Urban Wildlife
Feathered visitors when I was out in the garden early before the heat got too oppressive.

Feathered visitors when I was out in the garden early before the heat got too oppressive.

May your holiday present opportunities for gratitude and generosity. I am looking forward to sharing delicious food with good friends. My contribution is dessert. As I am currently limited to the toaster oven for baking, I’m exploring how many tasty and varied things I can make in an 8×8 pan.
I also found time for a walk. It was a bright and breezy afternoon..
Scheduled to arrive some time tomorrow is one of those impossible to forecast until it is happening because how fast the storm travels and a variance in its track of even 50-100 miles north or south, or east or west can make the difference between just a bit of rain, a lot of rain with a little snow, and a little rain with a lot of snow, or perhaps the dreaded wintry mix. What I would do for the garden would be different for the various scenarios. The best for continuing to thrive would be a 2-4 inches of snow that didn’t entirely melt when it hits 50F on Saturday and acts as a blanket when it is forecast to get below 20F. I harvested the tenderest of the greens and the last handfuls of unripe tomatoes (they need to be cooked and spiced–it’s way past the date they should have been able to grow). I left the hardier greens and the root vegetables. I will be watching for the true hard freeze right before which I will need to harvest everything. The extreme weather occurrence is not, however, the coming storm, but the fact that I still have this much growing without a cold frame in the middle of January.
turnips, arugula, grape tomatoes, chard, snowpea shoots, kale, roses, assorted lettuce, cilantro, carrots [not shown, but also growing: spinach, green garlic, mint, parsley]
I left the house this morning around 7:30 to go up and teach my regular classes at Willow Street, Takoma Park. In the afternoon, I led a restorative workshop. It was delightful to be with two dozen yogis who decided the best way to spend the last Saturday in July was to take a mini-break from the heat and the bustle resting deeply and exploring inside. I felt wonderfully supported, having had amazing assistants, an excellent work-study helping at the desk and with clean-up afterward, and truly enthusiastic students. I could not have asked for more, especially given how long a day it was following an intense return to work immediately upon traveling back from the retreat with Paul Muller-Ortega all in the same week. After the workshop, I went out for an early dinner at Woodlands (Indian food) with a friend who had taken the workshop.
When I got home, feeling ready to do my own deep relaxation, I found tall ladders leading up to the roof. I had been warned by the project manager for the solar panel installation that I am having done that the roofer who was working on putting up the parapet structure to hold the frame might be here today. I hadn’t expected the roofer to be here at 7:30 pm, though. As long a week and day as I might have felt that I had, these guys, whom I am sure worked hard outside all week in the heat, were really having a long day.