A Moveable Garden

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Weekly recap of my ritual of existence in this liminal space called life. (See here for more info.)

• Weather

In a word, hot. Also pretty dry — almost a half-inch of rain fell this week, most of it on Tuesday. High temperatures averaged 87°F, with a range from 82.8°F (twice) to 92.3°F (twice). The lows averaged 62.7°F, ranging from 55.2°F to 70.9°F. Thurs-Sat. were all hot, humid, and sunny. We ran the bedroom A/C from Tuesday through Saturday this week.

• Beginnings/Firsts

First pea harvests! First pea harvested:

First goldenrod flowering:

On Saturday I emailed the link to subscribers for the July nature photo album.

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

goldfinch grooming on parachute cord

• Wandering 

Walked in town on Mon-Thurs and also Sat., in Hanover NH (Occom Pond) on Friday, and around the lake on Sunday. We also shopped at the regional co-op and visited a Starbucks while in Hanover/Lebanon.

in town

Hanover (Occom Pond and Starbucks)

the lake

• Curiosity & Discoveries

We don’t often notice northern pearly eye butterflies around here — I’ve got photos of them from 2025, 2021, and 2017 — but this one was pretty obvious on the siding on Saturday.

I also noticed this single broad-leaved helleborine in the wild front garden:

• Creating

Nothing really, except cooking, gardening, taking photos, and so on.

• Repairing and Maintaining the human(s), the cat, and the cars

The human: I worked out three times (3 hours) this week – strength-training, dancing, stretching. I walked more than 11,000 steps everyday, more than 14,000 steps on three days, with a high of 18,788 on Thursday (the hottest, most humid day of the week). I had a screening mammogram on Wed. I meditated every evening, totalling 3 hours 35 mins. I participated in Dharma Sunday for an hour with Lama Gursam leading meditation.

• Nesting

Cleaning/Maintenance: I did a load of clothes laundry on Tues. and towel laundry on Thursday. My husband cleaned the air purifiers and the robovac on Wednesday, I watered the houseplants on Sat. I guess that’s it! The power was out for three hours on Thursday (the hottest day) after a tree in the neighbourhood fell onto utility wires; we ran the portable propane generator to keep the fridge going, the fan, the septic pump, and some outlets and lights.

Financial/Admin: I backed up the laptop on Sat.

Food: We had grilled swordfish with caper-basil butter, herb garlic rice pilaf, and sautéed summer squash and onion on Monday, and the same but with sautéed broccolini on Tues. We bought more swordfish and did it again on Wed., this time with sautéed cauliflower and garlic. We went to an art opening with heavy buffet on Thurs. evening, which served as dinner that day, then on Friday had the leftover swordfish, with cauliflower and broccolini. On the 4th, we had veggie burgers because we had lettuce to harvest from the garden, with bought potato-egg salad, and corn on the cob. We grilled hot dogs (soy, beef) on Sunday, which we enjoyed with corn on the cob, the rest of the potato salad, and cucumbers.

• Garden

I spent eight hours gardening this week, watering most days, also weeding, cutting back the baptisia and some of the goldenrod, removing all the old stems from the big hydrangea, and harvesting veggies and herbs (see that section below). I bought some tomato food and added that to the tomatoes and some other veggies that seemed stalled on Wed. On Sat., my husband cut away from some branches that were crowding out a concolour fir in the back yard and on Sunday he made a trip (or two?) to the brush dump. We also got an estimate for the blue spruce tree removal from another company on Monday.

garden pics

• Sleeping & Dreaming

An OK week with mystifying scores — almost the same sleep patterns and amounts led to scores that varied by 5 points. Overall my sleep score (Samsung Fit 3) was 87.4. I averaged 7 hours and 36 mins of sleep per night, with REM accounting for 13.5 hours and deep sleep for 6 hours & 38 mins. I had some vivid dreams this week.

• Reading / Words & Ideas / Listening / Watching  

Reading

BOOKS: I read, as mentioned elsewhere, Golden Years How Americans Invented and Reinvented Old Age (2024) by James Chappel. He provides a lot of Information about aging in the U.S.: how Social Security and Medicare developed (and what some of the proposed alternatives were), the rise of retirement as a phase of life and assisted living as a concept, the AARP as a powerhouse, the TV show “Golden Girls” as a barometer of facets of aging, and more. I learned a lot and the book was quite readable, though the “Golden Girls” chapters seemed a bit weak to me. Chappel takes pains to discuss in detail how retirement and its amenities were aimed primarily at white middle-class men and their families, leaving behind Blacks and other people of colour, single women, and lower-class Americans.

OTHER

From Axios:

I appreciated this essay, Independence Day, by Jeanette Winterson, about making a living doing creative work, and financial independence for women.

Watching

Still watching “Schitt$ Creek”, season 6 now. I enjoy their expressions.

• Connections &  Community

Local Support: My husband volunteered at the local museum for 9 hours this week. I bought a bag of tomato fertilizer at the farmstand one day and cherry tomatoes and green beans another day. We ate lunch outside at a local café/bakery on Wednesday (and we tried to on Sat. but it was too busy). We attended a local art opening on Thursday evening.

Relationships: I mailed gifts and ordered flowers for my sister’s birthday this week and we talked for an hour on the phone. Salon didn’t meet this week but the monthly bookgroup did on Thursday for 2 hours, discussing Golden Years How Americans Invented and Reinvented Old Age (2024) by James Chappel. The usual texting, emails, chatting with friends and neighbours.

Donations: I made donations to the Heritage Museums & Gardens and to Shelburne Museum this week.

• Endings/Harvesting

Lots of harvesting starting to happen: shelling peas (3 harvests, one shown), basil (2 harvests), ‘Little Gem’ romaine lettuce (shown), dill, and more arugula.

• All This Useless Beauty

the cat with prisms