I’m working on a long post about food miles, but it’s taking me a while. There is a lot of information to sift through.

Yesterday was the last day of swim lessons. The lessons were a good idea; they provided some structure to our day. Maybe I should sign us up for some other kind of lessons. Four weeks left of regular summer; then our week at the Shore; then school starts (but who’s counting).

On Wednesday, the kids and I rode the train to Philly (again), this time to wander around the historical district. I wanted to go to the Betsy Ross House, but since the younger kids started complaining about being tired of walking after we had gone a half-block, we went to the (closer) Benjamin Franklin Museum instead. It was mildly fun. The younger two didn’t get much out of it. I’d like to try this trip again with just my oldest. But at least we got out of the house, and the weather was good.

Yo Ben

Not much else going on. I have a total of four pumpkins harvested, with five or six more on the vines. The yellow squash plants all died, from powdery mildew. I salvaged one squash, but as I was picking it, a fat little grub crawled out of the neck, soooo I won’t be eating it. I’m just going to save it and see how long it lasts. (It looks like fall in my dining room with all these gourds sitting there.)

I also harvested some onions. They are rather small; I’m not sure if that’s how they are supposed to be. Haven’t eaten them yet.

I’m toying with the idea of planting more pumpkins, to see if I can get some that are seasonally appropriate. I definitely want to plant more carrots and lettuce. Maybe garlic also.

The most exciting crop right now is the corn. It towers above me, and the ears are definitely forming. It’s kind of shocking that something so big can grow from something so little — a kernel — so fast.

Not sure if I mentioned it on here, but I finally finished Pioneer Girl, the new, heavily annotated edition of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s never-published autobiography. You have to be a real fan to enjoy this book… but I am, and I did! It added another dimension to my appreciation of her books.

Now I’m reading The Interior Circuit, by Francisco Goldman. It is a sort-of follow-up to his book Say Her Name, about his wife’s untimely death. But really it’s all about Mexico City, and it’s fascinating. I like his style; he slowly circles in on his points. He meanders; he jumps around in time. And the stories about what is going on in Mexico, with the drug war, are crazy.

I miss the days when I would read, like, two books a week in the summer. I used to always find myself reading books set in England. A hot and humid Jersey summer called for something bracing and British to balance things out. Brideshead Revisited. Howards End. One of the Ocean City summers, I plowed through a whole lot of Anita Brookner. Falling Slowly. Hotel du Lac. Altered States. I can picture the cover of Falling Slowly, pulling it off the shelf in the Ocean City Library. Rain, London, musty mansions, repressed emotions. Just the thing!