august

We’re preparing for dinner, in that August way, where first you spend 15 minutes locating the kids, then 15 minutes asking them to come inside, then another 15 de-mudding them enough to be fit for the table. The table is still full of the latest apricot project; our floor is like a modern-art representation of both everyone’s creativity and disinterest in cleaning up after themselves; and I’m double-washing the toothy salad greens (AKA: weeds; we’re between lettuce plantings) because of the spider I found in last night’s lamb’s quarters.

Soaking dandelion greens, purslane and lambs quarters.

“What do you guys want to do to help get dinner on the table?” I ask the kids.

Col: “I’ll sweep the floor.”

Rose: “I’ll dance.”

There’s a few extra people on the property lately, various friends and boyfriends of the downstairs tenants, which is fine with us, annoying (parking-wise) to some of our neighbors, and for Col and Rose, like having endless quarters to deposit in a gumball machine that never empties. “Lets go see who’s downstairs, Coley,” Rose requests 12 times a day. The downstairs folks, these unencumbered 20-something year olds, are so gracious and patient with Col and Rose. I think they see the kids as these delightful little creatures, more amusing and interesting than a figment of their last mushroom trip, which is exactly how we 40-year olds see them.

The shark Col created with the sex-poetry magnets downstairs. Rowan called me in, laughing, to come check this out. See, funnier than his latest mushroom trip.

We participated in a clay oven pizza party this week with the downstairs folks, in which there were Enough Adults to Go Around. Meaning, Dan and I puttered happily around the garden and root cellar knowing vaguely that the kids were somewhere on the property with some adult whose pie graph of patience wasn’t already 75% eaten.

Col and John tending the fire together. Also, I did eavesdrop just a little. Overheard Col telling John the story of how he *almost* accidentally superglued his fingers to a towel. John then relayed his own superglued fingers story for Col. Big friendship for this little 7-year old.

Rowan’s amazing pizza sauce, incidentally cooked in a pot that belonged to a tenant whom we lived with when we lived downstairs in our unencumbered 20’s!

Pizza going in the oven.

The garden is going into August superdrive.

The every 2-3 day tomato haul.

Buttercup squash, my favorite.

Mom, next time you’re here: kimchi!

Rocky mountain bee plant.

Onions and cabbages getting along.

Gargantuan cabbage leaves, which may or may not be due to pee-fertilizer. 

This photo below—of a squash tendril wrapped around a tomato—represents what I love about my garden, about this whole homestead…how well we all intermix.

And finally, Rose cut her hair all by her ownself.

“I was just ready for some fangs,” Rose explained, meaning “bangs.” (She went at it again today, looks sort of Country and Western Singer, in a good way).

Apparently, Rose runs a mobile spa and will comb your hair while you’re piecing together legos, just make sure you specify, “no scissors.”

 Have a gorgeous, August-filled weekend!

Rachel