A weekend of Summer hakius. These three all kind of fit together and bring some of the happier moments of this COVID-19 Summer to light.

Day 14, “around the yard”

bbq out front / bright blue pots filled with soil / fawns leap after mom

I asked Ant if we could by a Weber last month. Because we’re cooking more and our little toaster oven heats The Hobbit Hole up like it’s a real oven. So far, the chicken skewers and the tilapia have been a success. Flipping through a food magazine this afternoon after church, I came across some other grill recipes that I’m excited to try, one’s corn on the cob, the other’s a sandwich.

The fawns are still cute and spotted, jumping after mama, and it’s been fun to watch the baby turkeys grow up too.

The bright blue pots we planted our first ever tomato babies in makes another appearance in Day 16’s poem, so watch for them there as well.

~

Day 15, “summer light”

8:30 at night / the sky is periwinkle / and the moon is high

This poem is about a Saturday we spent at Mom and Dad’s. We lunch at Tom’s Burgers in Placerville, talked about strawberries and the tomatoes. We played Germany Trains with Mama and she won her first game. We waited until 7ish, when it was cool enough to play horseshoes.

After the 2v2, Mom and I put Azzie down for bedtime and then I watched Ant and Dad finish their second game. Before coming in, I snapped this picture of the sky.

Where they live–while we didn’t move in until December of my freshman year of high school–the property has always been where Gramps and Grandma have lived since I’ve existed. The property is where I grew up and it’s magical.

~

Day 16, “in the garden”

fill the bright blue pots / cover the roots with soil / water, sun, watch, wait

I threw Ant and I into the gardening experience this year. I walked into work one Friday and there were three little tomato starts on the middle table in the side office and promptly. After talking to a co-worker about how seemingly easy it would be to care for them, I set them on my desk and waited for Anthony. He’d worked a half day and we’d already eaten lunch together in the parking lot. He was coming back to drop off my coffee order. So I traded him two tomato babies for an iced chai latte.

They sat on the makeshift bench out front until we found pots big enough and soil to plant them in.

One of them is still flourishing leaf-wise now in the protected, official garden area on the property. The other one I pulled out a couple weeks ago because it was just a straight green line with no leaves.

I doubt the one we still have blooms, but I’ll go check on it later this evening and see how it’s doing.

Two Mondays ago we buried a few lemon seeds in the empty blue pot, so we’ll see how that’s going. In October, however, we’re going to buy strawberry babies and plant them in those blue pots. I’m really looking forward to that! I also have sunflower seeds from a wedding last summer. Maybe I should see if those could still bloom.

I like the idea of gardening but I’ve never tried it before, but gardens are so pretty and so…incredible! It’s a place full of dirt and seed, sun and soil, bugs and compost, and all those things combined together work their magic and they produce deliciousness.

Thanks to the CSA vegetable box we partook of this summer, I will now forever consider little tomatoes a snack. Bok choy is a favorite now, as are roasted beets with Change-Your-Life-Chicken, and homegrown green beans are the way to go.

~

This summer seems to have a different feeling, a slightly different vibe around it than most summers.

The summer movie nights in town have been cancelled, so we’re hosting our own soon. (I wish we’d thought of this sooner!)

We’re at home a lot more, running the AC a lot more. Restaurants and coffee shops have closed inside dining, so I’m bringing friends over for coffee dates at The Hobbit Hole.

I feel like we’re crossing the canyon, visiting the #voylerwoodfam clan more often than we usually do, and I’m so glad we are.

Ant and I spent the past 11 or 12 weeks up to our elbows in locally grown vegetables, making pesto sauces and learning how colorful and sweet they are.

So many things have been removed (hopefully, only postponed), but so many good things are still happening.

How’s your summer going so far? Despite this summer looking different, what beautiful things are shining through to you?

---

We’ve crossed the halfway mark in this haiku summer journey! Follow along with the rest of the community at #30DayHaikuProject.

---

Writing Process Notes:

8-15-2020

// 12 mins. 10:41pm on the couch. Dozing off, I was so tired. Fell asleep on the couch for 20 mins before Ant woke me up and sent me to bed. Word TOTAL: 66.

8-16-2020

// 1.5 hours. Dining room table. AC running. Writing three haikus, editing and revising, some GIF distraction, talking them out with Ant. Writing this blog post. Word TOTAL: 249 (the haikus) + 846 (this blog post) = 1,085.

// Adding pictures and publishing: 6:12pm-7pm.