“I’m dreaming of a white Christmas …” I am! I had enough of these 100 + temp days! How about you? Well, if I cannot have a white Christmas right now, I will settle for milder summer days in the north woods of Minnesota with friends. 
Dean & I are headed there for a few days! Need to hear the loons once again!
It is a lemonade summer evening, maybe the hard lemonade kind tonight. Trying to make lemonade out of lemons! We had 2 vehicles break down this past week, one fixed and another one to go. Then we had a fender-bender with our white beast of a van this morning parking near my work in Clayton. Did not damage the beast, but the nervous lady’s Mercedes luxury sedan has some damage near the bumper. I think Dean will be ready for that spiked lemonade. Maybe watch a summer rain storm come in tonight. What is your favorite lemonade? I found a recipe for Lavender Lemonade, and adapted it to suit my tastes. I cannot wait to try with the crop of lavender in harvest season right now. This herb is beautiful, fragrant, and so versatile. Where is the bottle of vodka in this picture???
St. Louis, Missouri and surrounding areas have encountered 10 days in a row of record high temperatures, triple digits with no or trace rain for almost a month. The corn is turning gray and rustles with the wind like fall leaves. We have had to water our plants 2 times a day during the drought. God, the plants need rain! Nothing beats real rain water! It finally brewed up yesterday, some places more so than others. We marketed at the Chandler Hill Vineyards Farmers’ Market yesterday afternoon, watching the clouds turn to thunderheads and shift different directions. Wind gusts would sway the tents one direction and switch in another minute. Maybe movement for the better? On our trip home we left the storm further behind us. Awesome views while in the wine country hills of Defiance. But yesterday evening finally my hometown St. Peters received 1/4 – 1/2″ of rain with the summer storm. My cats even seemed curious about that rumbling outside. We had not heard this in weeks. Hallelujah, our rain buckets are full now! Our plants are saying “aaahhh!” Another summer storm is brewing up this afternoon. Maybe more rain?!
The ambiance and local menu tonight was colorful. My huge kitchen is decorated with vases of our cut flowers and the fireplace mantle is overcome by beautiful blue hydrangeas from my parents’ yard. Dean & I’s dinner plates were filled with roasted spring root veggies and beef farm fresh by friends who allow their cattle to graze in their farm’s natural pastureland. I sit on my patio listening to the evening chatter of the birds and crickets until the summer night sky is dotted with fire flies. I needed some beauty in my life today.
My feline companions bat at the moth and June bug on the patio screen hoping to get a hold of them. Celine and Lily will need to stay inside as the neighborhood Great Horned owl visits our tall backyard maple tree some evenings. This may be one of those evenings. We protect our animals from harm with barriers like screen doors. Maybe similar to how our God sets up boundaries for us. I take in the beauty of our green friends, the plants we care for everyday. Tonight I will not water or trim or plant. I will sit and enjoy the greenery. They endured the sudden hail storm yesterday. Our elephant ear , banana trees, and birds of paradise have ripped leaves now. These plants will come through after some shedding. Is not life like that? We get hammered by hard blows, unwarrantly and needlessly. Yet, we rise again to be ourselves, probably better people for it if we allow. Thank you God for the beauty my eyes behold tonight, and the reminder that the heart heals.
