Summer
I already hate it!
Diary
Blue heron, circle spider web, and other things I saw this morning 7/26/25
I've been sharing these photos with everyone this morning so of course I'm sharing here with you, my summer diary. It's 91°F now but earlier it was just below 80° and I decided that instead of scrolling Reddit all morning and contributing my thoughts where people literally ask for them but get mad at me for replying, I should take advantage of the relative coolness and take a walk before the temperatures creep up too high.
Very lush, very green.
Morning vibes
I almost drove to a familiar place but decided to try somewhere "new" (it turns out I'd been there before, but only once, but just hadn't moved the park to the right label in my notes). It was still new enough in that the park has several trails to walk and I had only been on one of them. As I was choosing my direction at the fork, I recalled that last time I had too much anxiety to take the heron trail because there were a million people there with giant cameras and tripods, lots of kids and older people, and it definitely seemed like a fun day out for everyone. I went left.
Nice.
Also very nice.
This time I went right; there were a handful of people with cameras and tripods, and I didn't see any giant groups of children until I was on my way out. There were many bugs: dragonflies, butterflies, bees, but no photos to prove it. They were fast and I was moving slow with only a phone camera, several years outdated.
So green!
Turtle.
First I found a Eastern Painted Turtle (I think). I decided it wasn't a Red-Eared Slider because I didn't see the distinct red patch on its head behind the eyes, but it has the patches of red around the bottom of the shell. It's not a great photo, though.
What caught my attention next was these white flowers, which I've diagnosed as a Swamp Rose Mallow (omg), also called Hardy Hibiscus or Crimson-eyed Rose Mallow. What a magnificent flower! I didn't know what it was called when I was there and now I'm excited to revisit the swamp rose marshmallow. (I hope to become someone's swamp marshmallow someday.)
You walk on a scary, slippery bridge with no sides over water and are welcomed by a field of greens and white flowers.
Here's the flower!
Here's the scary bridge, plus a patch of the white flowers growing from the water.
Field of flowers and nice golden tones in the leaves.
It was a gorgeous walk, though a little scary with my unsteady shakes and slippery shoes. Next time I'll wear shoes with more traction.
There were toads everywhere, but I never saw them. Their croaks reverberated next to your feet but their bodes remained hidden in the marsh.
Though the swamp mallows^ dominated the landscape I also found many of these cool spiky orb things and upon investigation have discovered they are a shrub called Buttonbush. Fan favorite due to the name.
^ This sounds like a great alternative to squish mallows.
Cool spiky dudes
At some point on a bend in the bridge a few people stood in awe and pointed their fingers and cameras. I heard someone say "it's a blue heron!" with excitement and wonder, so I stopped and watched the bird with them for a while.
Can you see it?
The walk was a good 45 minutes of beautiful sights, sounds, and lovely naturey smells. I haven't done much outside walking because of the heat but I'm glad I snuck this in this morning in between thunder storms and periods of increased humidity.
If you weren't sure whether this forest had fairies in it... well first of all, most probably do. But I may have found a few front porches, even if I can't see the homes.
Very cool and well-decorated tree stump.
Mushrooms
I didn't see the spider (it was very small and far away), but I saw the round web and looked that up to find that orb-weaver spiders make these. There were two visible along the trail I took, I imagine they are probably all over in this forest. They look like little portals; they catch your eye and you can't help but admire how perfect the circle looks.
Spider webcore CD art
Things could be better and colder 7/17/25
I've been getting a lot of stuff done and taking care of all the many things that keep dropping on my plate this summer. Not having working A/C all season I've easily escalated high to low to medium energy depending on the heat and humidity level. When my mom finally donated all her camping fans to my cause it got a lot better, but I'm still trucking out here.
In the living room we have two fans (a standing indoor fan and a smaller, decently powerful USB fan) and the dehumidifier. The standing fan is in the middle of the area which is where it lives normally, although usually it's exclusively pointed at me either while using the treadmill or playing drums. It turned out to be a good position for sitting in both living room spots so I was pleased about that. The dehumidifier is right next to it, my home doesn't have a good central location but that's good enough.
The smaller camping fan is on the floor next to my TV pointed at the couch. Zenny has been sleeping on the sofa at night instead of coming in the bedroom, probably because the strength and direct airflow from this fan is a nice place to hang out right now.
The bedroom has a ceiling fan which helps a lot but it's very loud and scary and wakes us both up at night. There's another smaller but more powerful fan on top of a bookshelf in there that charges during the day and blows at the bed at night. This keeps me sufficiently "not too hot" to sleep, though I can't really claim the fan is making things much cooler. The living room fans do a better job, but the space is also more open.
If the price and appointment timing is right (TBD), I could be looking at having A/C again by mid-August. My fingers are crossed. Zenny's kitty paw toes are crossed too, although she'd appreciate it if they could fix the A/C without coming into her home.
When it's very hot, like over 97°F, it's way too hot to do too much movement inside without A/C. When it's over 90 and humid it's too hot to go outside because coming back in is not much of a comfort. Initially, it's certainly more comfortable in here than it is outside, but you're sweating within 25 minutes unless you're sitting right in front of the fans.
In any case, it seems that I'll be sacrificing the majority of my summer to the whims of outside heat and humidity, though I am still thankful for what I have going on inside and I know a lot of places don't have central A/C at all...
PRO: I've cut a lot of shirts that I never wear into tank tops which I will use to work out in the future, and many pajama pants that I will never wear into shorts which I will continue to wear around the house during warmer months.
CON: Low energy levels mean low movement levels and I've gotten really far off track of my movement goals.
Walking, sweating 7/10/25
It is really difficult for me to find the motivation to get out to take walks in the summer, but I also recognize it as an important part of my seasonal celebration. Last year I introduced the idea of 10 weeks of consecutive walks on a day I wouldn't normally get out and it worked like a charm. I did Wednesday in 2024, but this year I'm doing Thursday.
Usually what I do on these days is work, nap, then take my walk during the 6/7pm hours so I'm home before sunset and in time to feed Zenny by 8. Mid-summer, you're not getting much benefit from the sunset around here. Yes it's slightly more comfortable without the sun, but usually no less humid. This timing gives me a pretty full evening to shower the humidity off and relax before bed.
As I was walking today I kept noticing how lush the plants were, vibrantly green and perfectly lit in the sun. Going along my trail felt very much like exploring an overgrown fairy forest. Summer walks always bring out a kind of magic that you can only find in the heat!
Beach weekend in OBX 6/30/25
#diary-bingo
For me one of the first major events of summer is usually beach week, though this year we did an extended weekend instead. This year we went to Outer Banks in North Carolina.
My uncle recently passed and they live in NC, so our first order of business was a funeral. Sad circumstances to do so but it was a nice part of the weekend to see family I haven't seen since the last funeral in fall, but much longer before that. This took two days away from the extended weekend so we only had one day to fit just half of what we had planned.
It was nice to take my Toyota to its homelands in Corolla, NC, after a long drive.
Summer and I are enemies! 6/25/25
Summer bingo is going to be a stretch so I put a lot of stuff on here that I would have probably done anyway. Here in the first week we are already in a heatwave and I am DYING. I haven't had A/C in a while and it was bearable until June hit, and then only got increasingly intolerable.
The bingo activity has been a lot of fun in defining what each season means to me, and the many activities I enjoy doing (though perhaps not every year). Summer is the 4th bingo card I've done and I'll be excited to give a review after a year.
