A Moveable Garden

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

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• Weather

Interestingly, the hottest day this week and the coolest night were both recorded on Monday, with a high of 84.9°F and a low of 52.0°F; the lowest high this week was 66°F! (where has summer gone!) and the highest low this week was 63.9°F. Overall, the average high temperature was 77.1°F, the average low temp was 58.4°F. We got a very nice amount of rain, 2.36 inches total over four days (mostly Tues. and Wed., which not coincidentally were my days of step counts in the 8,000s). Hotter weather coming soon! We’re still keeping our drought-free status for the moment (we’re not even “abnormally dry.”)

• Beginnings/Firsts

Saw first wild asters of the year blooming at the lake this week, on Sunday. Harvested the first cucumber from the plants growing in the Vego raised bed garden on Friday. This week was my first time ever removing poppy seeds from poppy pods, on Tuesday (to plant before fall).

I had my first ever complete boat ride around the perimeter of a nearby lake, on a friend’s pontoon boat on Thursday.

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

• Wandering 

I walked in town on Thurs., Fri., Sat., and Sun., and also around the lake on Sunday; rain and gardening prevented more walking. I went to my dental appt. in another town on Thursday and shopped at the regional co-op there while I was in the area.

in town

parade pics

lake

• Curiosity & Discoveries

It was fun to watch this monarch caterpillar chomping away on a milkweed leaf (30-sec video)

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Speaking of chomping, the spicebush (Lindera benzoin) had a bunch of leaves with this exact bite pattern. I searched and didn’t find the biter. Always hoping for a spicebush swallowtail caterpillar but haven’t seen one yet on these bushes.

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Also really interesting to explore the new Montessori pre-school still under construction, slated to open in Sept., on Saturday at an Open House. The gardens, even unfinished, look so fun.

• Creating

Not me, but my friends who visited us a couple of weeks ago and took home a woebegotten bookcase that was offered for free at the end of a neighbour’s driveway have rehabilitated it! Here it is in their basement, ready for whatever its new life brings.

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

Human: I worked out three times (3 hours) this week, using Body Electric streaming workouts (as I’ve been doing since the early 1990s). I walked more than 10,000 steps on five days this week (hampered by rain, gardening, and eschewing the treadmill on two days), with two days over 17,000 steps and a high of 19,476 steps on Friday. I went to the dentist on Thursday for semi-annual cleaning and exam (all good).

I enjoyed relaxing with friends on a boat on a lake for almost two hours on Friday afternoon. I participated in Dharma Sunday via Zoom for two hours with Lama Gursam leading meditation and continuing his teaching on the 37 Practices of a Bodhisattva (we made it through #12). I meditated 6 evenings this week — skipped one because the jazz concert we attended that night felt like meditation — for a total of 2.75 hours.

jazz concert pics – Chris Brubek playing trombone in one and piano in another, and I don’t know how many harmonicas Madcat was alternating among.

This amused me, the Indian time notification on the Dharma Sunday Zoom slide; I think the teacher, Lama Gursam, who is usually located in or near Washington DC, may have been in India visiting family. I was surprised to find (and I double-checked it) that India uses only one time zone for the whole country, which is offset from UTC by +5-1/2 hours.

• Nesting

Cleaning/Maintenance: I watered the houseplants on Monday. I cleaned and cleared the laundry room counter on Wednesday as well as the “beach” cabinet (beach towels, beach bag, et al) and I vacuumed the laundry room and hallway. We did a load of clothes laundry on Wed. and towel laundry on Saturday, and I also washed the comforter on Wed (cat threw up on it).

Supplies: On Monday we scrounged a shepherd’s hook with a baffle and a Fiskers gardening saw from a neighbour’s “free” pile. We accepted lots of free swag from a Chamber of Commerce event on Thursday evening (tote bags, note pads, pens, plus candy, OTC meds and kleenex, and more). I bought two jigsaw puzzles ($4 each) at a booksale on Saturday and was given a puzzle by a neighbour (BF) on Monday, too.

Food: I made pesto from 8 cups of basil I harvested on Monday and my husband made some naan bread that day too. Dinner on Monday was vegan curry, grilled chicken breast (for him), jasmine rice, naan, and grilled shishito peppers (from farmstand). Had the same on Tuesday without the shishitos but with the addition of sautéed local green beans + shallots that had been languishing in the fridge. I made tortellini salad (room temp) with shrimp and our basil which we had with naan and one of our cucumbers. Same except no naan on Thursday plus dark chocolate/vegan marshmallow s’mores for dessert and same on Friday without s’mores but with corn on the cob. Dinner on Sat. was grilled hot dogs (soy, beef), herbed potato salad I bought at the co-op, corn on the cob, and our cucumbers. On Sunday my husband finished his grilled chicken and the last of the tortellini dish, I made a tuna pasta salad, and we both had corn on the cob and our cucumbers.

• Garden

I spent about 6 hours gardening this week, watering, harvesting, a lot of weeding, adding Neptune’s Harvest to some plants, mulching, finally planting the two Indian Pinks bought in May. My husband spent about 4.5 hours gardening, including mowing the lawn, picking up weed piles, and sheet mulching and chipping some of the bed edges. I harvested something most days (see Endings/Harvest).

some garden pics this week

• Sleeping & Dreaming

I slept 7.5 hours per night on average this week, with a range from 6 hours 15 mins to 8 hours 11 mins, for a sleep score of 89.4. I was in REM sleep for 13.5 hours and in deep sleep for 7 hours 36 mins. We had the A/C in the bedroom running most of the nights this week (4 or 5), which tends to interfere with my sleep.

• Reading / Words & Ideas / Listening / Watching  

Reading

BOOKS: I finished The Land and Its People: Essays (2026) by David Sedaris this week. As usual in his collections, it’s essays about Sedaris’s life now and then, his parents, sisters, and brother, his husband (Hugh) and David’s attempt to be Hugh’s caretaker after surgery (“Care and Feeding”), his friends, being a godfather, his travels (“A Long Way Home,” “Trophy Room,” “The Land and Its People” et al.), his obsessions (getting 10+ miles in daily steps and DuoLingo, especially in “Say It Like You Mean It”), boxers vs. briefs, money, what makes a worthy biography, loss and grief, etc., and as usual I giggled, laughed, nodded, and appreciated my way through the book, savouring every one of these 28 (mostly) gems. I need a Sedaris essay per day to carry me through the rest of 2026.

OTHER

A friend (RL) shared this pain scale, which seems useful.

Listening

I didn’t Shazam much this week —

Watching

We watched dvr’d home buying shows and one ‘Death in Paradise’ episode, on Saturday.

• Connections &  Community

Local Support: My husband volunteered for the local museum for almost 13 hours this week, including driving a Model T car in the parade for the big town event this weekend. We walked through and admired the new Montessori preschool, opening in a month, on Saturday. I shopped at the local farmstand a couple of times, purchasing urgently needed scallions, four ears of corn on the cob, and a sweet potato. I bought iced tea and a peach danish from the local bakery/café on Saturday. We participated in our town’s big annual charity event this weekend, attending the Chamber event, driving in (and watching) the parade, and spending time listening to music and walking around the carnival grounds, running into many friends and acquaintances everywhere. We also attended a very engaging jazz concert (Triple Play, with Chris Brubek, Joel Brown, and Peter Madcat Ruth) on Wed. night and weirdly didn’t run into anyone we knew very well; our tickets were a gift, so we didn’t personally financially support the local venue or the musicians — but we clapped loudly and appreciatively devoured the snacks at the intermission. My husband attended a Cars & Coffee charity event in another NH town on Sunday morning for a couple of hours.

Relationships: A neighbour (BF) gave me a jigsaw puzzle on Monday and I gave her a couple of cucumbers, and we were given tickets to a Wed. evening jazz concert by a friend (KS). Salon met on Friday, with six of us touring the host’s lake on her boat — fun! We chatted with a neighbour (JL, and dog O) for a few mins on Monday evening, saw and talked with many friends during the town’s charity event from Thurs-Sun. and at the pre-school open house, and I chatted with my dental hygienist (Erika) on Thursday🤪. It felt like a moderately busy week with lots of satisfying interactions. Additionally, my cousin moved into her new house (the first one she’s owned) on Thursday and my sister started a new job (promotion) on Monday.

• Endings/Harvest 

Endings: Something, most likely a raccoon, took the only (unripe) peach growing on the new ‘Red Haven’ tree, had a couple of bites, and left it in the lawn. 🦝🫤

Fortunately, there are some ripening on one of the older trees.

Harvests: A lot of basil (8 cups), seven cucumbers, the pepper that was supposed to be a poblano but that was just a regular green bell pepper, possibly the last batch of arugula, and a few Sungold tomatoes. Made pesto with the basil and it’s in the freezer. Gave some cukes away.

• All This Useless Beauty

I like how this photo turned out, the vertical layers of woodland sunflowers, sand cherry foliage, and blue spruce (and garage eave that needs cleaning).

And this one, too, a lupine bug on the (holey) patio table.

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