mast year

It's that hot, humid, rainy, intense part of the summer, where I find myself not really wanting to go outside, and then coating myself with mosquito repellant, pushing out there, and being glad I did. Still, it takes effort. We live at the confluence of 2 creeks, slow-moving Georgia streams, and in some thick kudzu-bounded woods. Muggy and mosquitos are our 2 Ms, down here.

From the looks of it, it is going to be a mast year; acorns are already ripening and falling, and for the first time I can remember, in the 8 years we've lived here, our beech tree is loaded down with beech nuts.

I've not tasted them; they are tiny, and seem mostly shell, under the prickly coating. I assume they are edible, assume the local Creek people ate them, in the past. 

While I find a mast year exciting, in the sheer number and variety of acorns underfoot, it does seem to be associated with increases in tick-borne illnesses. Any increase in rodents around here is sobering, as we live in a house with a crawlspace that's adjacent to the basement, and rats sometimes attempt to set up shop in our living space. Fortunately, I am not squeamish about the snappy trap, and thus am able to keep the little bastards at bay. 

Today is hot and still already, at 7:30am. I am going to try to maintain a steady pace of housework and practical activity today, as I have to be back at work on Monday. It is past the time when I should be taking the river cure, or savoring the "last ice cream" or the "last walk in the woods" or somesuch. I am just trying to have a little bit of grip on my sanity for the next few weeks...

snapshot of a summer

And it has gone by so dang fast...I have 8 weeks off each summer, and somehow, this one seemed shorter than previous ones. My usual plan is to drive to VA for 2 weeks, visit family and friends, then come home, get some kind of plane ticket out of the country for a couple more weeks, and then come home, collapse in exhaustion, til it's time for the back to school panic.

I decided to be smarter, this year, and besides, we're saving money for a trip to Spain next spring. I took my VA road trip, and then came home and lived my life in a very low-key, locally based way. I went to bed each night at 10pm. I got up each day at a reasonable hour. I ate most of my meals at home, and fought depression by staying busy, swimming, and not quitting the St. John's Wort. For the most part, I stopped drinking. I nursed my Plantar Fascitis, which repaid my loving care by feeling a teeny bit better. I broke up with my true love, sugar. We still aren't speaking much. I lost 5 pounds, and cleaned out (and am still cleaning) my office. I am more or less even keel.

Here are some highlighty pix of the good times at home...

Paddling on Stone Mountain Lake on the Glorious Fourth. Maybe the hottest, most tired I've been all summer. I was seriously sad, at this point, and about to bonk. I still had a long paddle to the landing. 

A Zinnia in the Doraville Unity garden. Wonder what happened to its other petals? 

Red kayak, a big part of my happy little staycation. Taken in a lake that's very close to our house. 

I went to the Mystic South Conference this weekend. Here is a workshop I attended: Empathic Self Defense. Pretty interesting talk, on ways not to let other people's crazy energy glom onto oneself. I need it for work, I think, as well as for certain sectors of my non-immediate family. 

Inspired by Mystic South, I did some landscaping and made a little Faerie space, complete with a tree stump altar and a guardian. 

Now summer is damn near gone. I've got a pile of books on my nightstand to read, still, it's in Georgia's ferocious humid heat season, now, and I'm turning my energy toward finding my school year rhythms.