Today was the day. I did my first swim of the year. It was just 500 yards, which is not even a warmup. It was simply a test to see what part of me would complain first. And the answer was: everything.
Then we pulled up some flowerbed liner and installed some new one. An experiment! A no-going-back experiment!
There’s no going back because I took the old liners to the inconvenience center with a few bags of garbage, a couple of boxes and a giant tub full of recycling. That, somehow, takes about an hour, from start to finish. But it was a warm and beautiful and sunny afternoon.
When I got back home I discovered an iris I didn’t know we had.
It’s flourishing next to this peony.
And not far away from this beautiful little rose bush.
All of which live under the peach tree.
And that looks like another great crop coming later this summer. Which only serves to make me want some peaches, which is good, because we have a lot still in the freezer from last summer!
It is a lot of fun to watch all of these things grow and flourish.
In the early evening I set out for a bike ride, all on familiar roads, but some of them in an unusual order. I love this little tree tunnel.
You only go about three-tenths of a mile under this verdant canopy, but it is a magical stretch of road nonetheless. It is the stuff of childhood fantasy, idle imagination and endless wonder. You just go faster and faster in there.
Also it has to be three or four degrees cooler in there than a stretch of road exposed to the sun. It was a mild 84 today, though, so that wasn’t the biggest concern.
I met some nice horses near the end of my ride.
This pair live nearby, but they were a bit more shy and I had no sugar cubes with which to win them over.
It was intended to be a 40-mile ride, but the map said it’d be 42 miles by the time I got home. In actuality, it was 45 miles when I got back. It was a fine ride.
After dinner, I went out to water some plants, and check on this little light. We have a tiny little structure that holds a few gardening tools next to the greenhouse, and I am enamored with the light fixture on top of it. It feels like a full size miniature, if there’s such a thing.
Plus, it comes in handy for late night summertime projects. So I just need to come up with some late night summertime projects.