Whither September?

September has been a month of (rough) transition as summer (and I) frankly ran out of steam and sputtered into fall. The weekends were a blur of illness, travel, and work. I have felt like I was just barely holding on this month, drawing inward to keep a sense of equanimity as everything swirled around me. I have a rough time with transitions. I have a rough time with the growing darkness at this time of year. Nevertheless, it's time to write again or else I will lose the thread and have a really hard time getting back to it.

The photo above is from my trip to Duluth a couple of weekends ago. This was a perfect clear warm September day and the downtown lake walk was all red, white and blue. I got to share Superior with two international students that I carpooled with up to a weekend conference. I can already feel myself transitioning away from my outdoorsy summer self to my indoorsy, wintry, book-reading, nap-taking, saunaing, football-watching, soup-making dreamy drowsy self.

Closure

Turns out that it can take several weeks to muster enough energy to sift through over 500 vacation photos and determine which ones are the best to share. This weekend, while sitting on the couch recovering from my major gardening project to transform the other half of our boulevard space (the non-butterfly garden side), I sifted through the files to identify those that best represent our trip. You can enjoy the slide show here.

Purple Viking Potatoes - Skol!

Our first potatoes of the season have begun to poke up out of the dirt. They look like miniature purple versions of the planet Jupiter. Their white flesh is light and buttery. We'll count these as one of the gardening successes for this season. The potatoes, the homemade salsa from garden tomatoes and hot peppers, the zucchini bread soon to be baked, and the pesto awaiting grandparents' September arrival to be made from our terrific basil crop all make me say, "It worked!" In addition to the good things to eat, the butterfly garden I planted this year has brought a large number of monarchs and other creatures of the order lepidoptera to our front yard.

As summer winds down, I begin to reflect on the gardening season of 2010 and begin to plan for 2011 based on what worked and didn't this year. It turns out we're not a big fan of turnips or Swiss chard and would rather use the room for more carrots and some green beans next year. I'm still debating whether to plant some garlic yet this fall. I will also continue to figure out what to do about crop failures and low yields (why are our winter squash plants so anemic, what happened to our corn plants while we were on vacation, why are those healthy pepper plants not yielding fruit?) One thing for sure, we want more delicious things to eat right in our backyard.

Shape and Color

Alaska is Big

I took over 500 photos on our vacation. I finally have enough energy to sort through them and make some sense of the records I kept of the trip. What I can say is that I completely stepped out of my routine and submerged myself into this place of wood, rock, and water. Nature in this scale has a way of making you feel both small and safe at the same time. There will be more to share over the next few days.

Forget-me-not.

One last big push today to get ready for our trip to Alaska (see the AK state flower pictured above). I'm looking forward to enjoying the quiet of a less populated place; feeling the sublime in nature like an old-school Romantic poet; photographing a landscape with a different scale and tenor than my hometown; reading books, playing games, and solving puzzles; wearing Wellies; seeing family; and taking a break from the usual routine.

Summer Friday #7

Drizzly day. Lunch with Papa at India House and laying in supplies for the coming airplane adventure. Zizzing through a snoozy afternoon. Brothers playing on a bed. Easy lazy summer.