August 7, 2022-We are home and it is August.

We are home. It is August. It is almost too hot to be outside. Did I say this was August? As I get ready to post this on Sunday morning at 6am it only cooled off to 81 degrees. 

We spent the last week of July on Chincoteague Island, a little island and town off the shore of the part of Virginia that is east of the Chesapeake Bay. Chincoteague is next to another island, Assateague. It is mostly a federally protected beach and bird sanctuary.  We met as a family gathering to remember Julia's sister, Joan, and to scatter her ashes. Chincoteague had been a place where we had visited with Joan a number of times 20-25 years ago.

There were 21 of us, even though in some parts of the south, it would have been 23.  There were 2 pregnant persons. 

There were quite a number of memorable moments. Let me share some of them.

Saturday

We flew on Saturday. At least we finally flew after we had a 2 hour delay in Minneapolis while the airline found a pilot. We have not traveled much since COVID. We had flown once last year, to visit our daughter Katie. Aside from the fact there was no mask requirement,  this time there was another difference. We rented a car.

I had forgotten the perils of driving an unfamiliar car,  in an unfamiliar and busy city. It did not help that we flew into National Airport in Washington, D.C. 

Sunday

     There were many things to remember. As a group we stayed in 3 houses. Julia, Maggie and I were with Katie and Elisabeth and of course Christopher and Maisie (our grandchildren). We stayed in the family house, which is now over 100 years old. Each of Julia's brothers, Joe and Jim, rented a large house to accommodate their families, and Joan's daughter, Mary.

    In our house we started by all doing instant COVID tests. Let me just say there had not been many masks in the airports. We were all fine.

    Sunday was our first day at the beach. I managed to sunburn the top of my feet. It was fun as the extended family gradually met up at the beach over several hours.

    

Christopher, who is now 5, liked the boogie board, but was not quite prepared to go out into the surf.

Maisie, who will be two later this month, liked to sit in some water and play in the sand. Last year when she was at Chincoteague there was a problem with her wanting to eat the sand.

The surf was rather wonderful. Two cousins, who must now be in their early 30's, had visited Chincoteague with us and Joan, 20 and more years ago. They were as much at home in the water this time as they had been then.

Monday

We were back at the beach. It did not ever get  old. Since the tide would change by about an hour each day, going each day would be different. 

There was something incredibly soothing about the waves, constantly doing their work.

There were birds in the wildlife refuge on the outer barrier island, Assateague.

These were ibis. 

We did keep an eye out for the weather back home. It was hot in Iowa. All week I watched the weather channel forecast for Iowa City. At one point it was predicted to get to 104. That particular temperature did not happen.  But it never did rain in Iowa. So I worried about the garden.

Tuesday

     We did not spend a lot of time bird watching as there were bugs: mosquitos, of course. This was Julia's and my first time visiting Chincoteague in the summer in probably 20 years. Until COVID we had been there every year since 1976.  But we had been going in the fall. It would be cooler and not as crowded. And less bugs.

     But there were not bugs on the beach. See breezes would keep them away.

      Mostly I tried not to go outside early in the morning or in the evening. Bug stuff was by the front door.

    Then there were the tiny ants in the kitchen. After a while, they were something of a fixture. When we cooked we would occasionally just squash an ant. Finally, near the end of the week, we got the upper hand.

    The tiny ants did not bother the children.

Thursday

    All 21 of us took the boat ride and scattered Joan's ashes. 

    

Afterwards we went out for ice cream.

In the evening everyone gathered at the biggest house for dinner. The COVID worriers were anxious until someone arrived with 21 instant tests. After negative swabs for everyone, including Maisie, the party commenced. 

Friday

    This was something of a magical day. The high tide provided tide pools.

       There were dolphins. They were not close enough for pictures.

        In our larger group, people began leaving on Friday. Lisa, Julia's niece, texted a picture of the rainbow as she was was leaving Friday evening. The rest of us then went outside and got to enjoy this piece of magic.

    You can sort of see a second rainbow appearing. I do not remember ever seeing that before.

By the way, the Methodist church is next door to the family house. It had perhaps some of the largest lantana plants I have ever seen.

I absolutely will make room for lantana that size for next year's garden.

Saturday

    Chincoteague and Assateague are known for the wild ponies. Each year the wild horses who live on Assateague are rounded up. They then  swim across the water that divides the two islands. This pony swim was featured in Misty of Chincoteague, a children's  book written in 1947. The book was  made into a movie in 1961.

 There is then an auction and carnival. The pony swim to Chincoteague was on Wednesday. They swam back on Friday. The carnival went on all week.

    At the carnival the merry-go-round was a big hit. 

The farmer's market was Saturday morning. There were quite a few vendors, even though many did not have produce. One appeared to be selling marijuana plants. Now that I look it up, I read that Virginia seems to have legalized recreational marijuana in 2021. Who knew? 

This cite tells you which states have legalized marijuana

https://mjbizdaily.com/map-of-us-marijuana-legalization-by-state/

Maisie had an early birthday cake. 

Sunday- return trip

    We came back on Sunday. All our planes were on time. That was good since Julia had a court hearing on Monday. A cancelled flight would have not been good.

Back in the Iowa the garden was rather sad looking Monday morning,

We finally got over an inch of rain on Monday and Tuesday nights. It began to feel like it might be possible to venture out and start the work.

I am going to give you some pictures. I am running out of time to write about the garden. It is August. Things are fading. I have always said that it is just then that the gardener needs to double the effort and make the garden interesting.

Let me just give you some pictures.

These first two are pardancandas, or blackberry lilies.

The cactus bloomed this week, opening in the evening, but staying open during the next day.

Julia's recipe

Pasta with sausage and broccoli

We grew broccoli this summer, more or less by accident. Someone dropped off broccoli starts on the back driveway (where Philip holds his plant sale), and no one bought them so we did and planted them at the farm, our little garden plot. The broccoli was a little odd, forming heads that looked more like bouquets than heads: scattered clusters. I was looking for something interesting to do with the broccoli and came across this recipe in Josh McFadden's cookbook, Six Seasons. I like broccoli; I like pasta and I like sausage. All good. 

The ingredients:

1 lb. hot (or sweet) Italian sausage;

8 oz. (1/2 box) rigatoni;

1 lb. broccoli (or whatever you have);

4 medium-large garlic cloves;

about 6 tablespoons olive oil;

3/4 cup pureed cottage cheese;

1 cup grated parmesan cheese;

1/4 cup panko breadcrumbs;

1/4-1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes;

salt and pepper.

We had bulk hot Italian sausage and so used less of the red pepper flakes. 

The recipe called for pureed ricotta cheese, but I don't much like ricotta cheese, which I find chalky. So I used whole milk (4%) cottage cheese and zizzed it up instead. 

I divided the sausage into 4 patties of about equal size. 

And I put a big pot of salted water on to boil for the rigatoni.

Next, I prepared the veggies. I peeled and thinly sliced the garlic cloves. I cut the broccoli stems off the heads and discarded them as they were too thin to peel and too tough to cook as is. 

If you have stalkier broccoli, peel the stalks and cut them into matchsticks or slice them into rounds, maybe 1/4" thick.  

I put the garlic in a little bowl and covered it with olive oil (maybe 2 tablespoons of oil). 

Next, I measured the cottage cheese into the food processor; added 2 tablespoons of olive oil and a little salt and pepper and zizzed it up. 

When the water came to a boil, I added the rigatoni and put the timer on for 11 minutes, which was about 3 or 4 minutes shy of al dente. 

While the pasta was cooking, I heated 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet and cooked the sausage patties until they were browned on one side. 

Then I flipped the patties and added the other oil with the garlic. 

When the pasta timer went off, I added the broccoli to the water and cooked the rigatoni for the last few minutes. 

While that was going on, I added the red pepper flakes to the skillet, turned off the heat and broke up the patties into smaller pieces. And I ladled about 1/4 cup of pasta cooking water into the skillet. 

Okay. Next I turned off the pasta and it was time to assemble. 

I drained the rigatoni/broccoli - saving another 1/2 cup of pasta cooking water - and dumped it into the skillet with the sausage etc. 

Next I added the pureed cottage cheese and folded it in. Then I added 1/4 cup of the remaining pasta water and 1/2 cup of the parmesan and more folding. I tasted the dish, and I added some salt and pepper. I turned the skillet for a minute or 2 or 3 while folding/stirring so the oil, garlic, cottage cheese and pasta cooking water became kind of sauce-like.

I decided I did not need the last 1/4 cup of the pasta cooking water. 

I dumped everything in a nice serving dish, and I sprinkled the panko crumbs and the rest of the parmesan cheese over all.    

On the table. Use more broccoli or more rigatoni if you prefer. Grate your own parmesan if you like. If you are not disturbed by ricotta, use it instead of cottage cheese, following the same steps as above.  

Cooking the sausage in patties and then breaking them up means that some of the sausage will be crispy. If you saute the sausage in one chunk, no crispy bits. 

We had salad and berries and yogurt, as usual. 

As is the case with pasta dishes, it was good the next day, warm or cold. 

Odds and ends

Gardening can be about new beginnings. I planted some lettuce seed yesterday. It will probably just sit there waiting for cooler weather and some rain.

Gardening has its disappointments. Sometimes a plant dies or just does not come up in the spring.

8 years ago it was the double blood root. One year they  did not come up. I later spoke to someone else were grew them. His also never appeared that spring as well. I guess that made me feel somewhat better.

This year is was the wonderful hardy hibiscus Starry Starry Night.

August 8, 2021- 

That was last year. We had gotten the plant in 2019.

Well, this spring it did not come up. I was not worried as hardy hibiscus are late to emerge, sometime very late. By July  I realized it was just gone.

I replaced it yesterday, planting it in the same place.

While I was at the store I was told they had planted a number of those plants around the store. They had also not come up this spring. A person who seemed knowledgeable explained that they had died because they did not have enough water. What? Apparently with little snow cover over the winter, the ground had dried up so much that the plant did not have enough moisture to wake up. I do not know about that. But mostly what encouraged me was that it was clearly not something I had done or not done.

That was odd.

It is a troubling world out there. There are pieces of joy, particularly with grandchildren.  I do worry about the world we are leaving to them. They will be around when we are long gone.

There can be solace in a garden. 

Sorry to go all deep on you. We had a good time with family at the beach. Now it is time to get back to work, doing what we can to make a little difference. Some of that can be in the garden. 

Be well and remember the less fortunate.

Philip