bits and bants vol. 49
is it summer yet?
Tempted not to write at all because I could almost copy and paste a short update of things around here from my last newsletter, but then where would be the fun in life and think of all those empty inboxes!
June has barrelled by with grads and celebrations and exam taking and studying and soccer games and planting and weeding. All very good things on the whole, if also making for a very packed feeling to life in general. I always wonder if in different climes this season feels less “packed full”? Here in Canada we feel obligated to make the most of our three months of good weather a year. Everything is happening! And because the traditional school year goes to the bitter end of June, most regularly scheduled things continue up until then for kids as well. July and August aren’t as structured but the feeling to make the most of things remains. It’s not a bad pressure per se, just one you feel even though it goes largely unspoken.
Our oldest daughter’s grad was celebrated to the full last weekend, and a wonderful time was had by all! Her small class of homeschooled/Chesterton Academy graduates were so sweet and happy, but they are still writing exams into next week. It felt like there was a lot happening last weekend, and I have to admit that I have yet to write my husband’s father’s day card. We have developed this tradition of having the cards for special occasions and then not giving them to the other for weeks. I’m not saying that marriage compatibility is built upon shared understanding of celebrating special dates, but it is a key component! I think it would be a nightmare to be married to someone who wanted precision, presents, and pomp each birthday and anniversary.
Things in the garden have gone from terribly dry—did it ever rain in May?? not really—to completely flooded and now my seedlings are dying because they’re completely saturated. Two hail storms last weekend left a lot of things in shreds, and now I have three different crops that look like they are slowly yellowing and dying. Seedlings I’d started in February! I still have no flowers and I can’t describe how infuriating it is. I’m sure I could describe it, and it would be an agonizing 5,000 word read, but it really is so frustrating. All the perennials I’ve been planting this year are not in bloom and might not flower at all this year, I badly planned my ranunculus and I may only get a bloom or two, and I have to wait years for peonies here! And there will most likely be a frost warning in parts of the province this weekend. If I wasn’t addicted to gardening it would not be worth the work/stress but the gardening life chose me.
Next week will be the official start of summer around here as hopefully we will be completely finished exams, books returned, and maybe plus 20 temperatures once again, but I am already trying to temper my expectations of slow days with the realities of teenage life. I still fight for days of not going anywhere but they usually come with a bit of a fight! Someone has got to enjoy the garden though.
bits:
I need more bits to share and apologize for not saving so much that I’ve read lately!
I don’t know if you are all reading Heather King’s substack, but it’s really one of the most rewarding reads going. This piece was lovely:
Is it too much expecting to have this garden out my backdoor in northern Alberta?? *pause for laughter*
I know I share everything written about Brideshead Revisited on a weekly basis, but this piece exploring the power of Waugh’s prose was just too good not to share.
reading, watching, what have you:
Finished The Betrothed! It was a really remarkable book that I think will stay with me for a long time. A wonderful tapestry of characters, an epic storyline complete with plague accounts, and the timeless theme of God working in individuals lives. I’m glad I finally made it through, with much help from the audiobook version and the
slow read!Also finished Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell this week, the last of the WRM book choices for the year. I was behind in reading it because I couldn’t make the last meeting of the year because of all the grad happenings, so I am missing hearing what everyone thought. I thought it was a well crafted story with Gaskell’s signature attention to interior detail, but the Victorian melodrama was high. And although I predicted how it was going to end from about 50 pages in I couldn’t help but yell internally, “Son of bitch she died!”
Started Outrageous on BritBox this week then proceeded to spill red wine while watching it, then couldn’t finish the episode because I had to clean the wine spill.
Okay, I’ve got to force myself to make a couple phone calls for various things before I need to get some things done around the house before I have to drive people places!
I forgot to mention that I am still so behind in my reading for the year and have stacks of books that I have out from the library that need to be read and not being able to is slowly killing me. So I’m making it a goal to read much more over the next couple weeks and maybe weed less?
hope you don’t have frost warnings this weekend,
Christy