who moves in the forest leaving no scent

The less said about this past weekend, the better, really. It was too hot. We spent most of one day helping an old Lady dog on her last journey, and then condoling with the one who had to go home without her.

A feast of moon and men and barking hounds

So work has been demanding and leaves little energy for other things, as I mentioned, and furthermore summer is coming, with heat that inspires sloth, and yet one does not live by vicious weeding and iced tea alone.

Inappropriate clothes, odd habits

Many of my peers greet the arrival of warm weather with a mix of joy and consternation, but not because of the wild temperature swings that afflict our beautiful capital.

After the torchlight red on sweaty faces

It seems there is a sort of storm called a derecho. I'd never heard the term before, despite the fact that the BBC reported that such storms are locally known by that name in the Washington area, and that the weather blog at the Washington Post said they tend to occur in this area once every 4 years.

Ripe was the drowsy hour

My excuse, as always, is that work is busy. I sometimes think that is not very satisfactory, as excuses go, but the sad truth is there are only so many hours in a day, some of which must be spent earning one's keep in the world, and when you have spent 9 hours reading documents, writing documents, and sitting on your hands so you do not roll up some of those documents and beat your colleagues with them, spending your off hours writing more seems less appealing than, say, poking yourself in the eye.

Yellow, bee-bitten, soft

First, find tiny ripe cantaloupes. A farmer at my local market grows these; she says they're a French variety, and they're about the size of a large grapefruit.

O Grammar rules, O now your virtues show

I have suggested in the past that July is as bad, in its way, as January for gardeners, and this weekend was as bad as it gets.  My outdoor activities were limited to getting up very early and watering the tomatoes, and then coming out about 8 in the evening and watering them again.

Nine cities of squirrels lived in that tree.

People are wonderful for arguing about the weather. Is it worse there or here? Are the denizens of one city or another wimps for being unable to handle cold/snow/heat/other inconvenience? Just how hot is hot, anyway?

As we reach for the smaller fork

No recipe this week. In fact, there's small chance of anything of substance at all this week.

"We store up pleasure in our bodies like fat"

A photoessay:

"Two olive oil tins, one wine bottle, one flower vase"

This weekend's kitchen project the first was a batch of dill refrigerator pickles. The cucumber vine here shriveled up, but I scored a few pounds of pickling cukes at a local market.

"But what is planted is what comes"

'Carolina Moonlight' and the bluestar are in the ground. This was hard work, not fun, and was followed by a long time sitting under a cold shower.

"Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown"

Curse you, Myrtle Money.

"This is a discourse on reading heat"

It was 83 F at 7 this morning.

Maeve was sprawled on the bathroom floor, paws skyward. I picked her up and moved her to the bedroom, where there is air conditioning. She complained briefly but quickly found a patch of unoccupied floor and resumed the paws-skyward pose.

"Someone is walking through the sun with my tongue on a leash"

I would prefer to be contemplating the ephemeral loveliness of Hemerocallis, the best approach to skirt pockets, or the Platonic ideal of the crabcake.

What (else) I did on my summer vacation

What else did I do on my summer vacation, besides making zucchini fritters?

Rites of Summer: Zucchini Zeitgeist Edition

Zucchini fritters seem to be in the Zeitgeist these days (does the Zeitgeist get hungry?) -- there was a recipe for them in the Post last week and Nigella Lawson was talking about them on NPR this morning.

More than five days

Five days I told you at my farm I’d stay,
And lo! the whole of August I’m away.
Well but, Maecenas, you would have me live,
And, were I sick, my absence you’d forgive.
So let me crave indulgence for the fear
Of falling ill at this bad time of year.
When, thanks to early figs and sultry heat,
The undertaker figures with his suite;
When fathers all and fond mammas grow pale
At what may happen to their young heirs male,
And courts and levees, town-bred mortals’ ills,
Bring fevers on, and break the seals of wills.

Q. Horatius Flaccus, Epistulae VII. Trans. John Conington

Well, not away the whole month of August, but certainly blogging on summer hours and I will in fact be gone all of next week. Sultry heat and early figs are as insupportable in this Capital as they were in Horace's.

Forgetful

There was something I was going to write about, but I forgot what it was.

It must be summer.

The thermometer has hit 90 here in the beautiful capital (humidity approx. 80% yesterday). The daylilies and trumpet vines are blooming. The sorbet people are back at the farmers' market (doing a roaring business). And I got my first stupid poison ivy comment of the year.