RhinebeckFarm.com

August is a month for celebrations, since it has both Jen’s and my birthday as well as the always enjoyable five-day period in between in which she is the older woman. We celebrated a visit from Julie and Stacey, as well as Sarah’s last weekend before returning to Colgate, with a Bo Ssam feast on the sun porch. We used the Weber kettle charcoal briquette fuse technique, to great effect.

Earlier in the week, Jen received birthday gifts, as well as good wishes from Daisy.

Jen, reigning marmalade champion, has decided not to defend her title this year at the Dutchess County Fair. That does not mean, however, that she won’t be making a big batch of peach-lemon marmalade.

Daisy was thrilled to have long walks both Saturday and Sunday. She was patient while Jen and I gathered blackberries, she found a deer carcass on both walks, and today she entered every available body of water, no matter how shallow or fetid.

Sarah also spent the weekend in the field, attending HITS Saugerties, the Hudson Valley’s premier equestrian competition. HITS, I learned today, is an acronym for Horse Shows In the Sun. (It seems like it’s missing an S, but what do I know.) Sarah and Sully, seen here sailing over a jump, had a strong campaign.

While at HITS Jen and I encountered this rather large Snapping Turtle. I’m glad we don’t have anything like that in our pond.

Mid-summer brings John Harris and his boys, seen here with their dog Milo traversing the Fallsburg Creek while hunting for wineberries. The berries were pressed into service — literally — in wineberry-lemon sorbet.

On Sunday we took advantage of the spectacular weather to take a 10-mile hike to the top of Overlook Mountain and then to Echo Lake, in the Catskills.

On the way up we stopped to tour the picturesque ruins of the Overlook Mountain House.

Atop Overlook Mountain we saw three Timber Rattlesnakes, including this friendly pair.

This weekend we had a visit from babysitter emeritus Lauren Ballback, who stopped with her dog Hamilton on her way from Brooklyn to Maine. Jen gave Lauren a tour of the secret garden, which is looking quite spiffy these days.

It was great to see Lauren with Sarah again. Daisy also enjoyed visiting with Hamilton.

Today Jen and I took a walk. Jen sampled the wineberries, which are now coming in.

While out we were visited by a family of Pileated Woodpeckers, who flew across a hayfield to take turns hammering away at this dead elm tree.

We celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary Saturday with a sailboat ride on the Hudson, including a festive boxed dinner from Popeye’s. Hoping for more smooth sailing!

Jen has created a beautiful and orderly home for the peonies in her secret garden using only mulch, a few rocks, and several hours of backbreaking labor under punishing heat and humidity.

She used the same formula to create this garden in front of the cottage.

On Friday, we returned from drinks at Chris Rosekrans’s house to find this weird light from the west.

After a few minutes it resolved itself into this more conventional, but still vivid, sunset.

We braved the smoke from Canadian wildfires to attend a barbecue at the Kaimal/Lawson’s Friday night. The Ostroys and the Perkins also attended, and everyone brought their daughters and dogs. It was nice to see the collegiate set assembled, and all the dogs behaved tolerably well.

Daisy knocked over a couple of items (a soda can and a wireless speaker) with her tail, but she remains the best of all possible dogs.

Skies are blue and the grass is high – it must be summertime.

Jen inspected our nano-orchard, which appears poised to produce as many as four apples this season.

Rather than rely on our domestic fruit production, she set out to pick wild black raspberries.

The brambles provided, ensuring we will have jam this summer.

It’s high season for peonies [ed. note: or at least it was before this post spent two weeks in the draft folder]. Here’s a Bowl of Plenty blooming in Jen’s secret garden.