Library on Wednesday because that's one of the better drop-off locations for me to get to. I'm really not in the mood to stand in line on Tuesday the 9th to vote, I'd much rather vote early and have it out of the way. 

Upon realizing he couldn't go up, he jumped down 
to one of the struts for the umbrella and worked his 
way all the way to the end of the strut. When we 
tried to rescue him from his predicament, he would 
have none of it, choosing instead to hop back 
down to the table (quite a distance for a little guy 
like this) and then, from the table to the ground, 
as seen in the first photo. He appeared to be fine, 
and hopefully found himself a good meal because 
he had expended quite a bit of effort with our 
umbrella. 

Today at the shop I'll organize the first two batches of crystals I want to photograph in grid order so that I can take photos efficiently after Sharon has returned home. This will be time-consuming, but it's very do-able, and it's something I can easily do at the shop without having to use up my limited "day off" hours. I'll do a quick e-pay of a couple of bills this morning too, to limit things in my "to-do" list and maximize things in my "done" list - LOL. Little baby steps of accomplishment can go a long way to making me feel good. 

Happy Lughnasadh to all. This is the start 
of the harvest festival. We're not sacrificing 
the King today, but we are offering first 
fruits and thanking the Earth for her bounty. 

On that note, have an excellent Lughnasadh (Lammas) - offer your first fruits and celebrate the first day of the Harvest season. I'll be back tomorrow, at least that's the plan. The stories for this round of LJ Idol are due tomorrow night, and voting will probably commence on Wednesday. I'll be sure to give you a heads-up and link for voting, and hope that my "Unconventional" story will merit your votes. Slava Ukraini. 

Lammas, Olympics and Chinese Food - A Good Sunday All Around

How was your Lammas? Yes, Sunday, August 1st, was Lammas in the Pagan calendar. It's the day to bake a loaf of bread with the first grain harvest of the year. Although I used to bake loaves of bread regularly while in college, I haven't done so in many years. I also don't do grains, or keep them to a bare minimum in my diet, so I didn't bake anything yesterday at all. In fact, I felt horribly lazy so we got Chinese for dinner. I'll make my tacos later in the week or next week. The ground beef is vacuum sealed and it'll be fine for a few more days. 

Although I miss having my Kung Pao chiekcn, I've 
learned to really enjoy my Moo Shu Chicken almost 
as much. The best thing is I get at least 3 meals from it. 
Money well spent. 

DH stayed up until 3:40 am on Saturday/Sunday watching the Olympic golf tournament. I watched a two-hour final round repeat in the late afternoon, and yes. It was worth the watching. What I really love about the Olympics is that there are three winners - a Gold, a Silver and a Bronze. With almost every other competition, you get a single winner and a lot of losers. So here, although the Gold and Silver medals were determined in regular 72-hole play (and it was a nailbiter to the end), there were either 8 or 9 players tied for the Bronze medal and they had to go to a playoff. It resulted in five holes being replayed before a winner was declared. The most fun I've had watching golf in a long time. 

The BMX Freestyle competition at the Olympics takes 
place at the skateboarding park. The riders do these 
fabulous tricks in the air with their bicycles, it's 
wonderful to watch. I love the BMX bicycles, too. 
They're rugged and light-weight. They fly nicely. 
The winner (pictured here) was Logan Martin from 
Australia. 

I was also able to catch some of the BMX bicycle competition (great fun) and the women's springboard diving competition. I saw the women's trampoline for a while, but missed the men's from the day before. All told, I got a good sampling of Olympics on Sunday and enjoyed it very much. In the evening, Sunisa Lee picked up her third medal - a bronze in the uneven parallel bars. That leaves her with three medals, one of each color. 

Bryony Page from the UK won a Bronze Medal in 
the Women's Trampoline event. They get so high 
on their jumps, and they have to be so precise. It's a 
rather scary event, but always breathtaking. 

Today will be another busy day at the shop. I'm also planning carefully for my Wednesday. I start Wednesday out with an early appointment with my Doctor, and then dive into a very busy day. Since I'll have to work on one of my "off" Fridays when Chickie takes a vacation day, I'll have one less day to get Sharon's room into shape. I got a good start last week, but a lot more still needs to be done. Oy! 

I'm out of here. Time to forge ahead on a new week. Have a wonderful Monday and I'll be back tomorrow and please, be kind to others. A friendly word can mean the world and you may never know how important it is to that person. 

Lammas Blessings - Harvest Is Beginning

Today is Lammas, the first day of August and the beginning of the harvest celebrations. These days we seem to be able to get food of any kind at all times of the year, but it wasn't always that way. Food has a distinct cycle of seed, to plant, to mature fruit, to death, and finally to rebirth once again through saved seed which would be sown in the spring. Now we begin the days of plenty - those days when the table groaned with good food from the kitchens and the manors and homes were busy putting aside reserves for the upcoming winter and lean months. Lammas celebrates bounty. It totally works for me as a joyous time of the year.

Here is a Medieval rendering of the Lord and his serfs at harvest time.
It's pretty obvious that it was far better to be the Lord than the serfs and
that harvesting was some backbreaking labor. 

As I mentioned above, our 24/7/365 day availability of food wasn't always that way. In my own lifetime I remember clearly those wonderful days when the peaches and apricots were ripe, when grapes were available, and plums - oh those meaty and juicy plums from the Santa Rosa area. In the winter we had apples and oranges, but the fruits of summer were my love and they were only available for a short time every year.

Van Gogh painted this famous picture of a harvest in Provence. The
painting dates from 1888 and is in a museum in Jerusalem, Israel. 

I purchased my first few Colorado Peaches over the weekend. They weren't quite ripe enough, so they're sitting out until later this week when they'll be absolutely perfect. I have black cherries in the refrigerator, alongside my lettuce and carrots. I have tomatoes for my salad and eggs for my Sunday breakfast. There's nothing much better than fresh food on the table. Although the variety to choose from decreases in the off-seasons, these days many of these fruits and vegetables are available throughout the year. When they are truly in season though, they just seem to taste better because they are harvested at peak.

It wasn't just wheat that was harvested. Here, Jules Adolph Aime
Louis Breton painted "Harvesting Rapeseed" in 1860. It appears the
seed was winnowed, similar to other grains, by using a large basket
and the natural breezes. 

So celebrate Lammas in your own home today by eating something fresh - something that comes to your table directly from the earth. Think about how amazing it is that we can have these wonderful foods for so much of the year and not have to worry about starvation in the dark days of winter looming ahead. We're very fortunate.

This panel from a documentary shows a young woman harvesting rice
in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. 

Have a great Tuesday. Chickie should have returned to her devastated apartment last night. The cats did a number on the apartment and it looks like a hurricane went through the interior. I'm sure the furballs were happy to see Chickie return, but it's amazing how two active cats can wreak havoc with anything that's not nailed down. I'm off to the pool. Good Lammas to all!