Weekend Things ~ Summery

We had beautiful weather over the weekend.

The kind of weather we wait all winter for.

The kind of weather people move to California for.

High 70s. Sunny. Dry. Virtually bug-free.

Z turned the front yard into a beach.

M mowed the lawn with our new battery-powered electric mower--for the last 13 years we've made do with a reel mower, scythe, and occasional borrowed mower--I feel much better letting the kid mow the lawn without worry about him going deaf or breathing gas fumes.

We got out this giant bubble-making tool that we've had forever, but have never used before.

The limiting factor has been the soap--it requires the real-deal dish detergent to work, and we use the natural hippie stuff.

I finally bought a big bottle of the smelly blue stuff--and it worked!

W also made a trek to the river.

Most years, we wait until at least July or August to wade in the river.

But the air was warm enough and the water shallow enough and the bugs at a low enough ebb.

We didn't walk upstream, like we do when C is along, but chased bugs and caught frogs and just explored in our little patch of river.

When we got tired of the frogs--or vice versa--we headed cross-country in search of the best part of summer...

Wild strawberries! There weren't many, but the ones we found were divine.

Whenever we found a prolific patch, we'd call it "the mother load," only E said, "motherly load": "Here's another motherly load!"

On the way home, I picked a little bit of summer to bring inside.

And I've decided on my Summer Manifesto (a la My Bit of Earth):

1) Always have fresh flowers on the table

2) Always have Popsicles in the freezer

3) Play in the water
4) Make bubbles
5) Pick berries
6) Hang in the hammock