Summer moves along

Every morning when I turn on my computer, the first website I go to is weather.gov -- this has been true for decades, probably nearly as long as weather.gov has existed -- and I've been impressed this week by the nation's weather. Horrible, endless heat in the southwest, flooding in the northeast, and bad air all across the midwest, still from those Canadian wildfires. 

We had some hot days (good for drying laundry). Then it cooled down. Today it's supposed to get to 92, but right now (around 2pm) it's only 84 on the porch. Warm, but pleasant. Tomorrow it's supposed to be 98, and 95 on Tuesday, so by Tuesday night it'll be icky in the house -- but then it's going to drop back down into the 80s on Wednesday, and stay there a while. We really are lucky to live where we do. 

I mean, it's good that we live where we do, because even a little heat lays me out flat, and of course we don't have air conditioning. I did yardwork every morning, Monday through Friday, and I paid for it afterwards, so hot, couldn't seem to cool down. I slept badly at night, woke up already hot, that kind of thing. It was a great relief when it cooled off on Friday. So I'm bracing myself for tomorrow.

***

I'm really enjoying the yard as we prune it down, although what we're mainly uncovering is bare ground -- all the grass has died. Still, it's satisfying to have the outlines of the formal yard reappear, especially the sprinkler heads which haven't been used in years. 

I'm getting a huge kick out of my plantings too -- my window boxes (hanging off the side of the porch), the flowers I planted in our "flower bed" that is usually just weeds, my one tomato plant and my one planter of herbs. There's no order to any of it -- I just buy things that appeal to me and plant them, I don't arrange them artistically.

I wish I could be a real gardener who knows what she's doing. My mother knew how to garden, and her father was a master gardener, but I'm pretty ignorant. I wish I knew how to choose plants and how to grow them better, and what mulch is (people always seem to talk about mulch). I walk through the neighborhood and everyone's flowers and vegetables look better than mine. 

I get a great deal of enjoyment out of what I do, though, so maybe that should be enough.

I don't see hummingbirds at the feeder very often, but every couple of days one will come (probably they come more often than that). The yard has really been alive with birds recently. There was a group of fledgling blue jays (great, sigh) in a tree the other day, and we even had a magpie on the front porch! I was sitting on my bed (the window is just to the east of the porch) and I heard a magpie talking. Baby Kitty jumped up on Rocket Boy's pillow and looked out, and the magpie went on talking to him. I knew it was a magpie -- they're really unmistakable -- but I wanted to see it, so I sat up and looked out the window. And it flew away. "Magpie, I love you!" I called to it, but it went across the street and disappeared in the neighbor's trees.

Magpies just don't understand my devotion to them. Whenever I see a magpie I tell it how much I love it, and if Teen B is around he says, "Die, magpie." The magpies ignore us both.

The hole in the dead aspen in the side yard (where chickadees raised a family earlier this year) is now occupied by some little brown birds, and I cannot for the life of me figure out what they are. First I thought they were wrens, but only once or twice have I seen one with its tail up, and wrens always have their tails sticking up. So then I thought they might be bushtits, but they aren't plump, they're more streamlined. Then I decided they were vireos, but which vireo? None of the vireos in the books seem to be so plain brown. Today I got the idea that they could be Dusky Flycatchers, but their heads don't seem quite right. 

What I need is for a good birder to come over and say, oh, it's this. I don't have good birder contacts anymore, though. Also, I think the birds might be close to fledging. Earlier today there were two birds that weren't flying very expertly and I thought, oh! It's the babies, fledging! But later I saw a parent bird go back to the nest. Is it possible that two fledged and one or more are still in the nest? I don't know. (There's one in this photo, kind of in the middle, if you want to take a guess.)

***

The kids had their first formal driving lessons with TopCops this week. Teen B's cop took him out on quiet roads in eastern Boulder County, but Teen A drove on US 36, I-25, downtown Denver -- the works. I don't know if it's the difference between instructors, or whether they picked up on Teen A's and Teen B's relative (in)competence very quickly and adjusted their "lesson plans" accordingly. This coming week, Teen A will go out with the cop that Teen B had last week, so we'll see what they do together. Teen B has a woman cop who isn't even listed on their website. So we'll see how that goes.

I managed to avoid taking either teen out driving all week. "Air quality alerts" were my excuse, and yes, it's an excuse, I'm not just being a good citizen. I'm promising myself that after this coming week's driving lessons, I won't make any more excuses. I'll take them out. One each day, for half an hour. Horrors.

I'm continuing to work with Teen B on his PE class, but it's not going well. He is completely, utterly, thoroughly uninterested in it, so it's probably more accurate to say that I am dragging him through it, kicking and screaming. I am not sure whether he would actually flunk the class if I wasn't doing this, but it's possible.  

***

I'm trying to think about Summer, with a capital S, and all the things we should be doing to have a Good Summer. Consequently, on Thursday we went to Dairy Queen for Blizzards, and I told the kids we'll go out for ice cream somewhere different each week from now until school starts. We have lots of choices: Sweet Cow, Coldstone Creamery, Glacier, and several places on the mall, and there are some places that serve ice cream along with other things, like the General Store at Chautauqua. Since we only have five weeks left, we won't run out of options.

Maybe we should go to TWO ice cream stores a week. Or we could branch out and go to ice cream places in other towns.

Another thing we should be doing is going to Summer Movies, so Teen B and I finally did yesterday. We saw "Elemental" -- his choice. It was OK. Well, no, it was not that OK. I mean, if you'd never seen a Pixar movie, it would be fine, but I've seen many Pixar movies, and I was bored. A few times I just closed my eyes and thought about taking a nap. Girl from Dispreferred Ethnic Group (in this case, Fire) meets Boy from Preferred Ethnic Group (in this case, Water), Obstacles are placed in their path, True Love wins in the end, and the Girl realizes she needs to be True to Herself. It's never a good thing when you feel as though you could have written the movie yourself. 

However, that's over, and now we can see other movies. I'm interested in "Joy Ride" and "Asteroid City," and of course next week there's the "Barbie" movie (but I don't think I'm going to be able to convince Teen B to go with me, forget Teen A). We saw a preview for the new "Haunted Mansion" film and I'd be willing to see that too.

What else should we be doing? Swimming, although you can do that all year. We could go to the outdoor pool at Scott Carpenter Park. Not sure the kids would really want to do that (especially with their mom). Teen B and I have to do another hike for PE -- maybe next weekend? Friday and Saturday look decent, especially if we go in the morning. Highs in the low 80s, chance of rain in the afternoon. We could go to Chautauqua, maybe get ice cream at the General Store afterwards. Fun times.