We may be in midsummer, but you'd hardly know it, from the cool temperatures that have moved in, the last few days. Certainly no complaints about that. The air is refreshing; gone the high humidity levels and even our daily thunderstorms have abated. The weather controls so much about our lives. For one thing, it allows us to sleep more comfortably, with a brisk breeze entering the bedroom window. Almost dictating to us what's appropriate, and when, taking into account prevailing weather patterns. Take, for example our menus; heavy on refreshing salads during hot and humid evenings.

 

 

Not tonight. There'll be a garden salad, a small one, prefacing a hot, hearty soup. A soup kind of halfway between winter and summer, come to think of it. A French onion soup seemed to answer to the dilemma of what to prepare for a day when it's been cool enough that a light jacket seemed just right for our afternoon foray into the ravine with Jackie and Jillie.

 

Before that, though, the cool weather reminded me that it's the perfect environment for a much-needed treat for the garden pots. To fertilize those hard-working pots and urns that have been giving us so much blooming pleasure this spring and summer. They've worked so hard, they're beginning to look a trifle exhausted. So a bath with fertilizing powder seemed just the solution. It can't be applied on hot days since plants work hard enough to sustain themselves under the pressure of heat. Today turned out just perfect for nurturing them with a pick-up.

 

 

After which off we went to the ravine, on a breezy, cool afternoon. The sun kept kissing our faces, and then disappearing behind wind-swept dark clouds. They looked like they were bearing rain, but failed to drop any. Although a hike through the ravine is pleasant in any weather during any season, when it's cool on a summer day the experience edges toward sheer perfection.

 

 

That being the case, we made it a longer circuit for today, and Jackie and Jillie were in perfect accord. We heard a pileated woodpecker just where we'd seen one close by a few days back. Its call is unmistakable; loud and a little high-pitched-deranged, as though it's laughing uproariously at its own jokes. We keep looking up and around in the hope of spotting one of the barred owls that we hear from time to time; often one calling from one direction and another responding from the opposite direction. Could be territorial, could be familial.

 

 

After we returned home we cruelly/evilly left Jackie and Jillie to their own devices as we left to do the food shopping for the week. Since plastic bags have been banned, we can no longer access them, and that presented us with a bit of a dilemma; what would we be placing the non-perishable food we buy weekly in, if not a plastic bag? Well, we've decided to use cotton, reusable bags; they come at a price but we can afford the $.35 for a stout reusable bag, it's a third of the price of a can of soup, after all.

 

 

We stopped by our local supermarket as usual for our groceries, then went on to Farm Boy, the fruit and vegetable specialists, to supplement what we couldn't get at Food Basics. And you just never know what you'll come across at Farm Boy, their choices are plentiful and surprising, and going there is like a surprise party.