August vibes

August started rough but turned out to be a good month. Typically it’s hot and often smokey and none of those things were true this month, the past few weeks have been absolutely wonderful. It’s finally cooling off at night to allow for enjoyable mornings and evenings. Although we are hot during the day, I find it so much easier when I can go on a walk and not be dripping with sweat when I get back in the mornings.

It’s also been a very quiet month. No travel, even though we’d planned to go somewhere at the last minute if smoke rolled in, but it never came. And I found myself doing a lot of cleaning out and using up.

Making

I ordered yarn early in the month for some sweater projects and found that I couldn’t fit it into the bin where I keep my yarn because I had too many bits and bobs left from other projects. I honestly get stressed out when I have a lot of yarn on hand, so I pulled out all the partial skeins and divided them into project bags and started in on making some smaller projects.

A couple of hats were made, which I tend to do every August to donate to the hat drive my local yarn shop does every fall. I love knitting hats when it’s hot out because of the size, not having a lot of fabric in my lap is great. But it’s also fun to try some patterns, match up some yarn, and see what happens.

I also made a shawl, another typical summer project for me, and I’m working on socks to use up all the sock yarn I have, one pair is done and another is almost done.

Mystery solved

Near our house is some land that is still being used as a hobby farm of sorts. There have been goats and horses there, different ones coming and going, since we moved in. A few years ago, near the dilapidated barn, a cat appeared. It was super friendly, always walking towards the fence to greet you and meowing away.

G finally found out the story of this cat and his post is worth a read because it was a huge mystery solved for us. We’d been wondering for so long how this cat got food and water and such; it’s nice to know it’s taken care of and loved.

Hummingbird battles

I’ll admit that I have no idea if the hummingbirds in our backyard are battling or playing or what, but I tend to think they’re battling for the two feeders we have on either end of the yard. They are up at first light and we hear them all day long, with activity picking up at dusk. It’s amazing how fast they fly, how close they’ll fly to me as I garden, and how much noise they make.

Again, G with a great post about them with some photos. We also had an incident with a hummingbird and a praying mantis and I had no idea praying mantises were capable of what we saw.

Cleaning out

I spent the past two weeks cleaning out a closet and realizing that when you let a bin sit untouched for 6 years, maybe you don’t need what’s inside. It’s been good to pass on some items to folks who are excited to get them for free (thanks Nextdoor, the one thing I use it for) and to open up the space in the closet as well.

I also cleaned out books. Some folks will find this appalling but I don’t hang on to books. I rarely read things again, the ones I do I keep and they are my “canon.” As I’ve changed and especially as my life has changed over the last several years, I’m letting go of some books that I no longer find interesting or worth owning. G kindly took them to the used bookshop in town and now we have a bunch of credit so new books can enter the house.

The calendar is still in summer for us and I love that, summer doesn’t really go away until late September when the days start to get much shorter and temps start to really cool down. The tomatoes are growing and ripening like mad on my plants and the flowers are still blooming. I’m finding the beauty in the late summer light, which is so golden in the garden right now.