Hello July

Hello July

Hello July, I am so into you this year.

I’ve historically said that May is my favourite month. Everything finally bursts to life in my particular corner of the prairie, things are blooming, I’m planting out the gardens. In a way it feels like the real start to a new year.

But this year I am all about July.

It’s probably because (thanks to an El Nino winter) we had a long, cool, wet, protracted spring. It’s made getting the plants established hard, which means everything is delayed, which in our short summers will mean the difference between an abundant harvest, or everything getting killed on the plant by a frost. We’ll see what’s in the cards this year (please give us a late frost, oh frost gods). I was still covering my plants on June 3rd due to frost warnings for gods sake.

But now that July has hit, it really feels like summer. Hot days are upon us, and while I will absolutely be complaining about the heat later, right now I want to soak it all up like a lizard on a hot rock. Even the plants have started to perk up, with my gardens actually looking like gardens.

I’ve lived in a handful of cities in my life, and while Victoria is a very close second, there is something about a summer in Edmonton that can’t be beat. The weather really is perfect – rarely too hot, sunny days and slightly cooler nights. We get constant breezes that provides some respite. While we contend with mosquitoes you can’t believe, we have had a reprieve from them so far this year. We have a reputation as a festival city, and that hits hard in the summer. There’s a way this city comes together for a good time that I’ve not experienced any other place. It was actually a travesty when the city council decided a few years ago to get rid of our “city of champions” logos that was officially used for decades, and greeted visitors on our “Welcome to Edmonton” signage as you enter the city.

There is a misconception it referred to our hockey team and Stanley cups, but what it actually referred to was the way we came together in 1989 after a devastating tornado. Taking it down was kind of a slap to the face, in all honesty, and it continues to rile people.

I’ve gotten off on a bit of a tangent I see.

Look, it’s July, we’re in a heat wave, and it’s summer finally. I’ve been playing with the garden, and spending a lot of time in the community garden, which has become the baby’s favourite place to run around in.

I completely missed joining in for Tour de Fleece, which is a bit of a shame, but I’ve just been doing too much summer. I had plans to finish up the Cheviot I had spun at the mill an eon ago, which I’ll still do, but it won’t be with the comradery of TdF I suppose.

I’ve been working on my quilted things slowly as well, which I have an old picture of here. Maybe I’ll get around to taking a new photo soon.

I finished the baby’s new, sized up Storyline sweater. It’s massive on her now, but I’m hoping to get two years worth of wearing out of it. I’ll have to make a proper post about it because as you can see, I ran out of the green (but I was oh-so close!). I should really take a picture with the cute-as-hell red robin buttons I put on it.

I’m hoping to get an indigo vat going within the next few weeks. I have an absolute pile of things that I want to dye up. I have the ingredients, I just need to find a few minutes now. Well, more than a few minutes. It’s always such a marathon to indigo dye because I build up giant piles of things to do.

Now I must run, there is gardening to be done.