It's good when you lose track of the days ...

There's been a beguiling mixture of rain and sun here.

Rain is good for sitting on the porch with a book and looking at this.

Sun is good for exploring.

There was a parade in there somewhere too.

Reading: Finished Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight. A random descriptive passage (chosen from many that are equally evocative):

The heat in the kitchen is breath-sucking. There are two small windows at either end of the huge tacked-together room, and stable door, which leads off to the back veranda where the dairyman (surrounded by a halo of flied) labors over the milk churn (milk spits into buckets, cream chugs into a jug; both are in danger of going off before the can reach refrigeration). The fridges, unable to compete with the heat, leak (they bleed actually: think watered-down blood from the defrosting chunks of cow) and add a fusty-smelling steam to the atmosphere. The aroma here is defrosting flesh, soon-to-be-off milk, sweating butter, and the always present salty-meat-old-vegetable effluvium of the dogs' stew toiling away on the stove. (280)

 Writing: Progress on the script, and an awareness that I have a grant deadline for fiction coming up.

Dinner: There's been a lot of good food and drink, including Connecticut peach dishes #s 4-6:
          • Peach basil bourbon smash (pictured at left), which I will note was fresh seasonal cocktail of the week #2.
          • Peach pie
          • Peach barbecue sauce, made to go with grilled pork and grilled summer squash and peppers, potato salad, and melon salad.
I am particularly proud of the bbq sauce. The recipe I was using as a blueprint called for fresh ginger, lacking which I added nutmeg, a bit of curry powder, some chili powder, and a handful of raisins (it all was pureed in the blender after simmering). It all worked.

Really, when have I ever had to cope with so many peaches? And there are more left!

 Soundtrack: This morning a very proud robin spent a good 30 minutes declaring itself outside my bedroom window. I know there is a nest nearby because I saw mama robin out with a gangly, spotty breasted fledgling a couple of days ago, but this is the first morning I have been aware of this serenade. Maybe this is the song of the empty nest?

Random thing: I was on the dock with Orson last night as he was winding up a mackerel trawling session and a clumsy cormorant almost ran into us as it tried to take off from the water. They do a long flapping wind up before they take the the air. It had managed to get itself aloft a couple yards from the dock, realized it was headed straight for me and dropped back into the water like a giant black feathered rock. I was worried at first that it was injured, but after some sulky paddling around it repositioned itself and took off towards the open water.

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