Summer Thang

How I've spent June and July (tl:dr sweating, reading, gardening)

My life is currently all about the jam. I have been blessed with an abundance of plums and thus have made at least three batches of plum jam. I have given it away and now, out of jars, I am taking a break, although there are thousands more wild plums on the tree. Crows have appeared to pluck, eat, and sometimes decorate my car with splatters of fruit. I washed the car today (drive-through). So far, no crows have become my friend. :/

I have thus far processed a ton of green beans, quarts of peaches, a fistful of rhubarb, gallons of blackberries, and the crops are just getting ripe. I feel like Squirrel Nutkin packing my cheeks for winter. I love it. But also, how did women do this in layers of wool and corsets and having to keep the fire burning in a hot summer? Not pleasantly, I am positive.

Melting honeycomb to separate the wax from the honey on a 90* day.

When my bees flew away, or died, which is sadly more likely (varroa mites, sob), they left TWO supers of honey, which means two levels of the bee boxes, each weighing about 25 pounds, full of honey, and I threw them in the chest freezer. No room for ANYTHING else. Well, this past week, I started working on processing that honey and wax, and let me tell you, if you haven’t stood over a double-boiler kettle and vat of melting wax and honey, your kitchen swathed in plastic sheeting, sweat pouring down your body, well, you haven’t lived. I got the wax and honey separated but I still need to strain/filter and jar the product. Then I can be generous with gifts. Remember, this is only half the honey from the freezer. I have to do this all again in order to use my chest freezer, lol/sob. At least I will have a lifetime supply of honey and a bunch of wax for candles or lip balm or whatever.

They say you start keeping bees for the honey.
But the honey is also why you stop keeping bees.

^^^TRUTH^^^

I have a full front and backyard with plots, half-barrels, and corners planted, and perhaps I’ll show them next time. For now, how about a check-in? I make big plans…how are they going?

Check-in on 2026 Goals

Remember how I set goals for myself in January? Here’s how that’s going.

1. Enjoy Jane Austen - I saw a panel at the SF Writers’ Conference, reread Persuasion, Northanger Abbey, and Pride&Prejudice; read Miss Austen and The Clergyman’s Wife. Highly recommended, those last two, if you love Austen.

2. Draft a new novel — 25,000 words so far on Ruthless. I have one more round of edits on Comes the Fox before my editor takes it away from me. I might start that soon, seeing how it’s due in a week. <laughs maniacally>

3. German lessons — Day 558, and I added Scottish Gaelic, so I’m hopping back and forth. Not a day missed yet.

4. TikTok — having fun, still there, 28,689 followers!

5. eBay sales — sold an item last week, but slow going <tiny violin>

6. Work away from home (intentionally, not traveling) — only once in May. <womp womp>

7. Walks & yoga — almost daily through summer, but I find I’m getting at least 6K steps in the garden every day. And I am super tan. (1980s me loves this.)

8. Green living — I have definitely been living a green life lately: Adding whimsy to my garden, buying local(ly), reusing/recycling, sourcing used items via the thrift stores, and making things at home. This is mostly a way of life but I enjoy it so much. Not bored yet.

9. Poetry — I joined a friend’s creativity group for the summer and surprised myself with several new poems. So yay me! I’ll post one of them below.

10. Spirit — I’m struggling here, finding myself strangely attracted back to the Catholic faith while still attending/lurking at the Unitarian Universalist church and mostly living pagan. I don’t know what to do. I need a Faith Friend — Anam Cara, or a spiritual director. Any ideas here? TBH, I have this idea way in the back of my mind that someday I would like to earn my MDiv. Not to minister per se, but to do the deep study that I love so much. Why not? I don’t understand G*d and I don’t know why people are always lying about Jesus (hello, Christofascism), but where is Spirit not? She is everywhere. Let us find her Holy!

That poem I promised

The Thing Without Feathers

Reading Wendell Berry’s ode to the Peace of Wild Things,

then moving on, as one does, to Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese,

I close my eyes and find myself in church again,

hear the soft shush of slippers against the marble floor,

a whispered prayer from behind me,

and when I turn, I see a mother,

ancient at 40, her breasts sagging under a rough T-shirt,

her polyester skirt hitched up, and that slipper-sound?

Her bare knees. She creeps forward with

a prayer on her lips so pleading, so powerful,

that who would dare defy her?

She crawls the length of the nave in St. Peter’s,

the floor cool as the underside of a rock,

dust bringing friction to her movement.

Her skirt sweeps the aisle with the majesty of a queen.

Her lips in silent supplication move,

her hands finger her beads, and when she

arrives at the altar, she remains in place until

her prayer is complete.

I could never have that much faith. I,

who have faced down

the savage glare of the PTA moms after my divorce,

the fickle neighbors, the mean girls at lunch;

I who rejected the offers to return to the nest of my ex,

to the goodwill of my parents,

where everything was waiting as it always had been, no change, everyone smiling,

all was grace and forgiveness, if I would only give in, be good.

But I had no faith there, either.

I held a magic feather in my hand and when it blew away, I fell.

Lucifer, Icarus, Peter, Judas,

all of us in a tumble, faithless,

in a race to the bottom. The feather was just a gag.

Hold onto it, and you can fly. Let go, and there is no net.

My knees are too tender to try such a feat

without knowing that it works.

I open my eyes to the cathedral of my garden, where I

should rather count the grains of pollen than angels on a pin,

the only shush is the swaying of ponderosa pines,

and hope lies dormant in a seed.