Summer is on its way out, and in its place are mostly misty, cold mornings. People are quick to explain to us that not every year has such a nice summer. We say that we certainly hope not! We didn’t exactly leave the western US in search of dry, hot weather.
Despite the cooler and wetter weather, we have a patch of dahlias that are (finally) giving it a go. I think they’re a month or two late, and hopefully the weather stays mild enough to let them fully bloom. We knew they should bloom in this patch of the property, but as July turned to August and onward we’d become increasingly skeptical they existed. Proved us wrong!
With a newborn to juggle, we called it a season on growing food. The irrigation is turned off and the beds empty, after I cleared everything out yesterday over a few hours of work. We have enough kale and tomatoes to last us the winter (and we chucked even more into the compost).
We learned so much in this first year of growing food. For example, while the lady at the farmer’s market may sell kale in flats of 8 plants, 8 kale plants is Too. Much. Kale. A forest of kale. Ludicrous amounts of kale. No one wants that much kale. Also, prune your tomato plants! Unlike potted tomatoes, those planted in the ground have no bound on growth. When left unpruned they will turn into gargantuan labyrinths of vines that produce more than any reasonable human can process. I’m excited to take all we learned and give it another go in the spring (unless we feel motivated to get some winter vegetables into the ground in the next couple weeks).
Our adventure last Saturday was a blown tire on the way back from a lovely afternoon with friends in Cork. We hit a rock in just the right wrong way for it to blow a crater in the sidewall.
When you pop a tire this badly everyone is a (good natured) comedian. The tow truck guy pulled up and said, “I saw your rock…” Wish we had as then we’d not be in this mess! And the first words from the guy who put a new tire on were, “Well I see your problem.” Yes, it’s hard to hide a hole from which you could extract a soda can. At least we ended up with a funny memory and an only mildly inconvenient evening.
It was a beautiful moment of small town aid, as numerous folks went out of their way to help. Despite the remote spot with spotty-at-best cell reception, we had a tow truck with us in about 30 minutes (and a very chatty driver with whom we shared parenting stories). And then Monday morning a local garage tracked down a matching tire for us and drove out to our place to swap it on the car. There’s a lot to be said for small, local businesses!
