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June’s Garden

June garden

Crossing out #2 on the list, this garden is now in full swing. Just about everything growing out there is pictured above, but  I can’t believe I haven’t included the zucchinis and squashes. Really. They’ve reached such an absurd level of abundance that, well, perhaps for me it’s enough just seeing them pile up in the kitchen.

I tend to appreciate what little I have as opposed to how much. For your consideration, the smattering of ripe ‘Stupice’ tomatoes and the variety of tomatoes yet to come:


raisedBeds-20

Alis has some tender shoots and blooms growing over at her dad’s house, just a few miles from where we live. Siri doesn’t mess around,  Denise has a beautiful greens assortment (of which I’m envious, ever since the chickens mowed all of ours (I’m learning what to keep covered)! Also, she may be on a plane to Melbourne right now, but I happen to know that Cyndi has been getting her hands dirty, too.

What’s growing in your garden right now?

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Rodeo

big boots to fill out there (or NOT!)

3' long red vines

I love the pageantry of the rodeo!


The rodeo is ridiculous in many ways but if you put on your rodeo filter and drink a few lukewarm beers in plastic cups, things start to cancel out. The heat bears down and the dust cloaks your sunscreen; the smells hover of burning hot dogs and popcorn and manure and hay. The snorting, the sweat, stomping hooves, the lowing cattle in the holding pens–it’s all the fiber of my memories in Texas, and to immerse the boys at an early age in these textures is to paint a layer of experience that will bring others into sharp focus. I know I can’t expect to find a real John Grady Cole at the Rowell Ranch Rodeo but that’s okay; he’s somewhere where these cowboys end and Damon begins, right about here:

I still don’t understand how Damon can hate horses as much as he does… as much as I love them.

bull ridingmilking the bull relay

I think this boy of mine loves them, too. Would you take a look at his face in these pictures? He studied these guys all afternoon and when the heat was just too much, Chas holed up under the blue shade of an oak tree, right beside the roping calves, and played toy horses. And just like Chas, there was a Mama horse and her baby. Everything else was trivial.

Isn’t it, though? I mean, times two (maybe times more someday)…

I’ve been playing this game, myself, for a long, long time.

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Chicken Soup with Rice

chicken soup & rice. for breakfast

This morning Chas woke up from bed and he told me that today was a good day to make chicken soup with rice. “Like Pierre!” (almost!) Not for lunch, not for dinner, but for breakfast. In late June. In a house that has no air conditioning, in the beginning of a high pressure heat system.

So to celebrate the end of the cool mornings (at least for a spell), I let Chas motor with the soup menu.

so with lots of testing, he perfected the flavor

We have a proper chicken soup recipe (thank you mom–and subsequently mamaw) but on hand we also have a richly-illustrated, inspiring copy of Family Meals (Chas seems to like the pictures inside because they “are like it is in our house” –sort of minus the fact that this ain’t no vineyard) and made the Mediterranean style chicken soup: chicken soup made special and somehow summery by adding a tablespoon of fresh chopped dill out of the garden and the juice of half a lemon. It was out of this world delicious!

and he took the first bite

Chas, subjective critic, was cautious at first about the dill. But he totally caved and polished the bowl off and ate a second helping, besides.

and we all agreed

Ford had seconds, too.
As did I.
And the cats had a bowl, too.

Which goes to show you that Sendak is, as usual, right:

“I told you once, I told you twice,
All seasons of the year are nice
For sipping chicken soup with rice.”