every year the grandchildren come for a visit. first one, then two and now three. at the end of the summer i give them each a little photo album of summer memories. eamon has 8 albums. lucy has 4. and now finn will have his first. and every year more activities are added to "what we do at nana and poppy's" for lucy who only vaguely remembers last summer - it's sitting at the stone bench in her yellow chair and eating kellogg's cereal out of the little box...
summer for me will be taking an abrupt turn starting today. my daughter and her husband and 3 kiddos are arriving from st. john's. this is finn's first trip to corner brook. he is almost 7 months old. sitting but not yet crawling. lucy is 4 and eamon 9. they'll all stay for a week and then go home, leaving eamon with us for a couple more weeks. lucy has been invited to stay behind too (eamon started his summer vacations with nana and poppy when he was 4). but lucy (who always knows exactly what she wants) says she will start when she is 6. lots of adventures planned. lots of cooking and cleaning and hiking and swimming and stories. perhaps some more dyeing of alders (i got a big propane cooker and pot yesterday so this can now be done outside). some carding and spinning with many little fingers involved. summer...
i haven't been spending time at the cabin this summer. this is a different summer. i'm doing more at home. not working more but finding home a wonderful place for relaxing. the garden and greenhouse has made me just want to be here. but yesterday i woke up really wanting to be down in dark cove. so we went there for the day. and re-connected.
there's no denying it. summer is half over. the garden is at it's peak. the late flowers are coming into bud. the vegetable plants have reached their maximum height and now all the energy is going into the fruit. july is the only month of the year i want to hang onto. i love the autumn but not the winter. mid-summer heralds the beginning of the descent into winter...
