Summer-Happy

     Summer is just gettting started here. I know that, in the blink of an eye, it will be September again, and I will wonder how it happened, but for now, I just want to live day by day, hour by hour, enjoying, not looking too far ahead.
     It is positively amazing to me what not having to get up and go to school, of being relieved of all of school's paperwork and stress for two months, does for my mood. It is like having the world lifted off my shoulders, all at once. I could float, I am so relieved. 
     Things that often are just as good, but go unnoticed, or at least are not nearly as celebrated as they are when I am this much happier, made their way into the start of a "happy list" on Sunday.

•      I HAD a broody hen for a week. I was ecstatic, because I've never had one before, and the thought of one of my own hens, raising her own baby chicks, not to mention the cuteness of new baby chicks peeking out from under a protective mama hen's wings, was thrilling. Unfortunately, no sooner had I listed "broody hen" on my list of happy thoughts than she was off the nest and her eggs cold. I watched her all day, and by Sunday night, when she was roosting with the rest, rather than sitting, I removed the eggs. It still makes me happy to know that she has the potential, so maybe someday she will raise some babies of her own.

• And, also on Sunday, I had 8 "nearly teen-age" chicks delivered to me, all hens.  My friend Steph and I ordered them, and they came in, to her house, on June 4th or 5th, so she's kept them for me til I was able to see her Sunday. I missed the cute fuzzy baby chick phase, but it's ok. I know that these 8 are all females, no roos to have to dispose of later, and I also handpicked the breeds, so I'm pretty excited to have them. And I was also able to put them right out into the little tiny coop, not have to have them in the house except overnight. That's a HUGE plus!

• Two days before school was done, I got a text from a friend I work with, asking if I wanted to go to Maine with them for a week in August. It will be her family (mom, dad, two kids I know and like a lot), her brother whom I also like a lot, our mutual work friend whose child committed suicide on Easter, and her other son, and me. It's at a cabin, or camp house, on Mattawampkeag Lake, near Island Falls, that she has described for me before, and there will be fishing, and campfires, and boating, and hiking. I'm REALLLLLLLY excited. Not Alaska-excited, but still, Maine excited. That's a good thing! 
• My youngest graduated on Friday night. I'm not thrilled about that - she doubled up and did her Jr and Sr year together, AND she has a late birthday to begin with, so she will be going off to college, 12 + hours away from here,  even before her 17th birthday. I have a lot of reservations, even though I am proud of her effort and success (she still managed to be 3rd in her class, and was only 1/100th of a point off from the Valdictorian and Salutatorian) But what I AM happy about it that her graduation party is done. And was a relative success. I do not do parties well. I was super stressed. But now, it's over and done with, it isn't hanging over my head for the rest of the summer, and I'm happy!  AND, to top it all off, I was able to chat with her boyfriend's parents for a few minutes, and they were very nice. I really liked them. They were the ones I was most worried about, having at my home, because I feel like there is no way I can live up to their nice home and all, but they did seem much less scary by the end. Whew!

• My fireweed is growing!  It is an Alaskan plant, which grows wild there, and is truly more of a weed than anything anyone there cultivates. It grows wild and reproduces like crazy. I love it. I love the folklore that accompanies it: since it blooms from the bottom up, when the very tip has bloomed, it is claimed that the first snow is only two weeks off. Any snow that coats the mountain tops while the fireweed is blooming is called Termination Dust, and it simply means the "termination of" or end of, summer. Mine is blooming much earlier here than it does in AK, probably because of the difference in temperature here, and probably also because of when I actually planted it. No matter to me. Just simply glad that I was able to find some (Thank you, Prairie Moon Nursery) and plant it, and that it grew. It is growing WELL. I am hopeful that in a few years, I will have such an abundance of it that I can transplant some of it to the fenceline in my back yard, and have it grow and spread back there as well. Not to be greedy, or push my luck, but the other thing I'd LIKE to try is wild lupines, like I also saw a multitude of this year. Prairie Moon carries those, as well, but is out of stock at the moment. They are supposed to be planted in fall, so I'll just keep checking. (I tried to bring a blue poppy home from Big Lake, and it sort of was alive when I got it here, but I promptly killed it off. I think I know my limits...

Wild blue lupines. They grow everywhere!

• And, last but not least, it's time for the summer "I'm out of school" coffee mugs to be dug out of the cupboard. Yesterday was the yellow one, today it's the blue...