LIMINAL LIVING #84: 4 AUGUST TO 10 AUGUST 2025

Birds, Collector Garden, Community, Dreams & Sleep, Edible Gardening, Flowers, Food & Drink, Gardening, Harvest, Insects & Arachnids, Liminal Life, Pollinators, Slow Gardening & Living

LIMINAL LIVING #84: 4 AUGUST TO 10 AUGUST 2025

August 10, 2025

Weekly recap of my ritual of existence in this liminal space called life. (See here for more info.) Click on photos to enlarge them.

Weather

Temperatures were rather moderate this week with no extreme highs or lows. High temps averaged 81.2°F, ranging from 87.3°F to 76.6°F (twice); lows ranged narrowly from 55.8°F to 59.2°F, averaging 57.6°F. We got only .14 inches of rain, on Thursday evening. Canadian wildfire smoke was with us.

Beginnings/Firsts

Found our first yellow jacket nest in the garden, under the weeping dwarf spruce, on Monday. My husband sprayed it on Tuesday and poured Sevin into the nest on Wed.

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Saw my first viceroy this year in the garden on Monday. I love these photos of it and the flowers.

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We attended the League of NH Craftsmen Fair on Friday afternoon, for the first time in 10 years. Saw some lovely pieces of art but bought only food and drink. Ran into a friend (ED) and a friend’s daughter there (KDeV). Many of the booths had signs requesting no photography so I took only a few outside photos.

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We visited our town’s historical society with a private tour (by friend DH) along with a few others (including friend RL) on Sunday. It was the first time I’d seen it.

Wild Things (Flora, Fauna, Fungi) in addition to others elsewhere in this post

So much wild stuff this time of year! I’ll try to segment it.

First, monarchs and monarch caterpillars.

Other butterflies, moths, and caterpillars.

Beetles & Bugs

Flies, Wasps, Bees, Yellow Jackets et al.

bumblebee in native white turtlehead (Chelone glabra)

birds and a very slender spider

a few birds Merlin heard in the yard or nearby on Tues. and Wed. this week (not sure about the kingfisher, though there are ponds and lakes hereabouts)

Wandering

I walked in town every day, though not much on Friday. Also wandered to Lebanon to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center on Thursday to take a friend for an appointment and to shop together at the regional co-op.

in town photos

DHMC photos

Curiosity & Discoveries

I found it odd that iNaturalist thought this pretty obviously corvid (crow or raven) feather was anything but a bird feather. Usually it’s quite successful at identifying them.

Creating

Just this.

Repairing and Maintaining (everything but the house & yard)

Body/Mind: Worked out four times (4 hours) this week. Walked more than 14,000 steps on six days, and more than 16,000 on Sunday. I had a negative Covid test on Friday. I called on Thursday to change my annual PCP appointment to another doctor on another date.

Gardening/Yard

I spent about about 4 hours in the garden this week, mostly watering and also harvesting. My husband put up peach supports on Tuesday and Wednesday and pulled bittersweet from one of the rhododendrons.

some garden photos this week

14-sec video of midsummer tiger swallowtail butterfly and bees in the garden on Tuesday

Nesting

Cleaning/Maintenance: My husband cleaned the two Winix air filters, cleared out the master bathroom sink pipes, and cleaned the downstairs guest shower this week. I did clothes laundry on Wednesday and Sunday. I watered the houseplants on Tuesday. I took 14 items of clothing to a local consignment shop on Friday.

Supplies: I ordered four Eddie Bauer shirts on clearance sale on Wednesday (and returned two of them).

Food: Veggie burgers, local corn on the cob, cukes and peppers on Monday. Tuna salad on local arugula and local corn on the cob on Tues. and Wed. nights. Grilled hot dogs (beef or soy), sautéed local summer squash, local peppers, onion, and raw local radishes and local cukes with tapenade on Thursday. No dinner on Friday, just snackage. I made shrimp and jasmine rice on Sat., with sautéed local summer squash, “Mardi Gras blend” bush beans from our garden, local peppers, and onion. Sunday was leftover grilled hot dogs, local corn on the cob, mac & cheese, and raw local cukes and local peppers. Another summery dinner week.

Sleeping & Dreaming

Changing the recording of heart rate from “every 10 mins” to “continuous” has made the sleep measurements on the Samsung Fit 3 much more in line with my former fitness tracker (Fitbit Luxe). This week, I had an average of 7 hours 45 mins sleep per night, with an average sleep score of 88.3. REM sleep accounted for 14 hours 18 mins of sleep, and deep sleep for 7 hours 36 mins. I had some long and wild dreams this week.

Reading / Words & Ideas / Listening / Watching

Reading

BOOKS: I finished both The Killing Bay (2017; Faroes Novel #2) by Chris Ould and The Fire Pit (2018; Faroes #3) by Chris Ould this week. Liked both. The trilogy had a satisfying ending. Next up is The Ice Queen (Pia Kirchhoff and Oliver von Bodenstein #3; 2009) by Nele Neuhaus, crime fiction set in Germany

OTHER

What Are Doom Boxes? by Emily McGowan, The Good Trade. “Doom” stands for “didn’t organize, only moved.” They’re “the in-between place for clutter that we don’t have the current bandwidth to organize. … [F]or some of us, that time and energy never comes and we end up consumed by the doom. Instead of the perfect home, we shuffle our belongings around from place to place like an infinite clutter ballet. And it weighs on us.”

Also:

Watching

Andrea Gibson’s MAGA Hat in the Chemo Room. Don’t miss it and don’t stop watching until the end.

Still enjoying “Death in Paradise” (seasons 1 & 2) on Britbox.

Listening

Shazam’d this week

Connections & Community

Local Support: As last week, I stopped in to the local farm stand most days this week, for corn on the cob, cucumbers, peppers, blueberries (three times!), and crackers. I shopped with a friend at the regional co-op on Thursday. We had breakfast at a local café/bakery on the patio on Wednesday and I stopped in there on Saturday for a loaf of jalapeño/cheddar bread, some pastry, and a jasmine iced tea. Partook of some local food and beer at the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen Fair on Friday. My husband volunteered at the local car museum for about 12 hours this week and attended their Saturday event for a couple of hours.

Relationships: I watered container vegetables for neighbours (J&SL) while they were away this week (rewarded with a zucchini, some cherry tomatoes, and green beans). My husband helped a friend (ND) move a box spring from one bed to another in their home on Wed. I picked up a few items for a friend (RL) from the co-op on Thursday while I was taking another friend (LV) to a doctor’s appointment in that area. Salon met on Friday with four of us for two hours. Sent a catch-up email to a friend (KKT) on Monday and got one from a friend (RVN) on Sunday. Spent time with two friends (RL, DH) and a few others at the historical society tour for two hours on Sunday. Gave some cherry tomatoes to a neighbour (BF) on Thursday,

Endings/Harvest

We bid a sad but necessary farewell to some of the yellow jackets nesting in the garden this week. Also, an anchor stink bug killed a couple of monarch caterpillars this week before I intervened. 😔

This week I harvested Mardi Gras blend bush beans, basil, a couple of peaches (to ripen inside), and many tomatoes — sungolds, sweet millions, Matt’s wild cherry, gardeners delight, and yellow pear.