When the dust of June finally began to settle we were faced with actual real summer, and our favorite summer traditions were looming immediately ahead, demanding attention and celebration. We crammed in quite a lot in quite a short amount of time, partly because we had Whitley and her children in town and they were available to spend a lot of time with us that first week of July.
We started off with a quick decision to go on our crawdad hunt. Instead of camping over like we have a time or two in the past, we just made a day trip. Whitley and the kids joined us first, followed shortly after by Mary and her children - Mary's participation in the event has become as much of a tradition as our annual Christmas-Tree hunting trip. We have these two events a year to catch up - not as often as it should be but at least they are certain.
There's something just wonderful about taking a family crawdadding for the first time. Whit hadn't been, I don't think....maybe she had. But at least this was our first time together. It's delightful to see looks of shock and disgust as the first crawdad is sighted and caught. They really are pretty gross little things. I half wish my kids didn't like them so much - I haven't been able to get myself to eat one for a couple of years now. But we just can't stop - not a single crawdad we catch goes to waste, the kids love them so much. And good thing too because with three families' worth of kids hunting them down it felt like we bought half the crawdads in the reservoir home with us. Sorry, other fisher people! The early trapper gets (all) the crawdad(s).
After some clean up time we reconvened at our house to feast on jambalaya and corn bread and crawdads for those brave enough to partake. We were extra glad to have Mary there with us because she discovered some new shelling techniques that really helped with the removal of the really gross parts. No need to go into detail but I'll just say that if you already thought Mary was intrepid, you didn't know the half of it yet. What a fun evening together. I hope those crawbuggies tasted good. I couldn't tell you. I stuck to the jambalaya.
The very next day was the 4th of July. I have to tell you the truth. I have absolutely no recollection of what we did during the day. I'm serious. NO IDEA. All I know is that in the evening, Whit and the kids came over for hamburgers - I began to feel that Whitley was afraid I didn't know how to cook anything except hamburgers because she had been over the previous week to celebrate my dad's birthday, and it was hamburgers once again. I guess she knew I could do jambalaya. I can't help it though, I just love hamburgers and couldn't stand not having them on the 4th.
She and Troy had both done a little firework shopping so as it began to grow dusky outside we headed across the street to the parking lot and set off a few sparklers and noisy spitty sparkly fireworks of our own. Emily and her boys joined us as well.
I also need to share a quick story - you may remember how a year ago in the spring we were delighted to find ourselves observing a pair of robins making a nest in our ginkgo tree. We saw the whole process, from building, to laying, to sitting on those eggs for hours and hours, sometimes even in the driving rain. We then watched as the pair began bringing little worms and bugs to the babies. It was amazing. And then...the night of the raccoon....it all came to a traumatic and bloody end. Horrible.
This year, we had a giant geranium plant hanging from our front porch. I was extremely startled one afternoon as I was walking up to the front door when a sparrow came shooting out of the depths of the plant at my approach. It happened several more times before I figured out that there must be a nesting mother in there. I was so happy that a bird chose our porch to make a home and family, and it seemed like a REALLY hard place for a raccoon to reach, hallelujah. I snuck my camera in-between the leaves one day and caught this happy shot:
I sure had to take care when I was watering, but it all worked out. It wasn't long before another sly peek revealed this sight:
I promise I didn't touch and we mostly used the back door. I felt stressed for the little things and worried that they'd fall or that mom would abandon them if we got too close but I had to keep watering or their leafy bower would wither. It was late in the summer that I went to water one day and five little birdies flew away, never to return, as far as I could tell. They flew up into our maple on the parking strip and from then on there was just an empty nest there. That was so fun and very therapeutic after last summer's disaster.
Another fun evening I want to record is the night that Chase was away with friends and Troy and the girls and I were just miserable in the heat. This July was the hottest in Utah history. It was just incessant. We just couldn't take it any more one evening and quickly threw together the barest of supplies to have a cookout. We drove up Milcreek Canyon and soothed ourselves by watching the temperature gage drop lower and lower with every mile we drove up the canyon. We stopped first at the topmost parking lot in the canyon to walk around and breathe in the mountain air. Then we drove back down a bit to find a picnic spot. We had so much fun cooking hotdogs and just being together up and away from the city for an evening.
One last July event - celebrating the 80th birthday of Troy's dad. We had a great time gathering and eating...this time I made chicken. Gave everyone a break from burgers.
Here's a ton more pictures from our craw-daddin' trip -
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