Summer calls

July 19, 2007 at 2:00 pm | Posted in blogging, country living, dogs, faith, family, free knitting patterns, gardening, health, knitting, love, marriage, pets, photography, relationships, romance, scarf patterns, socks, summer, yarn | 13 Comments

I have learned something new about summer this year; I have gained an appreciation for summer in Western New York which I lacked in Southern California. Here, summer is a brief moment in time to seize and cherish. That is how the season is embraced here. Quite a contrast to the attitude I held toward summer in Southern California.

For some people, the long seemingly never-ending summer in Los Angeles is why they are there. For me, it is why I left.

So here I am, living on a farm in Western New York, embracing a new attitude toward summer. It is a beautiful experience. There is this one liability about it though: people become scarce, just as I have become scarce here on my blog.

However, it is not only the summer that has pulled me away. I did have that trip to California in June, and many arrangements for moving my belongings across country, even after I came back to New York. That was time consuming and stressful at times.

There were also computer woes. I am still resolving some of the fallout from my hard drive crash as late as this morning.

Side Bar: Ah, as I look outside my upstairs window I see it is raining beautifully. I love that rain, and cherish the fact that I live in a place where it does rain in the summer.

Back to the Post: We have also been busy laying the electric wiring for an invisible fence for dear Blu. He is, by the way, as sweet as ever. No, I take that back. He is sweeter, it seems. Neither of us have ever known such a loving dog. One of his cutest recent developments is the fact that he brings his “baby” blanket with him when he is ready to cuddle on the sofa. How cute is that? When we first got him, he owned four things: a blanket, a rope pull toy, a plush toy, and a small doggie bed. He drags his blanket with him everywhere, and has always played with it. But recently he started bringing it with him when he hops up on the sofa to cuddle on a lap. Often it is cool in the downstairs of our house, and so I tend to lay a blanket over my legs when I sit on the sofa. I believe that having noticed that, he has decided that brining a blanket along when sitting on the sofa is the thing to do. I love him so much it makes my heart ache a bit.

Back to the summer: we have put in 1,000 feet of electrical line so far for the invisible fence and have another 400 feet to go. It is enjoyable work out there on my hands and knees pushing the dirt back in over the wire in the trench my husband digs ahead of me. As we were working on the project the night before last, I kept thinking about how wonderful it is to own dirt … more dirt than just the bit you can buy in a bag at the store. Acres and acres of dirt. It is a great feeling to own so much of the stuff that you could grow pretty much anything you want to, whenever you want.

I have also been busy doing some interviews of local people for various articles I intend to write, which is very interesting. There are some very interesting people and places right in our own “backyard”. I will never run out of story ideas. Of course, the same is true of any place on Earth if you really look. I just happen to especially love when I “look” around here.

To top it all off, I have an art show booked that will begin in mid-August and run for six weeks at a beautiful winery up by Lake Ontario. It will be my own, one-artist show and I have many paintings to prepare because they have an abundance of wall space. So, I am painting, painting, painting. I will start sharing photos of some of the pieces next week. I finally did a painting on some of the antique barn wood that fell off of our barn. I like how it came out, so I will be doing more.

I know some of you are waiting for those knitting patterns I mentioned back in June. They are still on their way, but I have had to reinstall various programs on my computer so that I can do all the things I do to make my blog and my website look professional. I’m almost done with that, and will be able to get the patterns ready very soon. So sorry for the delay, my friends.

I have to be off, but I will be picking up the pace again on posting to my blog. My apologies for not being here when you looked for me … but, the summer has begged for my attention and I am learning to seize the day.

Have a beautiful day yourself, wherever you are.

~firefly