Lazy Days

The dog days of Summer are here. In this humid heat, working in the garden is out of the question. Working around the house isn’t much fun either. Thus, I have decided to loaf for a while.

Since my mother learned that I enjoy reading detective stories (her very favorite), she now sends boxfuls of them; a new parcel arrives every few weeks of her gleanings from the shelves of used bookstores and friends-of-the-library sales. This is very nice, as I tend to be a rapacious reader. I just read The Death-Cap Dancers by Gladys Mitchell, The Rose Rent by Ellis Peters and have just now finished Dorothy Sayers’ The Nine Tailors, which was wholly satisfying. Next on the pile is Ellis Peters’ The Holy Thief, a tale which begins ‘In the height of a hot summer, in late August of 1144....’ This I can certainly empathize with at present.

On a related note, my Brother Cadfael rosebush is headed for the compost heap, the poor thing. What happened? Well, first that pest Raccoon roughed it up, digging at its roots before abandoning it overnight as I slept. I replanted the little bush, but... then the Bunnies got to it.

Bunnies. So soft. So winsome. So fearfully hungry. Despairing, I purchased garden fencing, cobbling up our handsome woods with wire mesh ‘round the roses. My rosebush, however, never really recovered from the attacks.

Animals gardening by Molly Brett

Harumph! Helpful garden animals, my foot! Bunnies do not help me to trim the lawn...

Well, not with a push-mower anyway.

On a happier note, this morning I made a delicious lazy-day breakfast: blackberry flummery with cornmeal dumplings. We found so many wild blackberries that I was able to put up quite a few for Winter in addition to having my copper pot filled with blackberry porridge today.

What a good morning it will be when I again taste the wonderful tartness of blackberry preserves in a time when all the world around us is covered in snow. In fact, though it feels as hot as a pot right now, before long Winter will arrive again and not depart for a good long while. Such is life here in Hemiborea.