June goes by slowly and July goes by so fast

 

The winds of change came through last Wednesday night with little fanfare. While walking down our driveway for the morning paper on Thursday morning I could tell that the sun was angled a little differently and the first sounds of the crickets were making their way to my ears from the underbrush around the house. Fall is coming.

What? - you say. It's only the middle of summer!! But the changes are here. Usually it hits here the beginning of August but last year was early like this. Mother Nature gently whispering to go to the pool more often before it closes, the newspapers screaming at us to get our school supplies now and for those of us who are sensitive to sunlight the knowledge that darkness is starting to come earlier and we need to get outside more to soak up that vitamin D.

Yesterday was S2's last baseball game of the season - much to the dismay of his coach who is heading the team into the final tournament next weekend with a ranking of 1st place. (S2 had 2 doubles and a single yesterday). But S2 and I head to the north next Friday to spend time in an old, hopefully mouse free cabin for a week.

I picked a gallon of blackberries yesterday in the county below us that holds family museum that was made famous from the TV show The Walton's. Some berries were huge but rain is needed or else it may not be much of a season. The views are worth the drive however. And it seemed cooler down there and the air cleaner.

My honey was tested at the bee club honey tasting yesterday. I had made a huge error when I cleared the hive of honey before we went to Germany in June. Bee keepers are only to use capped honey cells not uncapped when harvesting but I used both. Lack of knowledge of this fact being the main reason. Uncapped honey cells have water in them and can cause honey to ferment. Eeks. But test for moisture content yesterday my honey came back at 16.2 and the cutoff is 16.8. Whew!! Lesson learned - almost the hard way. Also, when using light for clarity my honey came back clearer than my mentors!! Very happy.