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We had a productive week in NYC, getting reacquainted with the building maintenance staff (we were frequent users of the service elevator, and made good use of the building dumpsters and hand trucks). Tom and the kids also got to know the staff at the nearby Goodwill and Salvation Army stores, hauling 60 boxes with about 1,500 books.

The first full day, with a bird walk for Laura and boating for the boys all in Central Park, we learned on arrival back at the hotel that there had been an extreme heat/humidity alert. The heat and humidity continued for the rest of the week, until Friday.  We never made it to Trader Joe’s (since there was a line to get into the place and life is just to short) or to Lincoln Center or a movie, because by the time we were done at the office every evening, we were hot, tired, and hungry. We did, though, get to hear and meet one of Tom’s favorite authors, Mark Kurlansky, who gave a talk at the nearby Barnes & Noble about his newest book.

The kids discovered the magic that is Halal food carts. And we had some very good Chinese and Indian food, and picnic lunches and dinners with great bread, cheese, pickled herring from Murray’s Sturgeon Shop, and beautiful blueberries (from New Jersey, three pints for $5). And lots and lots of walking.

We all enjoyed the vet clinic with entertaining calico kittens in the window just steps from the hotel, and Laura had fun at the Sephora across the street (able to try on nail polish and eyeshadow to her heart’s content), and Davy tried on every pair of sunglasses at Eastern Mountain Sports, also across the street. Appropriately enough, there are little trees growing in the sewer on the corner by EMS (all photos by Laura),

Aside from the Upper West Side location, laundry room, and great breakfasts (very good bagels and croissants), our room came with a small balcony, which was a pleasant surprise. And good for bird watching and listening, according to Laura.

While I’ve noticed a bit on other trips, it was quite apparent for this first summer trip in 20 years how much NYC has put into landscaping its public spaces, from the Central Park Nature Conservancy (the restoration efforts in the past two decades are truly a marvel) and whoever looks after Madison Square Park, to the garden areas outside the First Baptist Church at Broadway and 79th Street,

Our welcome back to the prairies last night on the drive home from the airport,

Good to be home.

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Much too much

Last Tuesday evening we had 4″ of rain in two hours at our house, and close to 6″ at our corrals. The most rain in the shortest time most people around here have ever seen. For the past few days we’ve had temperatures around 30 C, which wouldn’t be that bad if the house weren’t geared toward keeping the heat in rather than out, and if we didn’t have all sorts of weeding to do in the hot sun. The greenhouse was still 100 F at 9 pm tonight. Not a good combination with hot flashes.

We started on our first cut of hay a few days ago, the boys cut all the alfalfa and tomorrow they’ll be ready to start raking and baling. We’re under the gun to get it done because we have a last-minute trip to NYC — the office is moving after 22 years in its current space, and there are still things from my parents (and from almost 50 years ago) to sort through, discard, and give away. We’ll be there a week, and the kids will be manning the hand truck, taking boxes of books and other things to the thrift store several blocks away. Unfortunately, while I think this week has been fairly pleasant in NYC, it looks like next week will be in the 90s. But I’ve been able to promise the kids considerably more air conditioning than we have here. Not the best time of year to remove ourselves from the farm and work, but the only time available between now and September, when the office gets packed up. We’re staying on the Upper West Side as usual, between Fairway and Zabar’s, and will have a kitchenette (and also laundry facilities), so we’re looking forward to quick and easy meals, augmented by nearby Chinese restaurants and hamburgers and shakes at the Shake Shack. The kids are campaigning for on one lobster meal (from Fairway, which sells and also steams them). There’s also apparently a new Trader Joe’s in the neighborhood; we enjoyed the one near our hotel in Washington, DC several years ago (though the line-up to pay was crazy), but that was in Foggy Bottom with only the sad Watergate Safeway for competition.

I’m taking advantage of the situation to order some things we have trouble getting up here — cheap reading glasses, cheap bras, French baking powder, and perfume, which Canada Post considers “dangerous/flammable goods” (living where I do, perfume choices are limited if you’d prefer to smell like vintage decants rather than like JLo, Jessica Simpson, or Pink Sugar). I don’t know how much time or energy we’ll have for any entertainment/cultural activities in the evenings, but it would be fun to take the kids to watch and listen to one evening of Midsummer Night Swing at Lincoln Center.

Laura is off to the Long Point Bird Observatory in Ontario again in August, this time for a month, to work as an intern, helping with the migration monitoring and working on her own research project, a Monarch butterfly census to see if the numbers recorded in Mexico in December hold up at this end. She’s been very busy with all of her bird stuff, keeping up with her bird blog, starting another blog for our naturalist society, working on her Young Birder of the Year projects, fundraising for Bird Studies Canada with a birdathon. By the way, if you live in Canada and are interested in both bird conservation and donating to a good cause, Laura is gratefully accepting any and all donations until the end of July via her birdathon page at BSC. Thank you and apologies for this bit of fundraising / advertising, which I tend to be allergic to in real and blog life.

The garden is going great guns, though the extremes of dry heat followed by moist heat have provided a bug buffet, and a boon for funguses and such. The powdery mildew is enjoying itself tremendously on the pumpkins, sigh.

A bowl of succulents — perennial hens-and-chicks I’ll transplant into the garden at the end of the summer,

A red begonia with creeping jenny,

A hosta about to bloom,

The Virginia creeper sneaking up on a chair,

Mexican giant hyssop (Agastache mexicana “Acapulco”); the hummingbird and bees just love this, probably because it smells like citronella,