VISITORS

August is the time of year when the gap between the days’ high and low temperatures begins to widen. At the farm yesterday morning it was 54 at 6:00. The afternoon high in town was 100 at our house. (Of course, it was probably only 90 at the farm.)

Mike and I drove to the farm Monday, August 19, for a brief stay. On our way, we picked up a geocache in north Lewiston to comply with the August challenge.

Wildfires seem to abound – some small, some large – and some fires are field burns. At any rate, the smoke sits in the canyons and valleys and even rests on the hilltops. Mike stopped briefly on Gilbert Grade to check the dogs, and I hopped out to quickly take these pictures above Orofino.

I zoomed in on Orofino and snapped this picture. I discovered later that I had captured the image of our old family home (a white house with dormer windows) in the center of the shot. I cropped the picture to bring the house out even more.  The picture below shows smoke in Little Canyon.

Many people vacation in August, and the traffic on Highway 12 bears this out. Brother Chuck and wife Joanne from Utah are a case in point. They are here this week and spent the two days with us on the farm. I've always thought that having company is such fun, just another kind of "staycation." We kept our activities low-key, except for one or two chores. Mike and Chuck helped me cut back the spent hollyhocks. “Many hands make light work,” Mother used to say, and I was pleased to have the job finished so quickly. 

Chuck and Joanne hope that when they return to Utah the worst of the summer heat will have passed. Poor Chuck's voice got pretty gruff and we wondered if he was having a reaction to the smoke.

Chuck and Joanne brought squash and eggplant from their Utah garden, and I had peas, beets, carrots, lettuce, and a cucumber. I pulled out the peas – and now we’ll just have to wait and see what happens in the garden. Maybe the beans will bear – maybe not. Maybe we’ll have a new crop of leaf lettuce. I still have carrots and beets to harvest.

We had a great second yield with our day neutral strawberries. I picked more berries every day, fighting the yellow jackets for them. With what I picked and froze last week, we had strawberry shortcake for dessert Monday night and Tuesday I thickened the sweetened berries and poured them over cream cheese filling in a graham cracker crust.

 

With each trip to the farm I expect the hummingbirds to be gone, but we still have three or four visiting the feeders. Unusual.

So, we came back to town on Wednesday. This is the weekend for Lewiston’s “Hot August Nights” celebration. We no longer take in the concerts as neither the music nor the party format interests us, but Mike likes the car shows.

Someone told Mike that The Butler was a good movie, so tonight we ate early and headed out to the cinema. There were two other couples watching with us. KW