Summer Is: Flowers, Family, Friends, and Books

Color riot in my front yard!
 

When the Artist was still with me in our old farmhouse, for some years I aimed at subtlety in my plantings. One year, for example, it was all white and dusty green. Then I came home from Arizona without him in May of 2022, and all I wanted in my gardens was color, a preference that is still very much alive. 

Bright colors! I need them! Especially after a Michigan winter, which was easy going as far as snow was concerned but had the usual short days with overcast skies.

During my son’s recent visit, we were out walking with the dog when I commented to him that this – July – seems like “real life.” What I meant is that in Michigan we look forward all year to summer, so while it is only a small part of the calendar year, our lives expand then to fill the long daylight hours. This year I’ve been keeping a list (somewhat haphazard, not nearly as methodical as the lists of Thomas Jefferson or Henry David Thoreau) of what I see emerging or blooming for the first time each day, starting with wild leeks in the woods in April. Now the black-eyed Susans have begun, joining daisies and coreopsis, and trees get in the act, too. 

My catalpa at home (at what a friend calls “Frost Pocket Farm”) flowered later than trees elsewhere in the county but has blossoms now, and soon the basswood will flower, and its branches will be – I hope! – filled with happy bees. And this year there were local cherries for Cherry Festival!

Overcast Wednesday morning turned sunshiny before noon.

My hiking parter from Arizona visited with her dog, my son and his wife visited, and next come my sisters on their annual northern Michigan getaway, something they’ve done every summer for years, bringing our mother with them many times, providing memories that sustain us now that she’s gone. 

 

I’ll post my “Books Read” list for June separately. For today I'm giving you timely information about Leelanau Township’s Friends of the Library (FOL) events for this new month. First, this Saturday, July 6, is the annual used book sale at the township hall, beginning at 9 a.m. You might want an umbrella this year and a few plastic bags, but the book sale is only one day, so you don’t want to miss it. 

 

Then there is the FOL Summer Author Series, every Tuesday evening for four weeks, beginning the week after the 4^th.

 

Tuesday, July 9: Don Lystra, with his third book, a new novel titled Searching for Van Gogh, a coming-of-age story set in 1960s Michigan. Don is the first presenter in this year’s series. I will be interviewing this beloved local author and will have copies of his book available for purchase, which he will be happy to sign. (In fact, I will have copies of the books of all the authors in the series at their respective presentations.)

 

Tuesday, July 16: Joan Strassmann, a summer Leland resident, brings us Slow Birding: The Art and Science of Enjoying the Birds in Your Own Backyard, and who could resist that? The COVID lockdown may be over, but our love affair with birds continues. Strassman, a well-known writer on animal behavior, is Charles Rebstock Professor of Biology at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

Tuesday, July 23: Northport claims chef and author Abra Berens as one of our own, due to her history in Leelanau Township as co-farmer of Bare Knuckle Farm, established in 2009. After eight years as a farmer, she moved to Chicago to become a chef. Her two previous cookbooks are Ruffage and Grist; the new one is Pulp: A Practical Guide to Cooking with Fruit – perfect for summer!

 

Tuesday, July 30: Traverse City’s Stephen Lewis, author of Murder on Old Mission and Stone Cold Dead, brings us historical fiction this year, with From Infamy to Hope, the story of a housemaid in 17^th-century Puritan Boston who is a victim of religious persecution, branded as a fornicator, and dresses as a boy to become a soldier in the colony’s war with the Pequots.

All events in the LTFOL Summer Author Series will take place at the Willowbrook Inn on Mill Street and will begin at 7 p.m. Admission is free. 

Note: On Summer Author Tuesdays, the bookstore will close by 4 at the latest, so I can go home to my dog for a while before returning to Northport for the evening event. 

 

It’s summer! Live it up! And Happy Independence Day!!!