Oh, What a June!

Early in the month our trusty, old, 1998 Honda CR-V (we call her R-V-etta) died.  When we learned she needed a new transmission we decided it would be better to buy a newer car instead of having R-V-etta repaired.  Oh, sad day.  She has over 311,000 miles and she's taken us to and from work, on trips around Ohio, and safely across the U.S. several times for over 200,000 of those miles.  How I love that car.  We're a one-car family so there was a bit of stress involved in getting a rental, then shopping for a car.  (Car shopping is always stressful for us, no matter the situation.)  We found a 2006 CR-V with 151,000 miles.  I hope it lasts as long as R-V-etta! 

Three days after buying the 2006 CR-V (yet unnamed) we drove to Lexington, Kentucky, to visit with our daughters and grandchildren and take them and our son-in-law out to dinner.  Fun times (but no great photos).

While our younger daughter has been home, she and I drove to Malabar Farm, home of author Louis Bromfield.  It's currently a state park, still operating as a farm. 

The silo with some of the barns behind.  The animals at the farm include horses, ponies, sheep, pigs, chickens, cows, and a cat or two.

The Big House.  We didn't tour it this time but from previous visits I know it feels very homey and comfortable.  This is the home where Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart were married.  Many other Hollywood stars, friends of Bromfield, visited.  We understand that anyone who came to stay was asked to help with the farm chores.

On the way up to Mount Jeez and views from the top.  It was a beautiful day, cool for June, with mostly clear blue skies and a lively breeze.  We understand you can see three counties from the top of Mount Jeez, one of Ohio's highest elevations.  This is a wonderfully green June in Ohio.  We have a friend who grew up out west.  When he was living here he  complained about how many trees there were and that there was too much green!

The Produce Market Stand. 

This structure stands over a spring where the water is diverted into a trough that was used to hold fruits and vegetables to keep them fresh and cool.  It is said that Bacall and Bogart both worked at this stand.   Can you imagine stopping to buy vegetables and finding them there?!  See photos of the produce stand then and now here.

We also drove to Buckeye Lake.  A few weeks ago the wheat was green.  On the way to the lake we saw it was golden and looked like it was probably ready for harvest.
Because some aspects of quilting are portable I made progress on several quilts.  I pinned and sewed together hourglass blocks.  I thought this was a fun view of them folded after pinning.
And I finished quilting Autumn Maples.  Don't you love those windy curves?

Today my daughter and I collected some sweet clover.  It's really a weed--an untidy one--that grows wild in the countryside and sometimes in untended areas of the city.  When I was a child we used to visit my aunt who lived in rural Pennsylvania.  In summer it always smelled so fresh and sweet near her home.  I once asked my father what smelled so good.  He told me it was sweet clover.  At the time I thought white clover was sweet clover, which we had plenty of in our yard, and I couldn't understand why our yard didn't smell as wonderful as my aunt's.  I finally learned exactly what sweet clover is, and now I try to cut some every summer, weed or not. Sweet clover has a chemical called coumarin which produces the wonderful fragrance.  Other plants with coumarin that smell similar are sweet woodruff, meadowsweet, angelica, lady's bedstraw, and sometimes some kinds of fresh-mown hay.  The fragrance seems to come after the plant has been cut and is drying.

For all the reactions my skin has to plants I'm grateful that I don't get a rash from my favorite perennials:  sweet clover, lavender, honeysuckle, violets, and lilacs.

And that was my June.  I hope yours was a good one!

--Nancy.