Summer Canning & Slow Afternoons

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“On warm evenings, we would sit out on the front porch from supper until bedtime. There was no TV then, of course, and on weeknights little traffic on the road. It would be so quiet that you could hear other people talking on their front porches or a bunch of children off playing somewhere. …Sometimes there would be conversation from porch to porch and back and forth across the road.”

~ Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter

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Pickling day, the kitchen growing hot and smelling like dill, six quarts popping and sealing on the counter

Quiet afternoons for school and naps, wrapping up my time in the Author Conservatory

Visiting Crabtree Farms produce stand on the 4th of July to pick up cantaloupe and corn, and how happy Paula always is to see me

Filling a basket with garden cucumbers, squash, peppers, and beans–enough to put in the freezer and can for the shelves

Setting up our lawn chairs and making popcorn to watch the neighbors’ firework display on the 4th

Surprising Jared by showing up with iced coffee at the end of his shift

Thrifting a summer dress, shirt, and tablecloth

Finding a new rhythm of life during pregnancy: full mornings and slow afternoons

Phone calls back home

Study of Ruth

Jared’s kindness and readiness to help during morning sickness, putting dishes away, getting up an hour before me to make coffee and breakfast every morning

Homemade breakfast burritos

New fabrics in the mail for sewing projects, blue summer gingham and calico

Last minute packing for a quick trip to Missouri, just in the nick of time to be at the birth of my newest niece, Adalai Naomi, who is tiny and dark

Watching the hard and beautiful process of a homebirth

Newborn cuddles & sibling joy

Playing “tackleball” with the kids while we waited for baby (which is exactly what it sounds like)

Pasta House pizza & salad with the family, a meal I’d been craving for weeks

Visiting Papa and Mema who were waiting up for us with the front light on

Night crickets

Morning workout and conversations with Janaya

Watching “Miss Potter” on a particularly sick evening

Antique shopping with Jared and his parents on a Saturday morning and picking out a lovely, old rocking chair to put in our bedroom for the baby

Shredding, shredding, shredding zucchini for the freezer and plans to make bread in winter

The All-Star Game

Jared taking the doors off a few of my kitchen cabinets for putting up jars of pickles

Buying the first load of baby clothes: lots of greens, yellows, and overalls

Cooking sandwiches and cucumber salad for Family Day

Family Day at Vesta Baptist: Jared teaching on hospitality, sharing a meal together, meeting new people, and all the kids with stick horses practicing their lassoing on metal cows

Alli’s baptism

An evening Bible class at Hon Baptist, a beautiful white church with a steeple in the mountains, and visiting with Alexandra

Strawberry lemonade, made again and again

Catching up with Janaya after a week at camp and swapping stories of God moving and working in both our lives

The pool at Lake Fort Smith on a hot, hot Arkansas day

Driving downtown on a summer evening to see Roman Holiday at the opera house

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