It's been a busy month! Beth (seedsower) was visiting at the beginning of the month and was here for my very small Third of July get-together. I just invited a few friends who also know Beth and a couple of others without whom it just wouldn't feel like the 3rd of July. I realized as the fireworks were about to start that I'd never taken fireworks photos with my camera before, as it was a newer model replacement for the camera that got dunked in the river last year. The reason I realized this, is because I couldn't figure out how to find the fireworks setting. I was beginning to get frustrated and finally decided I'd just take photos on an automatic setting, and that's when I got the message that there was no memory card in the camera. Oh yeah, I forgot to take it out of my laptop after uploading some photos earlier in the day. As the fireworks began, I thought I'd just take a few shots with my cell phone. Oops - I plugged it into the charger when I went in the house to get my camera. Sigh. So no fireworks photos from the 3rd.
Beth left the next day, and the following day Krysten (joyouswind) flew to New York City and I welcomed her dog, Jack, into my home for the remainder of the month. Two dogs kept me hopping. One is old and cranky and the other is young and needy. Fun times! Between the two of them being very willful and pulling on their leashes, and the extremely hot and humid weather, I was not able to walk them. When they needed to burn off energy, I took them to the local doggy daycare to play with a roomful of other dogs for a few hours. They were good for several days after each session.
Krysten spent two or three days in New York for training and team building, and then she flew to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic to help train staff at an autism center in an ongoing, sustainable venture by SkillCorps. There were a lot of unanticipated problems, which anyone who does a lot of volunteering learns to expect, roll with it, and overcome. The biggest problem was the group's accomodations. That got worked out after a couple of false starts. Krysten had fun working with the staff and the children at the center, and gained confidence as a clinician. She also got to experience zip-lining and enjoyed the beautiful beaches. She got home late last night. Her plane landed around 10 PM and I found a weary, ill daughter waiting on the sidewalk outside the South Bend Regional Airport.
Let's see, what else happened in July? I was sick for most of a week. I'm pretty sure it was a sinus infection, but it cleared itself up without me wasting time and money going to the walk-in clinic. I was crippled by joint and tendon pain for much of the past week, but today I can finally walk without limping and use my hands without wanting to cry. It's a vast improvement.
Last Saturday was the annual Support the Troops Festival that is put on by an outside group in our village. It's a very stressful day for dogs, especially living so close to the center of all the activities. I packed Boo and Jack an overnight bag each and took them to spend the night with the nice doggy daycare folks. They both get very excited when I pull in the driveway of The Crate Escape and run to the play area without a glance back at me.
I don't care for this particular festival. I understand that it raises money to combat veteran suicide, but there is so much drunken shouting - much of it into the P.A. system - and the live bands and partying go on for much of the night. This year, there was still partying going on until the following evening. I end up paying big bucks to board the dogs overnight and sleep with all of the air conditioners and fans running to drown out the noise.
There is a fireworks show with this festival, so I invited Mark and Val (Old Dog Sparky and murisopsis), and Nelson (hereliesnelsonthegreat) and his lovely wife Jen over for pizza and fireworks. We had a delightful visit. While we waited for the fireworks to start, we lit a fire in the fire pit and dumped chemical powder in the flames to turn them blue and green and purple.
This time I made sure the memory card was in my camera and I figured out how to get to the fireworks setting a couple of days earlier. If only I'd worked with the tripod in advance! I finally had to give up and remove the camera from the tripod, hoping I could hold it steady enough to shoot some decent photos. A heavy metal band was screaming throughout the show, so I couldn't time my shots by the sound of the fireworks launching. Mostly I guessed and I got a few lucky shots. This one is my favorite.
Our blackberries are ripening. They're huge and beautiful and I've been picking a few every day. Today as I was picking, I noticed an odd growth on the grapevine that grows next to the raspberry/blackberry patch. You know me; I spy a weird growth and I have to take pictures and figure out what it is.
It reminds me of a sugary breakfast cereal, and like sugary cereals, you definitely don't want to eat this. It's called Grape Tumid Gall. There's a midge that lays eggs in the tissue of the grapevine and this growth, or gall, grows around the larvae to protect them as they develop. It's harmless, but I'm going to cut it off and toss it into the burn barrel. We already deal with mosquitoes and ants and wasps and Japanese beetles. I am taking a stand against midges.
It's very unusual, but I was home for all of June and July. I will be hitting the road for a couple of days in August and probably again sometime in September and also in October. It's been nice to spend most of the summer at home for a change. I finished reading The Fifty Year Mission: The First 25 Years and celebrated by watching all of the Star Trek movies this month. And by ALL, I mean even The Motion Picture, and yes, even The Final Frontier. And of course the J.J. Abrams movies.
And that's the highlights of my month. Now that I'm down to one dog and I can walk again, I'm looking forward to getting back in the habit of walking Boo around the village and maybe do a little more geocaching in August.
